They are the seas’ silent killers, toxin-laden patches of algae that amass along coastal shores and wreck havoc on marine ecosystems. They appear with no warning and outbreaks have become more frequent. Virtually every coastal country in the world has suffered from their effects. These are harmful algal blooms (HABs), more commonly known as “red [...]
On December 15, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) signed an agreement to use a NOAA-developed technology which harnesses isotopes to assure algal toxins are below regulatory limits. The agreement formalizes a decade of collaboration with NOAA for regional studies in Asian, African and Latin American member states. Blooms of certain algae can release toxins detrimental [...]
Residents near Maumee and Sandusky bays in western Lake Erie are experiencing an unusually large bloom of Microcystis, which poses a challenge to municipal water treatment plants along Lake Erie. NOAA’s harmful algal bloom forecast, which predicted the bloom and is providing information on its movement in weekly bulletins, is helping authorities pinpoint when to [...]
Washington Department of Health (WDOH) is currently working on implementing a new method for monitoring toxic algae in Puget Sound. This molecular-based detection method, called qPCR, provides a sensitive and fast means for measuring the abundance of Alexandrium catenella that is accurate even at low cell densities. Even small numbers of A. catenella cells can [...]
After more than a decade of informal collaboration, NOAA scientists in Charleston will meet with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency from March 23-26 to initiate a formal agreement to provide an isotopic algal toxin detection method to countries with seafood safety concerns. Large-scale regional projects in Southeast Asia and Africa have proven highly [...]
At the request of the French government, scientists from the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) trained members of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) on how to incorporate the domoic acid detection kit developed by NCCOS into the France’s national shellfish monitoring system. Domoic acid (DA) is a potent [...]
A volunteer from the NOAA Phytoplankton Monitoring Network’s Texas Master Naturalist group, in collaboration with National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) scientists, developed an iPhone application to assist marine phytoplankton and harmful algae identification. This “app” includes images from an NCCOS gallery of common phytoplankton and recordings of a staff scientist’s pronunciation of each [...]
A National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science scientist and partners have identified and characterized a powerful fish-killing toxin that has cancer-killing properties. Laboratory tests indicate that even low concentrations of euglenophycin led to a significant decrease in cancer cell growth, and can kill cancer cells. Preliminary studies show the toxin is highly effective against renal [...]