Reading about Malcolm McCulloch's work with the Great Barrier Reef. Glow helps measure fresh water discharge and barium levels:
"The team was able to detect an influx of fresh water by looking for fluorescence in samples of coral – if it glowed under ultra-violet light that indicated the presence of fresh water."
What materials would support corals against fertilizer-induced algae blooms? Are algae blooms akin to environmental cancers? The reef is often discussed as a human body, limited and propped up by parallel discourses of health and productivity. Links with farming techniques and chemicals matter--and if algae is a wonder product of the future (algae farms, algae fuel, algae everywhere), how do we grieve for that which our humanalgae future displaces?
Language of excess and proliferation, of good helpers turning against the coral body, frames Ross Cunning's research:
"The single-celled algae living inside corals are usually the key to coral success, providing the energy needed to build massive reef frameworks. However, when temperatures become too warm, these algae are expelled from corals during episodes of coral 'bleaching' that can lead to widespread death of corals. Until now, it was thought that corals with more algal symbionts would be more tolerant of bleaching because they had 'more symbionts to lose.' The new study shows that the opposite is true."
Meanwhile, coral bodies act against human cancers:
"Coral reef species (e.g., algae, sponges, soft corals, sea slugs) have already been used in the development of anti-cancer and anti-tumor drugs, painkillers, and anti-inflammatory agents."
The Nature Conservancy hosts videos from specific human-coral cancer collaborators.
No conclusions. Thinking about Marilyn Arsem's Ocean's Rising, about the difficulty of freezing salt water, about what I could carry into the reef that would help, given how my presence there is mostly harmful.
No comments:
Post a Comment