http://news.discovery.com/earth/mediterranean-mucus-blobs-are-on-the-rise.htmlIt's news that sadly puts a damper on my French Riviera vacation dreams: Giant aquatic blobs are on the rise in Mediterranean waters. The masses of organic material -- both living and dead -- fuse together in warm water, where they create cozy, calm breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses, potentially including deadly strains of E. coli.
That sounds bad enough, but if you take a look at said blobs -- technically, mucilages, a word I hope to never hear said out loud -- it gets even worse. They look like alien placentas bobbing ominously in the Mediterranean's bathtub-like waters, ready to slime a diver or engulf and suffocate a fish.
The sometimes colossal masses (they've been clocked at up to 124 miles or 200 kilometers long) are nothing new; the first recorded mention dates back to the early 18th century. They're essentially fused detritus -- a "marine snow" of organic matter that soon enough attracts tiny animals to feed. But according to a recent study featured in National Geographic News and led by Roberto Danovaro, director of the marine science department at the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy, mucilages are becoming more common. That's because as water temperatures rise, conditions become conducive to blob formation. What was once a summertime phenomenon now occurs year-round.
Danovaro's study reviewed mucilage records dating from 1950 to 2008. Higher sea-surface temperatures meant more mucilages. And more outbreaks could mean increasingly sticky waters with sickly fish and beaches closed in the face of E. Coli.
But while researchers know that warmer waters encourage mucilages, they haven't yet figured out why the blobs' organic mater doesn't decay. It's a point worth figuring out before this utterly sci-fi news story starts launching bad sequels: Studies suggest the blobs could be spreading to other warming waters around the world.
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you know it ain't going to get better but worse. sigh.
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