The key to the success of seaweed farming is its growing commercial potential. Illustration: sciencefriday. A new study argues that growing a sufficient number of green seaweeds can help reduce pollution, absorbing most of the harmful waste. The study’s co-author, Phoebe Racine, said the thesis was just an early idea and implementation would take time, but given the lack of progress in other aspects, “there was no other option.” in addition to considering alternative methods”. Racine, a researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says growing a variety of seaweed species in less than 1 percent of the Gulf of Mexico’s waters could help the United States meet pollution reduction goals that are already out of reach. . She and her colleagues mapped the suitable area for seaweed cultivation in the Gulf, and the suitable area could be more than 38,500 square kilometers. The Gulf of Mexico is being choked with agricultural and municipal waste. In May 2019, the Mississippi River discharged an average of more than 5,000 tons of nitrates and 800 tons of phosphorus into the Gulf of Mexico, the highest levels in 40 years. These excess nutrients from farm fertilizers and animal waste in the Midwest robs the oceans of oxygen off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, fueling toxic algae blooms that have led to the so-called “dead zone”. Eutrophication (also known as eutrophication) is when there are too many nutrients in the pond/lake such as nitrate, phosphorus, which exceed the self-regulating capacity of the pond/lake, causing dense growth of plant and animal death due to lack of oxygen. To environmental experts, this problem seems intractable. Called eutrophication, dead zones are proliferating all over the world. There are more than 700 coastal areas worldwide that are “dead zones” or negatively impacted by currents. While the United States bears the bulk of agricultural waste, municipal wastewater is the main culprit in South America, Asia, and Africa. Annually, they cause economic losses of $3.4 billion in Europe and the United States alone by affecting tourism and fishing resources; while reducing property values, water treatment and adverse health effects. Over the past 10 years, 85 communities in the United States have spent a total of more than $1 billion to prevent or treat toxic algal blooms. Among the hardest hit areas is at the mouth of the Mississippi River, where the continued discharge of domestic waste from the heart of the United States has destroyed the local seafood and tourism industries. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico, carrying fertilizer and livestock waste from Midwestern farms. Photo: Bloomberg. Growing seaweed is considered as one of the green solutions to solve this problem. Seaweed farming dates back to 1,700 years ago in China. Today, countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, along with China and South Korea, lead the world in this area. In South Korea, where aquaculture has grown by 300% in the past 30 years, an intensive effort has proven its usefulness as a waste reduction tool. According to one study, farms that grow three major seaweed species and two shellfish species (all filter feeds without additional feed) accounted for 5.7% of carbon dioxide and 8.6% of carbon dioxide emissions. nitrogen emissions from all wastewater treatment plants in Korea. The key to the success of seaweed farming is its growing commercial potential. These aquatic plants can absorb excess nitrogen and phosphorus, turning it not only into food for humans, but also expanding a range of other commercial uses. The most commonly grown seaweeds include red or brown algae or algae. Some are used to make culinary thickeners or jellies for culturing bacteria in the lab. Others are dried into sheets for sushi rolls. While sugar kelp can be used as a sweetener, kelp is also used in toothpaste, shampoo, frozen foods, and even pharmaceuticals. Making seaweed farms profitable will be an important consideration to promote them as an agricultural and municipal waste treatment solution. Asia currently has a very strong demand for seaweed. Human consumption, which includes everything from sushi rolls to broths to salads, is the largest market for harvested seaweed. But growing demand can also be seen in the cosmetic and fertilizer industries, as well as aquafeeds. However, mass aquaculture faces a number of significant obstacles, particularly its labor-intensive nature. Globally, the demand for seaweed is forecast to double to $30 billion by 2025. However, in the United States, the seaweed market is relatively small. Gretchen Grebe, an aquaculture scientist at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, says seaweed farming in the US is largely “in the R&D phase.” “Using seaweed farming to remediate any large amounts of nutrient pollution would require significant expansion — the current scale of farming wouldn’t even matter,” says Grebe. In the United States, states have different regulations regarding aquaculture licensing. While it’s relatively easy to get a seaweed farm permit in Maine and Alaska, in California it requires meeting a stack of overlapping regulations. Bailey Moritz, Program Manager of the World Wildlife Fund, said: “Offshore activities hold promise. Our goal is to see seaweed growth that will have meaningful impacts [đối với sự suy giảm chất dinh dưỡng], and scale is needed for that.” But large-scale offshore seaweed farming is still at least a decade away from taking place in the US, and only when biofuels, bioplastics and animal feed are generated enough. need. Seaweed holds great promise, Grebe said, but scientists are quick to point out that the main driver is the imperative to reduce watershed waste inputs. “We are asking a lot of seaweed farmers to treat the nutritional waste that we dump into the Gulf,” she concludes.

Just connecting via apps and a virtual reality device, users can experience travel at affordable prices. (Source: AFP) Ms. Jem Jenkins Jones lives in Wales (England) in the context of a complicated Covid-19 pandemic still unfolding in the land of fog. To fulfill her promise to her 10-year-old daughter wanting to see the northern auroras from the game reserves of Iceland and South Africa, Jem turned to virtual reality travel services. “My daughter was amazed,” Jem said, saying that virtual reality travel experiences have become a lifesaver for many pandemic families when travel is limited. Just connecting via apps and a virtual reality device, users can experience travel at affordable prices. “Sales have skyrocketed. We are getting more acclaim each month,” said Cezara Windrem, creator of the Alcove VR platform at the AARP Innovation Lab (UK). Under the impact of the epidemic, the world travel industry has been almost “frozen” and the virtual reality device experience services have emerged as an alternative to the real-world travel industry. With more and more users interested in using virtual reality services, app developers from organizations such as National Geographic or World Wildlife Fund have created a range of new travel experiences such as: sightseeing. visit the pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, the steppes in Kenya or the Antarctic from a kayak. Users can choose to use Oculus (Facebook), PlayStation (Sony), Google Cardboard … to experience. Some devices cost as little as $ 300 and many are free to experience. Mr. Rafael Cortes, an enthusiastic service experience, said: “I still travel the world every week in my own home. I went to London, visited the glass bridge in China, saw Angel Falls in Venezuela, the ancient city of Petra in Jordan and even experienced a helicopter tour in New York. Not only at the viewing experience, the applications also bring users extremely authentic feelings. A Facebook VR user group management representative said there are “some great travel experiences” in virtual reality that feel like real life. “Once I was sitting at a VR poker table at 1am with a guy in Australia eating KFC. I can even hear his KFC call, ”he quoted. However, according to Mr. Avi Greengart, an analyst of consulting firm Techsponential, despite offering different experiences and some advantages, virtual reality tourism still cannot be compared with real experience. “With virtual reality travel, you won’t be able to enjoy unique local food. You will also miss out on a lot of real life experiences or simply random encounters with locals. “, he said. A report by research company GlobalData shows that virtual reality travel will assist pre-pandemic tourists to learn about a destination before arriving. GlobalData analyst Ralph Hollister also affirmed that the Covid-19 pandemic could create a momentum for tourism as soon as the epidemic ends. “Virtual reality will become an important part of how tourists can view and choose a travel destination. The widespread adoption of virtual reality in the travel industry could be the next step in this technology.” he said. (from eNCA)