Seas of weeds
Source: REUTERS
Something wicked this way comes, in the form of brown seaweed (well really it’s a type of algae).
Sargassum was once presumed to only exist in the nutrient-poor waters of the Sargasso Sea. However, recent research reveals the journey of sargassum from nutrient-rich coastal areas to the open ocean via oceanic currents, such as the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream.
‘Nutrient loading’ from rivers on ocean processes, like from agricultural runoff, wastewate discharge and atmospheric deposition, fuels the massive growth of sargassum on coasts.
This sargassum then travels from the sea towards areas in the open ocean, namely the North Atlantic. Nutrient recycling within sargassum populations sustains the blooms, which explains why we have the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt: the enormous seasonal bloom spans West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.
The belt has formed each year since 2011 (excluding 2013), and in May this year reached a record biomass of 37.5 million tons. These massive growth events result in costly beach cleanups and even in the emergency shutdown of a Florida nuclear power plant in 1991.
Left unchecked, these massive blooms will affect fisheries and tourism, pose health risks, and ruin marine ecosystems. If it keeps growing, we may even manage to take pictures of it from space.
AI saw what researchers didn’t
Photo Illustration: Google Gemini
AI just gave scientists X-ray vision for earthquakes in Italy. Using a Stanford-built model to comb through thousands of seismic data points, researchers discovered that the restless Campi Flegrei volcanic field near Naples has been hiding four times more quakes than previously thought.
The revelation is a double-edged warning: while the main short-term risk isn’t a volcanic eruption but moderate shallow quakes, the region has already clocked five magnitude-4 tremors this year alone.
The hope is that sharper, AI-driven detection will give authorities and residents a crucial head start in preparing for whatever the ground decides to throw at them next.
Tech companies want more power. Shocker.
Source: REUTERS
It brings me some small comfort whenever I hear about load shedding in countries other than Pakistan, knowing that there are people around the world that I can relate to. However, the problem for Mexico may go deeper than that, and data centers are the main culprit.
Microsoft’s data center in Colón ran on gas generators for a part of 2024, and plans to plug into the grid by 2027. This is all government-approved, but the pollution and harm to the environment this will cause should raise eyebrows everywhere.
Google opened a data center site here in 2024, and Amazon opened a campus in January of this year, and you can only imagine the energy they already consume and will continue to consume when they’re all plugged in.
And don’t get me started on the water usage. Microsoft’s data center in Central Mexico used 40 million liters of water in 2024, the same year that the area experienced the worst drought in a century. The data center craze might bring more people greater access to the digital world, but at increasing costs to lives and livelihoods.
We might be on track to Big Tech seeking ‘alternative’ energy solutions, like plugging people into the Matrix. Once they perfect androids, they might just.
