Probing Question: What is a red tide? from PhysOrg.com"Although its name sounds like a low-budget horror movie, you won't find "Red Tide" at a theater near you. To take in this natural phenomenon, you'll have to venture to the ocean, because red tide — or more scientifically, HAB or harmful algae bloom — occurs when a harmful variety of algae reproduces so densely that the water appears red, yellowish-brown or green from the high concentrations of photosynthetic pigments."
This link will tell you more about what red tide is [...]
No more all you can eat clam bakes due to red tide. For the past seven weeks “red tide”, an algae toxic to humans, has been found where they're harvested in Maine.
“Last year it was in for 10 days -- no one even knew it because we had enough clams here, we got right through it. There's years it comes in and moves right out -- this is very unusual,” says Hinerwadel’s owner Vicky Hinderwadel.
Science Daily had a fairly recent article on red algae.
Well, maybe they can turn it into biofuel: Algae for fuel "Still interested in pursuing algal fuel, Cooksey said his lab in the 1980s figured out how to increase oil production from algae. It developed a system that screened algae for their oil content and greatly reduced the sample size needed for their research. It developed a stain for algae, called Nile Red. When treated with the stain, the algae became fluorescent under certain conditions, making it easier to measure their oil content." Check out the summet: Algae Biofuel Summit 2008
You can read more about red tide here.
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