Turkey’s president promised Saturday to rescue the Marmara Sea from an outbreak of “sea snot” that is alarming marine biologists and environmentalists.
A huge mass of marine mucilage, a thick, slimy substance made up of compounds released by marine organisms, has bloomed in Turkey's Marmara, as well as in the adjoining Black and Aegean Seas.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said untreated waste dumped into the Marmara Sea and climate change had caused the sea snot bloom. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with some 16 million residents, and five other provinces, factories and industrial hubs border the sea.
Marine mucilage has reached unprecedented levels this year in Turkey. It is visible above the water as a slimy gray sheet along the shores of Istanbul and neighboring provinces. Underwater videos showed suffocated coral covered with sea snot.
Erdogan said he instructed the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization to coordinate with relevant institutions, municipalities and universities. Teams are inspecting waste water and solid waste facilities, along with other potential sources of pollution, he said.
“We will save our seas from this mucilage calamity, leading with the Marmara Sea,” Erdogan said. “We must take this step without delay.”
Marine experts say that human waste and industrial pollution is choking Turkey’s seas. They say the rise in water temperatures from climate change is contributing to the problem.
Cheddar's Need2Know Podcast for Tues., June 16, 2020.
From milk to canned tuna to shampoo, soy is in a good majority of our day-to-day products. It’s added to around 60% of the nation’s processed foods. Soy has been known to provide some real health benefits, like high protein. But there are legitimate health and environmental consequences that raise the question: why do we use so much soy? And should we?
Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve survival from COVID-19. The drug is a cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone.
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are unlikely to be effective in treating the coronavirus.
As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in the U.S., Johnson & Johnson's chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels told Cheddar the company has an accelerated plan to create a vaccine.
Scientists are beginning a new study to tell if the blood plasma of COVID-19 survivors might help prevent infection in the first place.
Coronavirus cases are rising in nearly half the U.S. states. And while many are chalked up to increased testing or to small, local outbreaks, others are more alarming.
If you lived in a big city in the 90s, you're probably one of the unlucky people who was kept up at night on a regular basis by errant car alarms. But today, those in that same big city hear alarms far less often than you did. So where did car alarms go? How have they evolved, and did we ever need them to begin with?
The skyline of Washington D.C. is stunted. You've probably heard that D.C. can't build skyscrapers taller than the U.S. Capital Building or the Washington Monument. But those are both myths from a bygone era. Cheddar tells the real story.
A top World Health Organization expert has tried to clear up “misunderstandings” about comments she made that were widely understood to suggest that people without COVID-19 symptoms rarely transmit the coronavirus.
