In August 2006, the decade's worst red tide - an algal bloom that can be deadly to fish, turtles, sea mammals, and humans - hit Puget Sound in Washington State and shut down shellfish beds all along the sound. Such blooms have an impact on ocean waters around the world, and scientists in North Carolina take advantage of these natural phenomena. At the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, Daniel Baden directs the Center for Marine Science and heads Marine Biotechnology in North Carolina (MARBIONC), a program that North Carolina's general assembly established to spur new developments in marine biology. Researchers at MARBIONC study materials from the ocean, such as harmful algal blooms and toxins in venoms, in search of exploitable products.
"We take those materials," Baden says, "do studies to understand how those materials act at a molecular level - why are they toxic or why do they have ...
