Human fecal waste is coral killer, U.S. research shows

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Human fecal waste is coral killer, U.S. research shows
By Pascal Fletcher

MIAMI | Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:27am IST

MIAMI (Reuters) - A human fecal bacterium kills coral, new research shows, and U.S. scientists say this is a warning to Florida and the Caribbean to protect prized reefs from sewage or face a threat to a key pillar of their tourism.

In an article published on Wednesday in the PLoS ONE scientific journal, U.S. researchers said they had identified a bacterium from human fecal waste as a killer of common Caribbean elkhorn coral, whose spiky, layered, ochre-colored growths populate reefs off Florida and across the Caribbean.

The bacterium, Serratia marcescens, causes a coral disease known as "white pox," producing leprosy-like lesions that eat away at, and kill, the coral, said the report by the scientists from Georgia and Florida universities.

"This strain that kills coral comes only from human beings," James W. Porter of the University of Georgia's Odum School of Ecology, one of the report's authors, told Reuters.



Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/08/18/idINIndia-58858620110818?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[russspeakeasy]

1. But we don't need no stinkin regulations...

:evilgrin: Look for this state to get worse and worse under Ricky (the rat) Scott...We have slaughter houses dumping their waste on bare ground & directly to the water table...Wanna buy my house ??:wtf:

[Jackpine Radical]

2. No shit?

[sakabatou]

5. Damn, I was gonna post that

[marasinghe]

3. first time i've encountered the repuke species described by their scientific taxonomy, in the MSM.

Reuters getting pretty fancy an' all that, with their use of the biological classification of repuke mutants as: "coral killing human fecal waste".

[postulater]

4. Ouch! Coral would make some mighty rough toilet paper.