Algae
17 algae organisms and their business parallels
Bull Kelp
Bull kelp is an annual species - it grows from spore to 100-foot adult to death in a single year. Where giant kelp persists across years, building leg...
Chlorella
In 1950, chlorella was going to solve world hunger. Scientists calculated a 1,000-acre chlorella farm with 20 workers could produce 10,000 tons of pro...
Coccolithophores
Coccolithophores are single-celled algae covered in intricate calcium carbonate plates. When they die, these plates sink and accumulate on the ocean f...
Coralline Algae
Coralline algae don't look like algae - they look like pink rock. These calcifying algae deposit calcium carbonate crusts on reef surfaces, cementing...
Diatoms
Every fifth breath you take comes from organisms you cannot see. Diatoms—microscopic algae encased in glass shells—produce 20-40% of Earth's oxygen an...
Dunaliella
What if the harshest possible environment is actually the safest place to be? Dunaliella salina thrives in salt concentrations that would kill any com...
Giant Bladder Kelp
Giant kelp is the world's largest alga, growing up to 60 meters tall and at speeds of 60cm per day - one of the fastest growth rates in nature. Its ga...
Gracilaria
Fish cages pollute. Fish excrete nitrogen and phosphorus; unconsumed feed decomposes; coastal waters turn eutrophic. But place Gracilaria seaweed raft...
Haematococcus
WhatsApp served 450 million users with 55 engineers. Instagram reached 30 million users with 13 employees. Both companies built under extreme resource...
Irish Moss
You've consumed products containing carrageenan today—probably multiple times—without knowing it. Ice cream, chocolate milk, yogurt, deli meat, toothp...
Kelp
Kelp forests along temperate coastlines exist in one of two alternative stable states: lush underwater forests supporting dense biological communities...
Killer Algae
Caulerpa taxifolia is a tropical aquarium alga that escaped from Monaco's Oceanographic Museum in 1984 and spread across the Mediterranean, smothering...
Nori
For nine years, Kathleen Drew-Baker failed to grow nori from spores. Then she added oyster shells to her tank, and an industry worth $2 billion was bo...
Red Tide Dinoflagellate
Karenia brevis causes Florida's notorious red tides - blooms that kill fish by the millions, close beaches, and cause respiratory irritation in humans...
Rhodolith
Rhodoliths are free-living coralline algae that form calcified nodules rolling slowly across the seafloor. Over decades, these golf-ball to grapefruit...
Sargassum
Sargassum creates floating forests in the open ocean, accumulating in the Sargasso Sea where circular currents concentrate drifting mats into a unique...
Sea Lettuce
Sea lettuce's bright green sheets are familiar on rocky shores worldwide. It thrives on nutrient pollution - where sewage or agricultural runoff enter...