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 born.

Nori had been harvested in Japan since the 17th century, but cultivation was a gamble. Farmers would suspend bamboo poles in coastal waters, hoping spores would attach and grow. Some years produced abundant harvests. Others yielded nothing. No one understood why because no one knew nori had a secret life stage.

In 1949, Drew-Baker—a British phycologist working at the University of Manchester—discovered the answer. The microscopic organism called Conchocelis, previously classified as a separate species, was actually nori in disguise. During warm months, nori retreated into shells, living as invisible filaments inside oyster and clam shells until temperatures dropped enough to trigger the visible leafy stage. Drew-Baker had found the missing link.

Japanese researcher Sokichi Segawa read her paper and immediately saw the implications. If you could cultivate the Conchocelis stage on shells in controlled tanks, you could produce reliable spore supplies. Temperature manipulation could trigger the transition to the harvestable form. Within years, the unpredictable wild harvest transformed into precision aquaculture.

The nori industry now produces over 10 billion sheets annually in Japan alone, worth $2 billion. Drew-Baker never visited Japan, but the Japanese fishing communities erected a monument to her at Sumiyoshi Shrine in 1963. They still hold an annual ceremony on April 14th honoring the 'Mother of the Sea.'

The business parallel is basic research that unlocks industries. Drew-Baker wasn't trying to solve Japan's nori problem—she was studying algae life cycles out of scientific curiosity. The commercial application arrived decades later, through researchers on a different continent. This pattern repeats: CRISPR emerged from studying bacterial immune systems. mRNA vaccines came from understanding cellular machinery. GPS came from relativity corrections for satellite timing.

Drew-Baker's discovery also illustrates how understanding dormancy and phase transitions transforms unpredictable harvests into reliable production. The Conchocelis stage is biological dormancy—nori retreating into a protected state until environmental conditions (temperature drop) trigger the transition to its productive phase. Once you understand the triggers, you control the timing. Before 1949, nori farmers were gamblers. After 1949, they became manufacturers. The organism hadn't changed. The understanding had.