Saving Seafood

Nanoparticles promise swift Vibrio control for safer seafood and healthier fish

November 18, 2025 — Vibrio bacteria are major pathogens in the aquaculture industry, triggering vibriosis—a disease that can cause mortality rates of up to 90% within two days. This not only results in billions of dollars in economic losses globally but also poses a threat to food safety through contaminated aquatic products. Conventional detection methods for Vibrio require three to five days to yield results, and they often involve additional sterilization steps, making it nearly impossible to promptly control the spread of Vibrio infections.

To address this challenge, a research team led by Prof. Chen Lingxin from the Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed edged-satellite AuAg nanoparticles (ES-AuAgNPs). These nanoparticles (NPs) boast several characteristics, including alloyed Ag/Au composition, an edge-satellite structural design, and integrated antimicrobial components.

Collectively, these properties equip ES-AuAgNPs with enhanced peroxidase (POD)-like , surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) performance, and antibacterial capabilities. This study was recently published in Advanced Science.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

Temperature corrections boost accuracy of coastal ocean color satellites

October 20, 2025 — Ocean color satellites provide essential insights into water quality and ecosystem dynamics by estimating chlorophyll, suspended matter, and dissolved organic material. Atmospheric correction, the process of removing scattering and absorption from satellite signals, is central to these analyses.

Traditional algorithms assume that near-infrared signals from seawater are negligible, a simplification that often fails in turbid coastal regions. Compounding this issue, most models treat seawater absorption as constant, overlooking natural variability driven by temperature shifts. Such oversights can distort data products used for fisheries, pollution tracking, and climate studies. Due to these problems, there is a pressing need for algorithms that explicitly account for environmental variability.

Researchers from the Ocean University of China and collaborators report a major step forward in remote sensing accuracy in the Journal of Remote Sensing. Their study introduces ACiter-T, an upgraded atmospheric correction algorithm that incorporates seawater temperature effects into satellite processing.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

China Is Turning Its Fish Breeding Grounds Into Smartphone Factories

October 21, 2015 — A sixth of the globe’s fish catch comes from waters off China’s coasts. Yet the nation’s industrial push is imperiling that 15 million-ton annual haul. Fully 60 percent of the China’s wetlands have been paved over for development projects—and much of what’s left is under threat of more of the same.

That’s the conclusion of a jarring new report (hat tip to the New York Times) by the US-based Paulson Institute, the Chinese State Forestry Administration, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Coastal wetlands are the breeding and feeding grounds for fish, migratory birds, and other creatures. They also buffer coastal cities from the sea’s caprices by absorbing energy from storm-roiled waves—an increasingly important function as climate change proceeds apace. Over the last half century, the report found, China has developed more than half of the coastal wetlands in its temperate northern regions and nearly three-quarters of the mangrove forests and 80 percent of coral reefs along its southern coast. Losses accelerated between 2003 and 2013—in that time frame alone, China’s total coastal wetlands shrank by about 23 percent.

Read the full story at Mother Jones