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A new study led by Florida Atlantic University suggests the Sargassum seaweed piling onto Florida coasts is a harmful algal bloom.

Anyone who's been to the beach lately knows there's a lot of seaweed. Researchers at Florida Atlantic University said had some of the most sargassum we've seen on our beaches.

Anyone who's been to the beach lately knows there's a lot of seaweed. Researchers at Florida Atlantic University said had some of the most sargassum we've seen on our beaches.

For centuries, pelagic Sargassum, floating brown seaweed, have grown in low nutrient waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, supported by natural nutrient sources like excretions from fishes and invertebrates, upwelling and nitrogen fixation. Using a unique historical baseline from the 1980s and comparing it to samples collected since 2010, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborators have discovered dramatic changes in the chemistry and composition of Sargassum, transforming this vibrant living organism into a toxic “dead zone.” T...

What - or who - is most likely to blame for the bounty of sargassum that keeps coming? Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post Sargassum is increasingly scarfing human-generated nutrients from tainted ocean waters, a harmful binge altering the very chemical structure of the living membrane that can smother luckless beaches in its tangle.  According to a Florida Atlantic University paper, which appeared Monday in Nature Communications, the seething pelagic flora is also creating a crust of toxic dead zones along coastlines that are critical nurseries for saltwater ecosystems. © ...