link: https://news.yahoo.com/mountains-sugar-found-ocean-under-192535826.html
"Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology report that mountains of sugar have been discovered hiding underneath seagrass meadows across the world's oceans."
Seagrass meadows are amongst the top carbon-capturing ecosystems — just one square kilometre of seagrass stores nearly twice as much carbon as forests on land at a rate 35 times faster, according to the Institute.
To better understand these carbon-capturing powerhouses, the scientists conducted a study off the Italian island of Elba where they took samples of seagrass meadows and their surrounding sediments. Their data revealed that sugar concentrations underneath the seagrass were at least 80 times higher than those found in other marine ecosystems.
"To put this into perspective: we estimate that worldwide there are between 0.6 and 1.3 million tons of sugar, mainly in the form of sucrose," stated Manuel Liebeke, a scientist at the Institute, in a press release.
Journal Reference:
Sogin, E. Maggie, Michellod, Dolma, Gruber-Vodicka, Harald R., et al. Sugars dominate the seagrass rhizosphere [open], Nature Ecology & Evolution (DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01740-z)
Here's to not packing lunch when climbing a mountain.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @03:11AM (1 child)
If you care about global warming, eat as much sugar as you can to sequester carbon in your body - it's the least you can do.
I personally recommend Count Chocula.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 25 2022, @07:41PM
Laugh it up, fuzzball. We got into this situation by burning sequestered dinosaur fat. If we started rendering the fat from dead obese Westerners and sequestering that in salt mines, it would be much better for CO2 emissions than cremating their fatty tissues.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday May 25 2022, @03:41AM (9 children)
To put 1 million tons of sugar in perspective: global sugar consumption is currently about 174 million tons per year.
Or to put it another way - the entire global reserves of "seagrass sugar" would only satisfy human demand for about two days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:12AM
I'm not so sure that was the point of this article.
(Score: 2) by bmimatt on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:34AM (4 children)
This.
Also, sucrose is not sugar. Just like HFCS is not sugar. Let's stick to facts.
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday May 25 2022, @08:50AM
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Wednesday May 25 2022, @09:24AM (2 children)
Umm... it absolutely is.
Sucrose is the scientific name for the chemical we've traditionally called "sugar" or "table sugar" - the white granulated stuff we use in everything and get from sugar cane or beets. It's a disaccharide ("double-sugar") molecule composed of fructose and glucose subunits, covalently bound together in a way that our bodies easily break apart as the first stage in digestion.
"Sugar" though is also a technical term that encompasses a much wider range of molecules - basically all sweet-tasting, water-soluble carbohydrates.
Common naturally occurring dietary monosaccharides ("single-sugars") include glucose (a.k.a. "blood sugar"), fructose (a.k.a. "fruit sugar"), and galactose, while other common double-sugars include lactose (glucose + galactose, comprising 2-8% of milk by weight) and maltose (glucose + glucose, also known as "malt sugar" because it commonly forms in germinating seeds - a.k.a. "malt"). And there are many other, less common sugars as well - basically anything whose name ends in "-ose", which is a chemical classifier denoting sugar.
Once you have three or more single-sugar subunits bound together we no longer taste them as being sweet, and they are collectively referred to as starches (of which there are a *huge* variety of naturally occurring forms).
In theory, eating single-sugars in the same ratio as their double-sugar counterparts should be very similar to eating the double-sugars themselves, differing primarily in how well they are absorbed by the gut - e.g. unlike glucose and sucrose, fructose is incompletely absorbed by the small intestine, and some goes on to be fermented by gut bacteria in the large intestine, producing fatty acids and hydrogen gas, among other things.
HFCS is a bit complicated - the fact that you're eating glucose and fructose separately rather than bonded together does mean that you'll be getting that gut-fermentation going on - but that will also happen when eating fruit, which contains large amounts of free fructose (hence the name "fruit sugar"). E.g about 57% of the sugar in an apple is free fructose, versus the 42% or 55% in common HFCS formulations.
Of course, the modern diet contains a lot more sugar than the historic norm, and if that sugar is primarily in the form of cheap HFCS, that means a LOT more gut fermentation than normal, with all sorts of potential side effects. Also, HFCS is used in a lot of things that don't contain the large amounts of gut-friendly fiber found in fruit, potentially worsening some side effects. (Of course fruit juice has the same problem)
And of course, HFCS is the product of corn starch heavily processed by industrial chemistry, and inevitably contains some trace side-products as a result, despite extensive processing to remove them. It's not impossible that some of those might cause issues.
But really, most of the bad rap HFCS gets can probably be blamed on the simple fact that it's so cheap that it ends up getting used in far larger quantities than we used to use table sugar. E.g. it's not that sodas made with HFCS are significantly worse for you than sodas made with sugar - it's that many people routinely drink one or more sodas per day, when it used to be expensive enough to be a treat you might enjoy a few times a week, if that. Eating lots of sugar just really isn't good for you for a range of reasons far beyond the calorie count.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 29 2022, @12:02PM (1 child)
A friend of mine told me that when he visited the USA (he comes from Holland) the sugar there was sweeter than the sugar at home. Or maybe it was the other way around -- I forget. Anyone know how the chemical content of USA sugar and Holland sugar differ? (I mean the sugar commonly put into, say, tea, at restaurants and dining-rooms, not the sugar manufactured in those place)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday May 29 2022, @03:43PM
I'm pretty sure table sugar is table sugar, though it's possible he ended up with some crystalized HFCS (I believe fructose tastes sweeter than glucose), or artificial sweetener in a non-obvious package.
It's also possible he didn't realize just how much sugar is commonly already in a wide range of food and beverages in the US, so that adding a "normal amount of sugar" actually pushed the total sugar content much higher than expected.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Wednesday May 25 2022, @06:15AM (1 child)
And still I'm afraid that the Coca Cola industry will now start mining the seas to make a few dollars profits.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday May 25 2022, @09:06PM
I think you're grossly underestimating just how cheap it is to make HFCS.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:21PM
Globally, there are approximately 200,000 square miles of farmland devoted to sugar production but only (roughly) 100,000 square miles of seagrass beds.
So, yeah, phosphate fertilized intensively farmed sugarcane growing above the sea surface is converting sunlight to sucrose at a much faster rate than seagrass does.
Or. put another way, if every human on earth would "tithe" their sugar consumption by locking away 10% of their consumed sugar in a secure location, they would sequester about twice as much sugar as the seagrass is supposed to be holding in roughly 6 months. Of course Americans following this tithe scheme, averaging 77 grams per day of added sugar, and 78 years of life expectancy would need to find a place to store 220kg of sugar per person per lifetime. Nigerians would need a smaller "sugar coffin" since they consume roughly 20% as much sugar and live about 70% as long, still they would need to find a secure location for a 31kg sugar coffin for every person for as long as the carbon needs to be sequestered.
On the bright side: after society collapses and industry stops emitting so much CO2, the survivors can loot the sugar coffins and potentially forestall the impending ice age through digestion of the sugars and subsequent release of CO2.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 25 2022, @04:18AM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_the_Molester [wikipedia.org]
"Hey, little girl, want to see where the mermaids keep their candy?"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:23AM (2 children)
What the fuck. What the fucking fuck. Why, and HOW, did your mind go anywhere near paeophilia while reading this?!
Is there's something you'd like to confess, Runaway?!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:44AM
Runaway immediately goes pedophile. At least it wasn't beastiality. Have the local authorities been informed?
https://www.countyoffice.org/ar-little-river-county-sex-offender-registry/ [countyoffice.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @06:39AM
Maybe he was abused as a child.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @03:21PM
hardwired to go where the energy is.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 29 2022, @12:09PM
Where *do* mermaids keep their candy? I've often wondered this when reading fantasy stories about humans that for one reason or another are favoured by the mer-folk and invited to stay with them under the sea for a while (where they miraculously don't drown).
They are wined and dined and fed wonderful food and candies and so forth.
But why don't the candies dissolve in the ocean long before they get to the mouth, where thy presumably dissolve in saliva so the human can taste them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:00AM
We can sleep soundly knowing that we can keep giving money to Scientists to find solutions to prevent us middle/bourguise-class being impacted by our disproportional resource consumption.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:05AM
Who gives a shit about sugar mountain under the sea?
FInd the candy mountain on land. I'm partial to kit-kat, personally, but I'm not picky.
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 25 2022, @07:34AM (2 children)
The German translation of “mountain of sugar” is “Zuckerberg” (yes, with an uppercase Z). So Mark took a bath in the ocean?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday May 25 2022, @07:43AM
His secret base is under the seagrass, from where he's planning to conquer the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @02:28PM
I've got my own translation for Zuckerberg, but it sure ain't "sugar mountain."
(Score: 2) by gznork26 on Wednesday May 25 2022, @10:35AM (4 children)
What is the yield per acre of the plants we farm for sugar when found in the wild? How does that compare to what was found under the ocean? Could this oceanic crop be cultivated, and if so, what would the yield and costs be to deliver such a crop to market? That might be a better comparison to make.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @03:25PM
or maybe a way to not having to military-style guard your sugar. stealth sugar: making sugar "invisible" to ants, for example?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 25 2022, @04:56PM (2 children)
What we could do is rape and pillage the seagrass beds to extract the sugar for a marginal cost benefit vs current farming methods - yielding enough sugar to satisfy global human appetites for a day or two and destroying seagrass beds that would take 50 to 100 years to regrow, costing thousands of times the price of the sugar in lost fisheries productivity during their recovery period.
I'm sure there are business plans that have been proposed and are just waiting for "an accommodating political climate" to put into action, including long term short investment in the fisheries markets.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by gznork26 on Wednesday May 25 2022, @05:30PM (1 child)
I'm unfamiliar with the time it takes to grow a seagrass bed, so I asked what it would take to cultivate it. If, indeed, it takes that long, then it would be ineffective to attempt cultivation and the option is moot. But if it turns out that seagrass could be farmed in a controlled undersea environment without more environmental damage than dry-land farming of sugar crops, it might be worth investigation. The crop would not need fresh water that is needed elsewhere, and it could be harvested, processed and shipped at sea.
One reason I'm curious is that the changing climate will shift where crops can be grown, and the shifted locations could easily be already occupied by cities, and therefore unusable for that purpose. If some land-based crops can be instead sea-based, the pressure on land use can be lessened a bit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 25 2022, @07:38PM
The thing about seagrass beds is that they need shallow water relatively free of sediments. Where they can grow, mostly they are already growing - with some exceptions where pollution has killed them off. In these regions, historically, it has taken 50 to 100 years for the seagrass to restore to full health after being killed out.
Dry land farming of sugarcane is (apparently) about 100x as productive per acre for sugar production as seagrass is. There are all kinds of advantages to dryland farming, not the least of which is solar power input without a seawater filter. I did a quick search and came up with approximately 200,000 square miles currently in sugar cultivation, and approximately 100,000 square miles of seagrass beds around the world. So... presently, seagrass is making something like 0.5% of the sugar that is being cultivated on land. Good for the sea cows, not really great for supplying the American maw which demands something like 2200kg of sugar per person per lifetime (28kg/person/year - or ~10 billion kg of sugar per year for the U.S. alone.)
There are many places that used to grow sugar that don't anymore for purely economic land value reasons. Hawaii is one that comes to mind, but basically anywhere with a lot of sunshine and fresh water can grow sugar cane well, and sugar beets are more adapted to colder climates.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end