Did you know that you can now predict red tides with just a cup of sea water?

Take a cup of seawater and use the "Red Tide Real-time Monitoring System" instrument to measure it. You can know the amount of algae in the seawater and the size of the algae, so as to determine whether a red tide will occur, which can serve as an early warning. This monitoring instrument, invented by a professor at Xiamen University, is the world's first monitoring system capable of predicting red tides. It has been granted an invention patent and registered two software copyrights.

This set of seawater "electronic eyes" was unveiled at the Xiamen Science and Technology Products Exhibition not long ago. The inventor, Professor Wang Boliang of Xiamen University, said that after the seawater is sampled, it is collected through a computer. The computer displays the number, shape, and size of the seaweed, corresponding to the seaweed species number in the database. Based on the comparison of the concentration of seaweed when red tide occurs, the system will identify the most dangerous seaweed. The algae are ranked first to determine whether there is a danger of red tide.

Wang Boliang said that the commonly used red tide monitoring method now is to use satellite remote sensing technology to monitor the coming of red tide. If the weather is good and there are no clouds, and a patch of red appears on the sea surface as photographed by satellite, it means a red tide may have occurred. This method is limited by many factors such as weather. The monitoring system of the ocean forecast station currently in use also goes to the site to see if there are environments and conditions suitable for the growth of red tides. It pumps up seawater and observes under a microscope whether there are cells where red tides have occurred, and then uses formulas to calculate whether it will occur. red tide.

“There is currently no red tide forecasting system in the world.” Wang Boliang said that this system is the first one that can predict. However, this system also has shortcomings: it must first establish a library of algae "in vivo" before the algae in the library can be measured. Wang Boliang said that currently more than 20 kinds of algae specimens have been collected in the library.

According to reports, the “red tide real-time detection system” can currently only be used in the ocean. At present, the system has completed the mass production of the "863" prototype, has passed the environmental experiment and performance test of the "National Ocean Gauging Station", and can be deployed to hundreds of coastal marine environment monitoring sites for red tide monitoring.