The Blob? First outdoor trial of genetically engineered algae conducted

Scientists have been tweaking algae in the lab for use in everything from making foam to making fuel to using it to clean up wastewater. But till now, at least in the US, those tests have been confined to the lab. 

The US Environmental Protection Agency approved moving things outdoors, and green glowing algae was let loose in water from five reservoirs in California. The engineered species is known as Acutodesmus dimorphus, and it was designed to synthesize fatty acids and undergo green fluorescent protein expression.

The algae wasn't released into lakes in the wild, but rather, water from five different reservoirs in the UC San Diego area was taken back to the center and placed in different plastic ponds. The engineered algae was then added to those ponds along with a non-modified "wild-type" algae. The algae was cultivated in the ponds for 50 days and water samples were then analyzed.

The study concluded that the genetically engineered (GE) algae had the same impact on the pond water as the natural algae in terms of its effect on "biodiversity, species composition, and biomass of native algae," according to the paper. It was also concluded that neither the GE algae nor the wild-type algae could "outcompete" the native strains of algae naturally present in the water.

For algae to be able to compete with fossil fuels and other forms of industrial agriculture, they need to be grown outside in really large ponds, as only this economy of scale can produce commodity products, like foods, feeds and fuels.