Mysterious deaths of bald eagles, mallards and other lake life in the southeastern United States have puzzled scientists for more than 20 years. After a long slog exploring the quirks of cyanobacteria gluing themselves to an invasive water weed, a research team has found a toxin that could be the culprit.
And it’s an odd one, the team reports March 26 in Science.
Nicknamed AETX, the toxin has an unusual chemical structure requiring building blocks rich in the element bromine, says Susan Wilde, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Georgia in Athens. Yet those bromide building blocks are not routinely abundant in southern lake water. That’s where the
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