Can Algae Save the World?

Sometimes small is big

Algae cultures growing at New York’s Urban Assembly Harbor School oyster lab (Photo ©Paul Greenberg)

Every few years I find myself in a room packed tight with giant tubes of algae. The colors range from burnt sienna to electric Kool Aid-green. Quietly and humbly they do their work, converting sunlight to sugars and proteins, befuddling researchers with their multitudes, inviting we “advanced” humans to poke around and try figure out exactly what else we might do with these…