1. the green gold From cyberspace to Klamath Lake, a hunt for the truth about blue-green algae reveals the secret ecology of information. BY ANDREW LEONARD I gazed down into the cool waters of Oregon's Upper Klamath Lake, entranced by the countless slender blue-green threads swirling in the depths. Their kaleidoscopic grace took me by surprise. I glanced up at the weather-beaten man standing nearby on the dock, waiting to rent me a canoe. "So is this the blue-green algae I've heard so much about?" I asked. "Yep," he drawled. "That's the green gold." Fans of blue-green algae from Klamath Lake call it by many names -- "earth's best superfood," "a neuro-somatic nutrient," "jet fuel." But for me, at the end of a long investigation of the shimmery substance, no phrase better captured the truth about it than "green gold." In the Klamath Basin, algae is gold -- a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-a-year business. Hundreds of thousands of self-described "algae eaters" are convinced that consuming this food supplement boosts energy and enhances mental clarity. And the numbers are growing, despite critics who denounce the whole craze as a cannily marketed New Age hoax more likely to harm your health than help it. Panacea or public safety threat? My journey to the shores of this cold mountain lake had begun far away, on the distant fringes of the Worldwide Web, where algae hucksters proliferate. As a reporter, I wanted the truth about pond scum -- as some of the algae's more vociferous critics dismiss it. My quest had become a test case for info-age hype. An enduring fantasy of digital dreamers is that the Net is supposed to be an inexhaustible source of information, the ultimate repository of answers to every question: The truth is in there somewhere. Or at least I hoped so. But the truth, like algae, is a slippery substance. The Net pointed me toward it but could not deliver it into my hands. To truly understand blue-green algae -- how it smelled, how it tasted, how it played a key role in the economy of a depressed region of southern Oregon -- I had to become an algae eater myself. I had to abandon my computer, get out on that lake and commune with the algae. And even then, I had to accept that ultimate answers might remain forever hidden beneath deep blue-green waters. NEXT PAGE: Harvesting the Net ILLUSTRATION BY RICHARD SALA