Bleached corals thrive within days when touching healthy neighbour (nature.com)

219 pointsby alkyona day ago37 comments

anakaine 2 hours ago

Having been a diver on the Great Barrier Reef numerous times, the scale of bleaching events means that there is often no non-bleached neighbour for vast distances. Healthy propagation rarely occurs before the brown sludge sets in, then its game over.

verelo an hour ago

This kills me. I saw the reef for the first time around 2007. I went back twice, and the last time I was there (2017) I honestly couldn't believe what I saw. Wasteland? An under water desert? I don't have words for it, but I don't really want to go back because it hit me so hard. Our planet is dying and we're sitting here debating why/who and not doing anywhere near enough to fix it.

I'm so glad we have space rockets, flying cars and drone warfare...but I'd trade it all in for the reef to come back.

Nux an hour ago

"The planet is fine, the people are fscked!"

Henchman21 an hour ago

"The Industrial Revolution and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race -- and every other living being on the planet as well."

ryandrake an hour ago

> Our planet is dying and we're sitting here debating why/who and not doing anywhere near enough to fix it.

If only we were just debating why/who! Thanks to Social Media, filter bubbles, and “alternative facts,” we are back to debating whether it is actually even happening or not.

kbutler 40 minutes ago

Happy to report the northern and central GBR coral cover is currently higher than any time measured before 2020. Southern is currently below its long-term average, but 2024 was a record high in coral cover.

https://www.aims.gov.au/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/gbr-co...

This doesn't mean everything is fine, but it is doing way better than 2017.

grosswait 7 minutes ago

Wow, I wasn’t aware of this. I’ve always read climate change as the primary driver for bleaching. If that is the case, do we know why/how they’ve recovered?

actionfromafar 30 minutes ago

At least we are owning the libs.

mikepurvis 20 minutes ago

That's horrifying to hear. I also went on a multi day dive trip at gbr and the coral sea in 2007 and it was spectacular; I can't imagine going back and seeing it degraded.

ChadNauseam 13 minutes ago

> I'm so glad we have space rockets, flying cars and drone warfare...but I'd trade it all in for the reef to come back.

It's really just climate change. (Ocean warming is what causes bleaching.) Luckily, since the 80s we've had the technology to generate energy without releasing greenhouse gases. I wish more people knew about the harms caused by climate change because maybe if they were they'd be more interested in preventing them.

nomel 2 hours ago

> This incredible new result

Only if you've never talked to anyone remotely involved with propagating coral, including those in the saltwater fish-tank community!

dcrazy 2 hours ago

I remember hearing that the concern with our best techniques for rescuing coral reefs is that they would create a monoculture, and monocultures tend to be very susceptible to specific diseases.

Okkef 3 hours ago

Only if they are clones - genetically identical. So not much use in practice, unfortunately.

idontwantthis 3 hours ago

We could create a bank of coral clones tagged to each individual location.

smallerize 3 hours ago

I think the article says they just haven't tested other cases. I wouldn't expect the symbiotic microalgae to be that picky.

Edit - The article makes Okkef's point, I just missed it.

ceejayoz 2 hours ago

The article says otherwise.

> Fragments from different species and even different animals of the same species did not fuse together, and so did not nurse the bleached piece back to health.

kulahan 2 hours ago

Sounds like a solution is still well within our reach. Normally I wouldn’t suggest something as extreme as using cloning techniques to restore wild creatures, but of course it was extreme actions that got us here in the first place, so I think this balances it out.

deadbabe 2 hours ago

We don’t use cloning enough IMO.

linuskendall 2 hours ago

We use cloning plenty - most fruits we eat are clones, and it has some drawbacks (see Cavendish bananas).

fosterfriends 3 hours ago

Some good news :) anything to bring back coral reefs

0c3ca83 an hour ago

Anything but reducing the amount of fossil fuels we burn.

kylehotchkiss 2 hours ago

My first thought when reading the headline... horizontal gene transfer?

irq-1 30 minutes ago

> My first thought when reading the headline...

Conways game of life.

asjkff 3 hours ago

Could this also, have anything to do with, Nikola Tesla's resonance theory on dark matter and consciousness, in play in living matter?

More intelligent individuals should look more into this field.

tcdent 3 hours ago

I'm all about the concepts you're presenting, but care to elaborate on how you think the corals relate?

asjkff 3 hours ago

Disclaimer: I am still finding my way in life, so take this theory with a grain of salt.

New age movement, claim everything on earth is actually a hologram of the universe, experiencing itself.

So perhaps, just being in close proximity with another coral, the hologram frequency was now more in tuned.

hmokiguess 3 hours ago

Why would the frequency of the healthy one win over the frequency of the non-healthy one though? I assume both would have their own frequencies, are you implying there's an order or tendency across frequencies?

asjkff 2 hours ago

Same reason, stem cells repair damage body cells, I guess.

I am just glad coral can repair themselves.

Thumbs up to the researcher.

hmokiguess 2 hours ago

I am just trying to understand your ideas and riff on them

Cells are complex organisms and contain programming in their nature so we can more easily trace and understand its reasons

A frequency is something a lot more raw than a cell

asjkff 2 hours ago

I will repeat this for the last time. I am not an expert in the field.

"programming in their nature" means they have a range of frequency, like a radio? perharps.

Nevertheless, thumbs up to the researcher. Positive vibes.

willy_k 30 minutes ago

My interpretation is “Programming in their nature” -> their being, meaning the molecular structure that defines them, is a program, a complex program, one executed by the interpreter that is physics.

hmokiguess 29 minutes ago

I'm not quite following your defensive style of writing. What's up with that?

Do you believe only experts can contribute to discussions and ideas? Are you afraid of sounding "dumb"?

No question/idea is stupid and it's okay to be wrong or to learn something by putting yourself out there!

rbn3 2 hours ago

Since you mentioned you’re still finding your way in life: please be aware that the appeal of a lot of new age and „woo“ is that the act of noticing a pattern in nature, that feeling of „aaah NOW it makes sense“ is inherently pleasant and can become something you chase like a drug. These frameworks or schools of thought can provide a steady source of that feeling without necessarily being tethered to reality at all. Kind of like acid - very fun at times but catastrophic if you make it a core part of your identity.

hmokiguess 27 minutes ago

Well said, I have found myself in this place before in life and it can be quite dangerous

willy_k 37 minutes ago

You might be interested in Catholic theology + philosophy. It takes a LOT of background, and a lot of time to accumulate it, but you clearly have some already, and once you get comfortable with reframing terms that have a lot of societal baggage attached to simpler, honest understandings (for example, God, as a sky dude vs the universe as a mind), you can go so far.

aappleby 2 hours ago

No. Tesla's resonance theory has nothing to do with dark matter, consciousness, or living matter.

patmorgan23 2 hours ago

No that's ridiculous woo woo. It's just that some of the symbiotic algae from the healthy coral transfer over to feed and revive the sick coral.