How a Microbe in Humans Is Killing Coral

Usually infectious disease is a one-way street—and human beings are at the end. New viruses begin in wild animals—like monkeys or chickens—before they mutate and cross over to human beings. HIV, West Nile, SARS, H5N1, H1N1—just about every new infectious disease over the past several decades had its start in animals before infecting people. “We’re [...]

Oceans: Coral Reefs Facing a Triple Threat

I was traveling yesterday, speaking on a panel about electric cars at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, so I didn’t get a chance to cover yesterday’s news closely. But I wanted to note an alarming report published by the World Resources Institute (WRI) on the risks facing coral reefs. The short version: coral reefs are in [...]

What Australia’s Floods Mean for the Great Barrier Reef

As New York shovels out of the snow and LA digs out of the mud, Australians are facing their own onslaught of extreme weather. The worst floods in half a century have hit the central and southern parts of Queensland, forcing at least 1000 residents to evacuate their homes with warnings that the worst may [...]

Oceans: Swimming Among the Sargassum

Our trip’s timing to Bermuda this week couldn’t have been much more fortuitous. We arrived just as Hurricane Danielle was running out of steam after whipping Bermuda with high waves, and Hurricane Earle to the east is likely to make conditions rough by the end of the week. But right now, as we depart on [...]

Oceans: Saving Our Coral Reefs

Over on the Time.com mainpage, I have a piece on the worrying bleaching events ocurring to coral reefs around the world, thanks largely to warming ocean temperatures. Though the sudden bleachings we’re seeing in places like Indonesia immediately have to do with unusually warm water temperatures caused in part by this year’s El Nino, climate [...]