Coral cause

Together in it

an abnormal increase in temperatures around Florida Keys during the summer of 2005 led to Katrinaone of the worst hurricanes in US history. Humans left the coast for shelter further inland. The algae coexisting comfortably with the coral reefs fled the unusually warm waters, too, and 90 per cent of the reefs lost their colour. The algae were their source of food, oxygen and colour.

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health The Wnt pathway

Coral tradition loses shape

Disease, bleaching events killed corals in the Caribbean caribbean coral reefs have lost their complex structure and flattened over the past 40 years said a study by University of East Anglia in the UK. The marine population and fishing industry that depend on them feel the impact of this change the most. The

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environmental sciences Foster care

According to report

More midwives needed: An additional 350,000 midwives are needed to ensure 95 per cent of the 160 million births the world over in a year are attended by trained health workers. As per the International Confederation of Midwives and WHO, maternal mortality is the "highest health inequity in the world with more than 99 per cent deaths occurring in the developing world". There are 250,000 licensed midwives worldwide.

Algal bloom threatens coral reef

Tamil Nadu forest department plans to weed out algae manually A RED alga grown commercially for its starch extract in the Gulf of Mannar, off Tamil Nadu, is said to be choking the coral reef in the protected area.

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health sciences Mussels in surgery

According to report

Action delayed: Even a 2oC rise above the pre-industrial levels would lead to 20-40 per cent of the Amazon dying within 100 years, said climate change experts from the UK. The study will appear in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Fish eat weed, save corals

CORAL reefs are a major part of the coastal economy. Fishermen harvest corals for ornamental trade. But, reefs are at risk and there is very little data on what factors put them in the high-risk category. Listing some of the possibilities, Naveen Namboodiri, post-doctoral fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment in Bangalore, said, "Pollution is the biggest threat followed by coral mining and overfishing."