News at a glance: Global coral bleaching, preventing ship strikes on whales, and detecting prostate cancer

CLIMATE SCIENCE Hot oceans prompt world’s worst coral bleaching Coral reefs are on track for unprecedented damage from oceans that overheated during the past year, prompting government scientists to declare a global bleaching event for the fourth time in the past 25 years. At least 54% of the world’s reefs, in 53 countries, have been hit by bleaching since 2023, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Coral Reef Initiative announced on 15 April. Bleaching occurs when overheated coral polyps expel the symbiotic algae living inside them; it leaves coral weakened and vulnerable to other stresses and can cause the polyps to starve to death. Scientists expect the extent of the bleaching to surpass that of the worst previous bleaching event, which lasted from 2014 to 2017. The record high ocean temperatures are due to a combination of global climate change and El Niño, a cyclical phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean expected to wane this year. CONSERVATION Tracking ships to save whales A public website built by scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara this month began tracking the speeds of more than 8000 large ships as they traverse the east and west coasts of North America, passing through go-slow zones created by U.S. and Canadian regulators to protect whales from being struck. The website, called Whale Safe North America, relies on data from tracking syst...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news