It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
This star-studded image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9 in the constellation Sagittarius, toward the center of the Milky Way. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this glittering scene using its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Globular clusters are stable, tightly bound groups of tens of thousands to millions of stars. As this image demonstrates, the hearts of globular clusters are densely packed with stars. Terzan 9 is dotted with so many glittering stars that it resembles a sea of sequins, or a vast treasure chest crammed with gold.
This starry snapshot is from a Hubble program investigating globular clusters located toward the heart of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way's central region holds a tightly packed group of stars known as the galactic bulge, which is rich in interstellar dust. This dust makes globular clusters near the galaxy's center difficult to study, as it absorbs starlight and can even change the apparent colors of stars in these clusters. Hubble's sensitivity at both visible and infrared wavelengths allows astronomers to measure how star colors change due to interstellar dust. Knowing a star's true color and brightness allows astronomers to estimate its age, and thereby estimate the globular cluster's age.
Distilling liquor might be a relatively simple process—heating a fermented liquid and keeping only the boiled alcohol—but it is dangerous and illegal without a license.
To extract only alcohol from a mixture of many ingredients, scientists must explore boiling points and the intermolecular forces that shape them:
Gun violence policy is focusing on mental health but Federal records still lack some states
by Nick Penzenstadler
Credit: CC0 Public Domain/Pixabay
Federal officials say the FBI's database of people prohibited from purchasing firearms only works if it has "complete, accurate and timely information."
Mental health records are a key prong in the system. But three states—New Hampshire, Montana and Wyoming—still refuse to submit them.
As U.S. Senators iron out gun reform initiatives, many Republicans like Sen. John Cornyn of Texas have repeatedly pointed to legislation that stops people with criminal records or mental health challenges from obtaining firearms.
Cornyn backed a 2018 bill that sought to shore up the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, in the wake of a Texas church shooting that left 27 dead. The fatalities included the gunman, an Air Force airman, whose criminal records that would have barred him from purchasing guns had not been submitted to NICS.
"For years, agencies and states haven't complied with the law, failing to upload these critical records without consequence," Cornyn said while celebrating the "Fix NICS" solutions that pushed for faster and more accurate submissions. "Just one record that's not properly reported can lead to tragedy."
President Donald Trump signed that bill, which has pumped $615 million into states to close loopholes and shore up reporting into the FBI's system.
States have made significant progress reporting into the database of 26 million records, including for 6.9 million people found by a judge to be mentally ill.
Without state laws mandating participation, Montana and Wyoming have submitted 36 and 17 mental health records respectively. New Hampshire has submitted 657. By comparison, Hawaii—with about the same population as New Hampshire—has submitted nearly 10,000 mental health records.
Records from the three states' government-run mental health facilities show that many hundreds more people have been involuntarily committed—all of whom should have been submitted into NICS.
History of this program
The national background check system was established as part of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Gun stores, pawn shops and others licensed dealers nationwide must use it when someone wants to purchase a firearm.
Prospective gun buyers must fill out a form from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives attesting to certain questions, then their name is run through the FBI system.
The FBI says more than 300 million checks have been made over time, leading to more than 2 million denials.
Holes in the mental health reporting system gained attention in 2007 after a shooting at Virginia Tech left 32 dead. Two years earlier, a court had found the student shooter "an imminent danger to self or others" after he was accused of stalking two female classmates, resulting in temporary detention that should have disqualified him from purchasing firearms.
At the time, only about half of the states reported mental health records to NICS. By 2012, that number had shrunk to about 19 states that reported fewer than 100 records and by 2014 it fell to eight. In 2016, it fell to four until Alaska increased its reporting.
"We know that a background check is only as good as the records it contains, so efforts to improve reporting of records into NICS are critical for public safety," said Kelly Drane, research director with Giffords Law Center, a gun violence prevention group. "Research has shown that as states improve reporting of prohibiting mental health events into the background check system, we see a reduced risk of violent crime arrest for individuals that are prohibited."
The "Fix NICS" law written by Cornyn and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy was dubbed a "baby step" by gun control advocates, but won the support of both large gun lobbies, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation continues to lobby in New Hampshire, Montana and Wyoming to tighten up the reporting.
"We are committed to ensuring the background check system reflects the most accurate data available," said Mark Oliva, the foundation's spokesman.
Strange bedfellows continue
Efforts to broaden background checks to be "universal"—applying to private sales—have failed to pass at both state and federal levels. But gun rights lobbyists and gun safety groups both have coalesced around strengthening NICS.
Opposition to doing so has created some "strange bedfellows," said Susan Stearns, executive director of the New Hampshire branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Stearns' group opposed a measure in 2017 to report mental illness to NICS, largely because it did not include a way to get off the list.
The alliance's "position has always been: If they're a danger to themselves or others, they should be prevented from accessing lethal means, period," Stearns said. "But you shouldn't lose Constitutional rights for your lifetime."
Stearns said people in a mental health crisis often recover yet could be permanently prevented from participating in shooting sports and hunting.
New Hampshire officials submit court records for anyone deemed incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity, but not those who are involuntarily committed to a health facility.
The alliance was lukewarm about a bill by former Democratic state Sen. Margie MacDonald in Montana, too, even though her bill included a pathway to be removed from the list after five years.
MacDonald tried in 2014 and again in 2019 to pass a bill requiring that the records be submitted. Ultimately, she said Republican opposition fueled by hardline gun rights groups in the state sunk her effort.
"It's disheartening, dismaying and very dangerous," she said.
MacDonald hosted a Virginia Tech victim's father for a 2014 hearing in Helena, Montana. The mother of a woman killed in 2008 by a man who purchased a firearm just days after being involuntarily committed to a mental hospital testified as well. He had lied on the ATF's form, answering "no" to whether he had ever been found to be mentally ill.
Lying on the form can prompt fines and up to 10 years in prison.
Data released to the Washington Post from the Department of Justice shows that cases tied to lying on the form are exceedingly rare: 243 in the fiscal year 2020, out of millions of checks.
In Wyoming, former Rep. Sara Burlingame, D-Cheyenne, sponsored an effort in 2019 to mandate NICS mental health reporting that also failed. She said she faced "top-notch misinformation testimony" from groups like the Wyoming Gun Owners backed by the Dorr Brothers.
Burlingame said Wyoming's ranking as the worst place for suicides per capita is reason enough to keep firearms away from people in crisis.
"This is tied to older white men, isolated and having access to firearms," Burlingame said. "If that doesn't inspire people to create a culture that preserves our cultural right to firearms and moral obligations, I don't know what will.
As Australia continues to take on refugees from Ukraine, education experts are calling for essential supports as new research from the University of South Australia shows that rural and regional schools can be under-resourced and ill-prepared to support refugee children and their families.
In a review published in the International Journal of Inclusive Education, UniSA researcher Jennifer Brown found that rural schools are key sites of support for refugee students and their families, but too often operate in racialized communities that are unfamiliar with diverse student needs.
She says Australia's policy of settling refugees into rural areas must be accompanied with thoughtful, timely, and relevant access to professional learning for staff.
"In Australia and around the world, refugee resettlement policy favors a 'dispersal' approach, where refugees are settled into rural and regional locations as a means of extending populations from metropolitan centers and rejuvenating rural locations," Brown says.
"Rural schools are on the front line of resettling refugees, yet many schools feel under-supported and uncertain about how best to help. So, while current policies are dispersing refugees across rural areas, they're not accounting for, nor proving appropriate support to schools, services, and communities.
"Consequently, refugee children and families are not receiving appropriate help or support. Worse still, many face racialized attitudes from within the community, views that are often mirrored in schools."
Brown's study is located within a broader Australian Research Council Linkage Project examining how schools foster refugee student resilience. Under the leadership of UniSA researchers including refugee education expert Dr. Melanie Baak, the project examines the schooling policies, structures and practices that will enable resilience and success for refugee students.
Dr. Baak, says that to create change, policymakers must better understand the nuances of regional and rural communities and help them welcome refugees.
"Understanding the unique needs and strengths of refugee-background students and their families is central to enabling schools to support these new populations," Dr. Baak says.
"Unless communities are properly educated and aware of the benefits of diversity and the plight of refugees, we will continue to deliver sub-optimal services.
"Appropriate resourcing for rural schools is a starting point, but training and opportunities for intercultural learning and engagement must also occur within communities if we are really to deliver change."Motivating public engagement for at risk groups: The case of refugees
More information: Jennifer L. Brown, Educating in the context of 'Dispersal': rural schools and refugee-background students, International Journal of Inclusive Education (2022). DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2022.2041112
The concern that media access may be harmful to children and adolescents has been a topic of public debate since long before the existence of the smartphone.
This debate has picked up pace with the increased use of digital technology. The researcher Jean Twenge, for example, wrote a book in 2014 that would become very influential, in which she argued that smartphones contribute toward lowering the quality of life of adolescents.
A new study published in New Media & Society indicates that this is incorrect.
"We actually find the opposite, that is to say a positive correlation between the self-reported quality of life of adolescents and the amount of time they spend online," says Niamh NÃ Bhroin, Media Researcher at the University of Oslo.
Together with Elisabeth Staksrud, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Oslo, NÃ Bhroin participates in the European research project "Youth Skills."
The objective of the project is to facilitate a conversation between researchers and decision-makers about so-called digital exclusion and how this is linked to vulnerability and digital skills. One key question relates to what the concept of good digital skills encompasses.
Happy young internet users
The basis for this new study is that Norwegian children and adolescents spend the most time online in all of Europe, while also scoring the highest when reporting how happy they are with life. This is one of the conclusions from the study EU Kids online in 2018.
In the new analysis, published in the journal New Media & Society, NÃ Bhroin and her colleagues take a closer look at how time online is linked to how children and adolescents feel.
They look at both how time online influences self-reported quality of life, and the factors that affect the relationship between the two. This includes what children spend time doing online, including social media and games, but also social factors such as family, school and socioeconomic status.
The researchers have adjusted for factors such as age and gender. They then investigate how these different factors can influence how happy children are with life in the context of how much time they spend online. Researchers have only done this to a limited extent in the past.
Family and school more important than the number of hours
1,001 children and adolescents between the ages of 9 and 16 were interviewed.
The results indicate that family circumstances, for example whether there are strict rules about screen time or whether time is spent facilitating and discussing how children use digital media, influence quality of life.
"Our findings indicate that for children with a supportive family and school environment, a high number of screen hours is a positive rather than a negative thing when it comes to a good quality of life," says NÃ Bhroin.
'Screen time' has become a catch-all term
So how is it that the contentious screen time is not as harmful to children and adolescents as many feared?
"We think this is because 'screen time' is often used as a catch-all term for everything children and adolescents do online. Since the use of digital media is so integrated into the everyday lives of children and adolescents, the term now covers a lot," NÃ Bhroin notes and elaborates:
"Digital tools are used to communicate with friends and family, for entertainment and for education. It is likely that too much focus on the negatives and possible risks, rather than harmful effects, help dampen the focus on the real extent of the positive day-to-day experiences children and adolescents generally have online."
According to the researchers, this means that it is time to take a broader look at the vulnerabilities of children and adolescents when it comes to online use.
What makes children and adolescents vulnerable online?
"We know from previous research that the degree of media influences in various situations is linked to several other factors, such as personality, attitudes, social circumstances and cognitive and emotional development," says Elisabeth Staksrud.
"This means that people can react differently to the same content."
She believes that there are reasons to think that this also applies to online use. One of the goals of the Youth Skills project is to identify what makes you vulnerable online and what skills can help reduce such vulnerability.
"If you have negative experiences online, for example in connection with unwanted sexual communication, this could contribute to lowering your quality of life," she explains.
"But there might be ways in which this can be managed in order to reduce the risk of harm. We therefore need to learn more about such mechanisms."
Who is most susceptible to experiences like these and how can they become less vulnerable have now become essential research questions.
Broader understanding of digital skills
"One of the things we are hoping for is to learn more about how children and adolescents understand and develop digital skills," Staksrud says.
"But this will likely involve broadening the way in which we understand digital skills," she adds.
"No complete agreement exists about what digital skills are, but it is often understood as technical skills. As researchers, we need to ask critical questions about this. We are therefore investigating this phenomenon in a broad sense, and perhaps we will find that it also covers completely different things, such as social skills and mental resilience."Children's mental health and the digital world: How to get the balance right
More information:Tijana Milosevic et al, Time spent online and children's self-reported life satisfaction in Norway: The socio-ecological perspective,New Media & Society(2022).DOI: 10.1177/14614448221082651
Whitby, North Yorkshire, U.K. Credit: David Hawkes/Unsplash
A new Charitable Journalism Project report—Local News Deserts in the UK—examines the effects of the collapse of local news through the eyes of people in seven places across Britain.
Lead researcher Dr. Steven Barclay, from City, University of London's Department of Journalism, shows that years of economic instability, corporate acquisitions and hollowing out of newsrooms have weakened social cohesion and local accountability.
Democratic participation and access to justice have suffered.
The report's six main findings are:
Social media are now the dominant channels of local news and information
Social media can cause local division and be a source of misinformation
Local newspapers are no longer perceived as "community glue"
There is a lack of knowledge of local affairs that is linked to a dearth of local reporting
There is evidence of democratic disenchantment and apathy
The report, co-authored with Professor Steven Barnett, Dr. Martin Moore and Dr. Judith Townend, gives concrete examples of several shocking issues affecting democracy:
Local newspapers no longer act as "community glue." That has meant a drop in social cohesion and the lack of reliable information has driven an uptick in distrust among communities [Sections 2, 3 and 5]
National institutions and local public services—including the NHS, police, education and the environment—were thought to be both under-reported and misrepresented [Section 4]
There was widespread lack of awareness among respondents about how the NHS is organized locally, and it was reported that key services such as the NHS was "reluctant" to be scrutinized [pp. 16–17]
Digital poverty and poor new-media literacy drives vulnerability to misinformation for those in poverty, disabled people and the elderly [Section 2]
The average size of a police force communications team regionally is 20, often rivaling or outweighing the number of active journalists in a region [p. 17]
The BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporter scheme helps but positions are poorly paid and, even in the highly competitive journalism job market, one LDR position (in Northamptonshire) had been open for more than a year [p. 16]
Overwhelmingly, respondents wanted a rejuvenation of trustworthy, democracy-supporting local news [Section 6].
The report launch took place at the House of Commons on 15 June 2022 (chaired by Baroness Bonham Carter, with an invited audience of journalists and interested parties), with a news report subsequently appearing in The Guardian.
Dr. Barclay told the newspaper that a frequent complaint in "news deserts" was that local journalists on mainstream outlets no longer based themselves in the beat they covered.
He gave the example of the Whitby Gazette, which used to have a strong presence in the Yorkshire seaside town [pictured] but has now closed its office there.
He said: "Whitby was a really classic example of a newspaper that was very widely read within the town and was part of its identity. People identified with the Gazette—they said they knew the editor of the Gazette and drank with him in the pub."
Dr. Barclay noted that numerous people interviewed for the study were acutely aware of—and saddened by—the demise or decline of local news outlets.
"What I found in my research is people wanted a trusted source of local news and information that's both professional and authentically local," he said.
"People don't necessarily want their local news to be big stories—they want scrutiny of local government but they also want stories about the local fete and the primary school reopened and make them feel happy about the place where they live."Problem of local news deserts is widespread, study finds
Arizona wildfire near Kitt Peak observatory 40% contained
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
A lightning-caused wildfire that led to an evacuation of the Kitt PeakNational Observatory southwest of Tucson is 40% contained, authorities said.
More than 300 firefighters were working the wildfire Saturday. If all goes as planned, authorities said the blaze could be fully contained by next Sunday.
The wind-whipped fire started June 11 on a remote ridge on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) southeast of Kitt Peak.
It had grown to 27.5 square miles (71 square kilometers) before rain fell on the area Saturday. The fire was about 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) by Sunday.
Flames had reached Kitt Peak by Thursday, and officials evacuated a small community north of the mountain.
Four non-scientific buildings on the west side of the observatory property—a house, a dorm, and two minor outbuildings—were destroyed. But authorities said early indications show the fire didn't damage the telescope.
Structure protection crews have successfully placed defensible lines around all remaining structures at Kitt Peak, according to firefighters.
The University of Arizona, which has had a telescope at the site since 1962, is a tenant of the observatory.
In northern New Mexico, authorities who are concerned about the threat of post-wildfire floods as the state enters monsoon season have warned residents of San Miguel and Mora counties to be ready to evacuate due to flooding risks, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
The largest area facing flooding threats is where a fire that began two months ago has so far burned 533 square miles (1,381 square kilometers). The fire is 72% contained.
4 buildings at observatory in Arizona lost in wildfire
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Four non-scientific buildings at the Kitt Peak National Observatory southwest of Tucson were lost in a wildfire, but early indications show other buildings on the property didn't appear to be damaged, authorities said Saturday.
Buell T. Jannuzi, who leads the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, said the fire didn't appear to have damaged the telescope and science buildings at the observatory, though a closer examination of the site hadn't yet been made due to safety concerns.
"This is the most threatening fire I can remember at Kitt Peak in the last 25 years," Jannuzi said.
The fire reached the observatory early Friday. Crews were planning to assess the damage at the observatory later Saturday if conditions allowed for safe entry into the area.
Kitt Peak National Observatory is operated by NOIRLab, the National Science Foundation's center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy. The University of Arizona, which has had a telescope at the site since 1962, is a tenant of the observatory.
The lightning-caused fire, which led to an evacuation of the observatory earlier this week, had grown to 27 square miles (71 kilometers) by Saturday. There was zero containment of the fire, which started on June 11 on a remote ridge on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation.
In northern New Mexico, authorities who are concerned about the threat of post-wildfire floods as the state enters monsoon season have warned residents of San Miguel and Mora counties to be ready to evacuate due to flooding risks, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
The largest area facing flooding threats is where a fire that began two months ago has so far burned 533 square miles (1,381 square kilometers). The fire is 72% contained.
Mountain lion P-54 is killed by vehicle four years after her mother died on the same road
by Christian Martinez
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
A mountain lion was struck and killed by a vehicle Friday in the Santa Monica Mountains, not far from where her mother was killed in a 2018 crash, the National Park Service said.
P-54, born in 2017, was struck around 9:30 a.m. on Las Virgenes Road between Piuma Road and Mulholland Highway, becoming "the latest grim statistic for regional mountain lions," the park service said in an Instagram post.
The lion will be taken to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Lab in San Bernardino for a full necropsy.
She is the 29th mountain lion killed by a vehicle since 2002 in the park service's cougar study area—which includes the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills, Griffith Park and the Santa Susana and Verdugo mountains—including 10 lions that had been collared and tracked by parks officials.
Underscoring the ever-present danger mountain lions face trying to cross roads and freeways in the area, P-54's mother was killed on the same road in January 2018, and her son was killed on the 405 Freeway just two months ago.
Her mother, P-23, was found dead farther south from where P-54 was killed, where Las Virgenes Road becomes Malibu Canyon Road.
At the time, P-54 was a year old and "at the early end of when kittens typically leave their mother," the park service said. P-23 was 5 1/2 years old when she was killed.
P-97, one of P-54's five offspring born in 2020, was struck and killed on the 405 Freeway near the Getty Center in April.
"He was 18 months old and had recently dispersed from his mother, P-54," the park service said.
In May 2020, P-54 gave birth to a litter of three kittens, which researchers believe did not survive. She gave birth to P-97 and P-98 in October 2020.
P-97 was struck and killed a day before work began on a wildlife bridge over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills aimed at encouraging safe crossings for mountain lions and other wildlife that are genetically isolated by the freeway.
The bridge, funded by $87 million in donations, is expected to be completed in 2025.
L.A.'s mountain lions have been confined to small territories by the region's roads and freeways, leading to the lowest genetic diversity documented for the species aside from the critically endangered Florida panther.
Because of the resulting inbreeding, vehicle deaths, urban encroachment and other threats, there is an almost 1 in 4 chance the cats could become extinct in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana mountains within 50 years, according to some recent studies.
Ortho-mosaic on 28 August 2021 (left panel), hillshade generated from the DEM on 28 August 2021 (middle panel), and changes in elevation between 24 June and 28 August 2021 (right panel). Glacier ablation was monitored using ablation stakes (S1–S3). Credit: Wang Feiteng
Glaciers are experiencing fast and significant changes under global warming. Glacier shrinkage significantly impacts global sea level, regional water cycles, ecosystems, and natural hazards.
Many studies have considered glacier changes and the mechanisms driving such changes. However, few studies have focused on mitigating glacier ablation.
Recently, a research team from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted the evaluation of glacier cover efficiency for melt reduction on the Urumqi Glacier No. 1, Tien Shan, China.
Their results were published in Remote Sensing.
By combining two high-resolution digital elevation models derived from terrestrial laser scanning and unmanned aerial vehicles, albedo, and meteorological data, the researchers quantified the glacier ablation mitigation under three different cover materials.
The results showed that material-covered areas could slow down glacier melting by approximately 29–56% compared with uncovered areas. The researchers also found that the nanofiber material showed higher efficiency (56%) than the geotextiles used in the experiment.
The method of artificial reduction of glacial ice melt provides a scientific and practical basis for decision-making on mitigating and adapting to climate change.
More information:Shuangshuang Liu et al, Quantifying the Artificial Reduction of Glacial Ice Melt in a Mountain Glacier (Urumqi Glacier No. 1, Tien Shan, China),Remote Sensing(2022).DOI: 10.3390/rs14122802
Populations of Pocillopora aliciae are thriving in coastal Sydney. Credit: John Sear
Worsening environmental pressures, such as higher sea temperatures, are causing the catastrophic loss of coral cover around the globe. As the waters of the Great Barrier Reef warm, subtropical corals are heading south in search of cooler waters.
Sydney has recently become home to a new subtropical coral, which raises a significant question: could Sydney be a refuge for corals displaced by climate change?
The answer, say coral reef researchers at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), is yes … but.
A new study, published in Coral Reefs, analyzed the metabolism of these new corals under existing and future warming scenarios and found the invading subtropical corals will survive and thrive in coastal Sydney.
Study leader Dr. Jen Matthews, of the Future Reefs Program at UTS, says warming could spell trouble for existing Sydney coral species.
"While we found these corals possess the machinery to withstand large changes in temperature, those temperatures could kill the existing corals in Sydney. This is incredibly important when we consider the future of Sydney's precious ecosystems," Dr. Matthews says.
"Coastal Sydney falls in the temperate climate zone, so the establishment of subtropical coral populations raises some interesting questions, such as how can they survive at the edge of existence? We are continuing to examine how corals can live and breed in temperate, or suboptimal, environments, and how we might use this knowledge to help us to protect Australia's reefs into the future.
"The ecological services and economic revenue of the Sydney marine environment make it a very valuable ecosystem but it is under continuous threat from climate change and urbanization, causing increased stormwater inflows and habitat modification."
However, co-investigator Dr. Brigitte Sommer (UTS) says there may be exciting upsides—increasing the biodiversity and complexity of Sydney's marine ecosystems could bring benefits in terms of refuge for reef fish, coral crabs and potentially other coral species.
More information:Raúl A. González-Pech et al, Physiological factors facilitating the persistence of Pocillopora aliciae and Plesiastrea versipora in temperate reefs of south-eastern Australia under ocean warming,Coral Reefs(2022).DOI: 10.1007/s00338-022-02277-0
As staghorn coral declines along Florida coast, planting project tests restoration plan
by Olivia Lloyd
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Just 150 fragments of staghorn coral planted off Florida's shore might give new hope to the state's endangered reefs.
A boat carrying those fragments set off Tuesday afternoon in Jupiter, marking the beginning of a study on the temperature tolerance of coral on Florida's northern reef tract.
"This is the farthest north that this species has been out-planted," said Shelby Thomas, the founder and CEO of the Ocean Rescue Alliance. "This will really help give us more insight in the future if it's a suitable site to expand doing coral restoration efforts in Florida, and seeing if the species can survive further north."
The Ocean Rescue Alliance is a nonprofit marine conservation and restoration organization that works in coral restoration and the creation of artificial reefs. It operates as far south as the Keys and now as far north as Jupiter.
They are working with the University of Miami to conduct research on the coral's tolerance to warmer water. The team will be monitoring the coral and collecting tissue samples on a monthly basis. They are also working with Palm Beach County and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission in the planting effort.
Rob Bremer, a masters student at the University of Miami, is working on this project with the Ocean Rescue Alliance. He said the deterioration of the coral off the coast of Florida makes these kinds of studies necessary.
"We lose a lot of corals every year, and the rates of reproduction are dropping as well, which is a pretty scary sign," Bremer said. "So between that and SCTLD [stony coral tissue loss disease] killing a ton of corals a year … it's not looking really good for corals both in Florida and kind of worldwide."
According to research published by the University of Florida, climate change, human stressors and stony coral tissue loss disease have greatly reduced the staghorn coral's presence in southeast Florida. A 2020 study found that staghorn coral populations have declined over 90% since the 1970s. As staghorn coral falters in its usual habitat range of the Caribbean and southeast Florida, Bremer and Thomas are testing how well it can survive at the edge of its northernmost range.
"This project has a lot of potential to prove that corals can expand outside of their natural habitats or habitat ranges," Bremer said. "If these corals survive and continue to prosper as they have, I think that assisted migration northwards...could be very much incorporated into our restoration focuses."
The Ocean Rescue Alliance also plants artificial reefs through its 1000 Mermaids Project, which aims to eventually place 1,000 artificial reefs in Florida waters in the form of mermaid sculptures. Thomas calls this project "eco art," creating habitat for marine life and a spot for fishers and divers. Currently the team's largest artificial reef consists of 35 mermaid structures off West Palm Beach.
"We can actually make a sculpture of any person or logo and make them into an artificial reef that creates fish habitat and can help create structure on the seafloor," Thomas said. "All of our sculptures still have a habitat component, so they're not just sculptures that don't add any value to the environment."
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, artificial reefs can have a positive ecological impact when done right. They can divert human traffic from natural reefs and provide shelter for fish and other species that need a physical habitat. However, they could potentially provide a habitat for invasive species or damage natural habitats.
"Typically, I am an advocate for artificial reefs," Bremer said. "I think that one of the biggest things they can do is raise awareness for actual reefs, and for just natural beauty. They can also pull a lot of diving pressure off of natural reefs."
This July, the Ocean Rescue Alliance plans to plant 30,000 corals near Hollywood.
"That's really going to lead way to a whole other variety of coral restoration research and community engagement," Thomas said. "So we're really looking forward to expanding our initiatives and public engagement as well."
Bremer agreed that public engagement may become increasingly important in conservation efforts.
"At the end of the day, we're probably never going to be able to do enough as scientists to completely turn the tide against global warming and other anthropogenic factors," he said. "So I think that we as a scientific community also need to become maybe more well-rounded than we're typically used to and work on engaging the public and getting our voices heard throughout policies as well."
2022 South Florida Sun Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
