Genetic Rescue Efforts Could Help Coral Shrug Off Warmer Oceans

The Washington Post reports that research published last week in the journal Science indicates that coral reefs may be less vulnerable to ocean temperature changes than has been widely believed, especially given human intervention. A slice: Some corals already have the genes needed to adapt to higher ocean temperatures, and researchers expect those genes will naturally migrate and mix with corals under stress over time ... And that process could potentially be sped up artificially. ... Giving coral evolution a boost isn't an entirely new concept. Some scientists have already suggested genetically modifying corals through artificial breeding, or doing the same for the tiny microbes that live inside corals and are essential to reef growth.

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Re: Coral dies all the time

[Namarrgon]

The 98 percent consensus for example arrived at that number by collecting a big sample of published papers and citing any paper that referenced climate change as the author supporting the most extreme predictions of climate change.
This included papers that argued against climate change.

That is completely untrue, nor would that sort of obvious crap ever get past peer review. There have been 6 or 7 papers on the consensus among climatologists that did pass peer review, and all arrived at similar numbers using different methodology; I suggest you read a few for yourself, and don't just accept other people's versions.

You're right that a lot of the reporting is highly charged one way or the other, and its difficult to get a clear picture of the facts. But published, peer-reviewed papers are still the most accurate and least biased source of information we have. All our best information in every field still comes through the peer review process; all else is speculation at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.

Don't trust *any* reporting on the matter unless it provides links to published sources, and be sure to *always* at least read the linked papers' abstracts and conclusions to get as close as a layman can to the original data. I've seen blogs link to papers that stated the exact opposite of the blog author's conclusions.