Whitney Isenhower looks at how researchers are turning to heat-tolerant corals to help save declining coral reefs amid the climate crisis.

A version of this article was originally published by The Conversation (CC BY-ND 4.0)

Austin Bowden-Kerby, a pioneer in coral reef conservation, spends many of his days gardening corals for reefs around Fiji and the Pacific. He grows corals in ocean nurseries. Once they’re healthy enough, he moves them to outer ocean areas with the hope they will replicate and grow.

“We’re looking at what Mother Nature would do on her own if she had 1,000 years to adapt,” said Bowden-Kerby, who founded the UNESCO-endorsed Reefs of Hope strategy. “We would have these kinds of things happening.”

Bowden-Kerby is one of several scientists trying to conserve, replicate and reproduce heat-resistant corals before climate change wipes them out.

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said the world is experiencing a fourth global coral bleaching event. They’ve found that bleaching-level heat stress affected almost 85pc of the world’s coral reef area between 2023 and 2025.

Bleaching causes corals to lose their food source and, with it, their colour. Most corals survive in temperatures between 20 and 29C. But as ocean temperatures rise, it’s difficult for many to thrive.

But naturally occurring, heat-resistant corals can survive in waters up to 36C and potentially higher. They are usually found in warmer waters, like parts of the Pacific Ocean and the Persian Gulf. These corals are increasingly important as sea temperatures rise. So scientists are turning to them to help save declining reefs.

Heat-resistant corals

Corals reefs are extremely diverse places, with around 6,000 coral species worldwide. Reefs are home to more than 4,000 species and 25pc of global marine life. When healthy, corals nurture fish that feed communities, protect shores from floods and storms and boost economies through tourism.

However, heatwaves have led to widespread coral bleaching and loss. When waters become too warm, corals expel the algae in their tissues that give them their colour. That causes corals to turn completely white.

Coral reefs and their ecosystems are also threatened by pollution, ocean acidification, coastal development and overfishing.

Christopher Cornwall, a lecturer in marine biology at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, co-authored a recent review that found some reefs can survive if corals become more heat-tolerant.

He told me there are multiple things to consider when conserving and replicating corals: restoring heat-resistant corals where it’s feasible, doing so at a large enough scale and maintaining coral diversity. Restored corals also must be able to survive, he added.

“We can’t just do coral restoration without thermally tolerant corals, because they’re just going to die the next time it gets too hot,” Cornwall said.

Assisted evolution

“A lot of the research now is about, can you scale up restoration and how do you do it more effectively?” said Peter Mumby, a professor of coral reef ecology at the University of Queensland in Australia. “One of the key concerns is to make sure those corals are as tolerant of high temperature as possible.”

Breeding heat-tolerant corals is a form of assisted evolution. Humans intervene to speed up natural processes to help corals more quickly respond to and recover from their stressors, like heatwaves from climate change.

One recent study examining the possible success of assisted evolution interventions like breeding and selecting traits found these interventions can help corals become more tolerant to heatwaves, but they need “extremely strong selection”.

Liam Lachs co-authored that study. Lachs is a former postdoctoral research associate in the CoralAssist lab, a team of scientists led by James Guest at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Lachs specialises in coral reef ecosystems and researches coral in Palau, a Pacific island country where corals are surviving in warmer waters.

He told me variability within and among reefs and coral species must be considered when creating more heat-resistant coral, which makes replication complex. “Even within a single reef, there’s a range of tolerance levels,” he said.

Algae and bacteria

Researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have found that some algae (Durusdinium), which symbiotically live in corals and provide them with food in exchange for housing and protection, can boost corals’ heat tolerance.

Madeleine van Oppen is a senior principal research scientist at AIMS. She co-authored a recent review about potentially introducing beneficial bacteria into corals to improve their heat tolerance.

Scientists are also exploring whether heat-tolerant corals should be planted across oceans – from the Indo-Pacific region to the Caribbean – and not just in nearby waters.

Van Oppen said new ventures ultimately need more research, and the real test of success is if something done in a lab works in the wild. “Field testing, I’d say, is the next big thing,” she said. “Finding out whether these interventions can enhance tolerance at ecologically relevant scales. Is it stable over time?”

AIMS researchers also found that heat tolerance could be passed down by interbreeding wild colonies of the same coral species. Heat-resistant coral species include some pocillopora and acropora.

If left unchecked, the sustained global temperature is on target to rise more than 1.5C. Some evidence has shown that 70 to 90pc of tropical coral reefs could go extinct even if global warming is limited to 1.5C.

Prior to the fourth event, the Earth already experienced three mass coral bleaching events over the last few decades. An El Niño is expected this year, bringing with it hotter sea surface temperatures, much like in 2024.

For all the efforts by scientists to save coral reefs and ensure heat resilience, nothing will keep corals healthy more than lowering the global temperature. “The lower we can get our greenhouse gas emissions, the more chance there will be that reefs will exist in the future,” said Cornwall.

By Whitney Isenhower

Whitney Isenhower is a freelance journalist and communications consultant specializing in health, climate and science. Her work has appeared in Devex, Live Science and North Carolina Health News. Previously, she supported U.S. Agency for International Development projects until 2025. She also completed the fellowship in journalism and health impact through the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

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The two conglomerates are funding separate R&D centres focused on next-generation battery chemistries and advanced EV systems. The investment is a hedge: both groups currently buy critical battery components from Chinese suppliers and want options when Beijing tightens export rules again.

India’s two largest steel-and-everything-else conglomerates are putting close to $1bn behind a question that has become urgent for the country’s electric-vehicle industry: what happens when the Chinese suppliers stop picking up the phone?

Tata Group and JSW Group are separately funding research-and-development centres aimed at building in-house expertise in next-generation battery technologies and advanced EV systems, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plans. The combined commitment is just under $1bn.

Both companies are reasoning from the same exposure. India’s EV industry, including their own businesses, runs heavily on Chinese cells, materials and equipment.

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China’s tightening of export controls on graphite, lithium-processing equipment and battery-making machinery has, over the past year, made that exposure a board-level problem rather than a procurement one.

What each group is funding

Tata’s R&D effort sits inside Agratas, the group’s battery arm, which is already building a 20 GWh gigafactory in Sanand, Gujarat to supply Tata Motors. The new spend goes upstream of that: chemistry, cell design, and process know-how the group has historically licensed or sourced.

Agratas has previously partnered Tata Technologies to fast-track battery solutions for mobility and renewable energy storage; the new funding extends that work into materials and proprietary cell formats.

JSW Group’s track is different but rhymes. JSW Motors, the JV vehicle through which the conglomerate sells MG cars in India alongside SAIC, opened JNEXT, the JSW NextGen Technology Center, in Pune in February through a partnership with Tata Elxsi.

Neither company has confirmed the figures publicly. The Bloomberg sources put the combined investment at “nearly $1 billion”, with the funds spread across multi-year R&D programmes rather than capex on production lines.

The trigger is policy on the other side of the Himalayas. Late last year, executives and engineers from Reliance Industries fanned out across Wuxi looking to lock in roughly $1.1bn of equipment for a planned battery plant; Beijing’s tightening of export controls on key battery-making technology arrived shortly after. Hundreds of equipment shipments to India have been delayed or rerouted since.

Tata Motors itself has had to lean further on Chinese suppliers in the meantime. The Curvv.ev launched with cells from Octillion Power Systems, and the company struck a sourcing arrangement with Envision AESC for higher-density packs.

Each of those deals tightened the supply chain rather than diversifying it. Building a domestic chemistry programme is the obvious medium-term hedge.

JSW’s exposure is structural in a different way. The MG joint venture, of which Sajjan Jindal’s group owns 35%, sources around 60% of its components from China.

JSW has publicly aimed at a million new-energy vehicles by 2030 and a 10 GWh battery plant in partnership with LG Energy Solution.

The new R&D push is what would make those numbers achievable without renegotiating the SAIC stack every time Beijing changes its rules. The dependency picture is the same dependency Europe is grappling with, and it is now driving capital allocation in Mumbai and New Delhi as much as Berlin and Paris.

The competitive backdrop

Tata is no longer India’s runaway EV leader. Mahindra overtook it in EV revenue in the most recent fiscal year, even though Tata still leads on sales volume. JSW MG has doubled its market share in the past twelve months.

The two competing R&D commitments arrive against that shifting hierarchy: each group needs proprietary technology to defend its margins, not just match its rivals on offer.

The pattern is recognisable. Europe’s homegrown battery cell push, spurred by Northvolt’s collapse and the energy-security argument, is the closest analogue. Indian groups have studied it carefully: the same logic of chemistry sovereignty, recycling capacity (UK recycler Altilium’s £18.5m round sits at one end of the same arc), and policy support for domestic cell production now drives the conversation at home.

The difference is that India’s industrial policy, including the PLI scheme for advanced chemistry cells, has been in place for several years; what was missing was private R&D capital. The Tata and JSW announcements move that piece into place.

What is at stake?

Even with $1bn flowing into research, neither group will displace Chinese chemistry leadership in this decade. The realistic ambition is narrower: enough internal capability to specify, validate and customise cells, to qualify alternative suppliers, and to negotiate with Chinese partners from a less precarious position.

That ambition shapes the spending profile. Most of the money will go to talent, lab equipment and pilot lines rather than to gigawatt-scale fabs. Both groups already have, or are building, those at scale; the gap they are closing is the one between buying technology and owning it.

Whether that is enough depends on how aggressively China continues to limit access. The export controls of the past year suggest the line is moving the wrong way, and that India is not the only economy facing it. EU battery industrial policy on much the same arithmetic, and the equity question is whether national champions can build technical depth fast enough to keep up.

James Marsden is to star and executive produce “Disavowed” for Apple TV, a new thriller series following a wrongly disgraced CIA agent.

Apple TV has been cornering the market with prestigious dramas in either science fiction or thrillers, and now the likes of “Slow Horses” are to be followed by “Disavowed.” Created by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, it is to be an ongoing series following ex-agent Brad Griffin (Marsden).

Marcum and Holloway are writing and producing partners, previously best known for the films “Iron Man,” and “Men in Black: International.” They have been nominated twice for “Worst Screenplay” at the Golden Raspberry Awards.

Marsden is currently starring in the second season of Apple TV’s “Your Friends & Neighbours.“

According to Apple, the forthcoming “Disavowed” sees agent Griffin “abruptly fired in the middle of a global hunt for an elusive assassin.” That assassin killed Griffin’s partner, so despite having the whole CIA against him, he sets out to find the killer and also claim the $15 million bounty on his head.

It sounds as if there are elements of Matt Nix’s hit “Burn Notice” as this agent is wrongly fired and tries to use his skills to survive. Like Nix’s show, “Disavowed” is specifically intended to be a continuing, returnable series, rather than a one-off serial.

“Disavowed” comes from Blue Marble, the company that produces the critically acclaimed “Pachinko” for Apple TV.

No details have been released yet of when the show is to stream, or is even entering production. The show looks to be Apple TV’s next thriller following the two-season order for “Down Cemetery Road,” dramatized by Morwenna Banks from the books by Mick Herron.

Photograph: Julia Forbes

Like any Sleep Number smart bed, the ComfortNext Lux offers 100 firmness levels, and the one you select is your “Sleep Number,” or the firmness you prefer to sleep on. I usually skew toward firmer for lumbar support and weight distribution, which has previously been in the 40 to 50 range. Then, a new recommendation popped up in the app—my firmness level was in the mid-70s, but going softer could improve my sleep score, which Sleep Number calls its “SleepIQ score” and reports in its app. I decided to lower it to a much softer firmness level of 35.

The SleepIQ score summarizes your nightly sleep metrics, including heart rate variability, breathing rate, and time spent in each sleep stage. This data is compiled into a score that summarizes your sleep quality. The app’s score always skewed lower than what my Apple Watch SE would track. However, with dogs jumping in and out of bed, the sensors track that motion and take it into account, too. Despite this, my Apple Watch showed a six-day streak of high-80s to 90s sleep scores. Given that my body is always getting used to new beds with a revolving door of mattresses to test, this is extremely rare for me. Previously, while testing other smart beds or standard mattress types like memory foam or hybrid, I’d achieve this kind of quality sleep with medium-firm or true firm mattresses, never soft ones.

What was clear after two weeks of testing was that, even at the absolute firmest 100 setting, the ComfortNext Lux still felt only medium-firm. I started off with firm and went way softer, but the reality is that the ComfortNext Lux’s plush foam layers will always make whatever level you choose feel softer. If you are seeking a truly firm mattress—like one of our favorite firm options, the Plank Firm Luxe—the ComfortNext Lux does not even remotely play in the same league. This is not shocking, as nearly all smart beds I’ve tried lack the rigidity you’d find in coil-based designs.

Got Your Back

If you regularly deal with back pain or have more severe spinal conditions such as scoliosis, I don’t recommend this smart bed for you. My husband is part of this club, and according to him, the ComfortNext Lux is doable for a few days. After a bit, he needs to return to a firmer mattress to get the support his spine needs. To this end, the ComfortNext Lux’s lumbar support is not where it needs to be for full-time stomach sleeping or heavier-bodied sleepers who require lift around their midsections. Some adjustable bases will have lumbar support bars that project from the base, which would be a beneficial remedy here. Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available on Sleep Number bases at this time, and I don’t recommend pairing this smart bed with an adjustable base from another brand.

If not for back pain, you may wonder who the ComfortNext Lux works best for. In short? Side sleepers. As a side sleeper myself, this mattress offers the level of cushioning I often crave for my pressure points, with a satisfying amount of sink-in that makes the joints feel cushioned. You truly feel cocooned, and not in a claustrophobic way. For couples who happen to be side or side-back sleepers, the foam’s prominence in the ComfortNext Lux also helped prevent motion from rocking the bed. However, it is a bit harder to move between sleeping positions because you are working against the softer surface as you roll.

from the subtracting-votes-by-adding-confusion dept

It may be almost impossible to devolve this country into a nation of slaveholders, but the Trump administration and all of its MAGA buddies are working hard to make sure a white person’s vote counts more than a vote cast by anyone else.

These bigots recently got an assist from the Supreme Court, which decided minorities can have their votes rendered meaningless so long as the people doing the gerrymandering don’t actually say the quiet part loud. Redistricting for the sole purpose of excluding as many non-whites as possible is perfectly legal if politicians never affirmatively state that the only reason they’re doing this is to make sure minorities can’t vote against their racist asses.

This is all part of what the state of South Dakota is doing now. Governor Larry Rhoden was never elected to his post. He was elevated after Kristi Noem was selected to head the DHS by Donald Trump. (Since she’s about as unemployed as any Trump appointee ever gets, I’m sure she wishes she was back running the state of South Dakota… into the ground.) His most recent brush with the electoral process saw him losing handily to Mike Rounds in the 2014 Senate race.

Rhoden actually needs to win an election if he wishes to remain South Dakota’s governor. And all the MAGA fellatio in the world doesn’t mean much when plenty of other MAGA acolytes are running against him.

So, there’s a mixture of things going on here. There’s Rhoden’s (and the state GOP’s) desire to engage with Trump’s election conspiracies — ones that claim (with zero facts in evidence) that a whole lot of undocumented immigrants are voting in state and local elections.

There’s also a nationwide attempt to deter voting by mail, because these votes more often side with the other team.

In response to completely made-up problems, the GOP passed a bill that Rhoden signed that says state residents must prove their citizenship to engage in local elections. If they can’t, they’re only allowed to participate in federal elections.

According to Rhoden and other GOP alarmists, that’s because too many people who aren’t citizens were granted permission to vote, thanks to what was likely nothing more than a clerical error. South Dakota may be small state in terms of population (~950,000 residents as of 2025), but the “problem” this vaguely written law supposedly addressed was even smaller.

Soulek said only one of the 273 noncitizens had ever cast a ballot. That was during the 2016 general election.

Those are the words of the Director of Elections Rachel Soulek, who works out of the Secretary of State’s office. The Secretary of State blamed this on clerical errors by the Department of Public Safety. The DPS provided the data that Governor Rhoden claims to evidence of widespread election fraud by non-citizens.

One illegal ballot. And that was likely an honest misunderstanding, rather than the criminal intent Rhoden and GOP buddies want to pretend it is.

But the law is on the books. Citizenship must be demonstrated to participate in state and local elections. The problem is that no one running these elections seems to agree what is or isn’t acceptable proof of citizenship.

Hughes County Finance Officer Thomas Oliva, who acts as that county’s auditor, said his office is requiring new voters to show the physical driver’s license.

“The main reasoning behind that is because it’s the back of the license. There’s no other identifying information on the back we can tie back to that person, so we felt it’s in the best interest to see the physical card,” Oliva told News Watch.

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Haakon County Auditor Stacy Pinney said she has not run into any issues yet with voter registration but also will require new applicants to physically show the driver’s license.

“I’m going to make it a policy in my office that I want to see the actual card. If I have to verify it, I want to see the real deal,” Pinney told News Watch.

Meanwhile, Harding County Auditor Kathy Glines said her office will accept a photocopy of the driver’s license.

“They would have to send a front and back,” Glines told News Watch.

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“I hope they would call before sending it by mail,” she added, referring to the limited hours the office is open.

Everyone appears to be making up their own rules because the law — and the Secretary of State’s office — are being deliberately vague about these requirements, especially in relation to absentee voting. And many people in the state may not know that the law only applies to people who have registered to vote after July of last year, so lots of people are going to be presenting IDs to precinct staffers even if they’re not legally required to do so.

This all adds up to exactly what Governor Rhoden and the GOP want: confusion over who is or isn’t allowed to vote, blended with another law passed by Rhoden that allows pretty much anyone to challenge someone else’s eligibility to vote.

The state could offer much-needed clarification. But it won’t.

As early and absentee voting for the primary election gets underway, Scott-Stoltz hopes officials in Pierre can provide more certainty on the registration process for new voters.

“We’re hoping for more clarification from the secretary’s office before the primary and are looking forward to working with the election board,” she said.

The secretary of state’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment by News Watch.

That’s a feature, not a bug. Those in power definitely prefer incumbent voters over new ones, much like incumbent voters prefer incumbents. They want to keep the jobs they have, rather than allow new voters to upset the incumbent apple cart. They all pretend they love the democratic system, but when it’s time latch onto another 2-4 years in power, they work together to reduce the electorate to the votes they can count on.

Filed Under: bigotry, larry rhoden, south dakota, trump administration, voter fraud, voter id law

IAS’ Declan Gowran explores his role in the data engineering space and how leaders create cohesive environments.

Senior staff data ops engineer at IAS Declan Gowran’s journey into the data engineering world evolved organically from a broader IT infrastructure and cloud background.

He told SiliconRepublic.com, “Early in my career, I worked extensively on enterprise infrastructure, virtualisation and cloud deployments across multiple platforms, which exposed me to large scale systems and the complexities of managing data at scale. Over time, I became increasingly fascinated with the ways structured and unstructured data can drive decision making and AI applications. 

“That led me to roles at Optum and IAS where I could focus on building secure, scalable data platforms, integrating DevOps, MLOps and data governance frameworks, and supporting enterprise AI workloads. Essentially, my path was shaped by a mix of curiosity, technical challenges and opportunities to work at the intersection of cloud, data, and analytics.”

What is the current data engineering landscape like in Ireland?

Ireland’s data engineering landscape is vibrant and rapidly maturing. With the strong presence of multinational tech companies and data driven organisations, there is a growing demand for engineers who can not only manage cloud infrastructure but also design modern, scalable data platforms. Organisations are increasingly adopting cloud native architectures, Kubernetes based platforms and MLOps frameworks. There’s also an emphasis on governance, compliance and data mesh strategies, particularly for companies handling sensitive or regulated data.

What are the biggest challenges currently impacting the data engineering sector and how might they be addressed?