*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Cody Clements, the coral gardenerIn the early 1990s, Thureya Mohamed would smile all the way to her house in Wasini island, Kwale county. She was always assured of enough fish for her family. Those days, the coral reefs were healthy. Then things changed. Mass bleaching occurred in 1998, 2010 and 2016. This occurs when corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light or nutrients. They expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white. Experts blame this on climate change and human activities, such as dumping of waste, mangrove cutting and sedimentation. ... One such scientist is Cody Clements, a Postdoctoral Fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology. Clements says coral reefs are home to so many species they often are called the rainforests of the seas. "Today they face a daunting range of threats, including ocean warming and acidification, overfishing and pollution,” he said, adding that more than one-third of all coral species are at risk of extinction worldwide.
