Australia’s Great Barrier Reef used to be a symbol of the pristine beauty that the ocean offers, but now it represents the terrible mark that human-induced climate change is having on the world as half of the coral that made up the reef has died in the past couple years. Is there still hope? The answer is yes thanks to researchers at two Australian universities who have developed an underwater robot that could help turn the tide in the ongoing struggle to save at-risk reefs. The briefcase-size submersible is designed to move autonomously along damaged sections of reef, seeding them with hundreds of thousands of microscopic baby corals. These seeded specimens were derived from corals that survived the coral bleaching event of 2016-17, which are believed to be especially tolerant of warmer ocean temperatures. If the baby corals manage to take hold and grow, the researchers say they will eventually develop a fleet of submersibles that would be used to save reefs around the world.
How a robot could save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
More of Today's Solutions
Dinner scraps are rebuilding California’s lost oyster reefs
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM What if scraps from a dinner could become a habitat? That's the basic premise of the Shells for ...
Read More5 habits that separate growing teams from stagnant ones
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The strategy is fine. The team is capable. But at the end of the quarter, the needle hasn’t ...
Read MoreHow a rickshaw driver’s son beat the odds to join a famed UK ballet school
Kamal Singh was 17-years-old when he first became transfixed by ballet dancers in a Bollywood film. At that moment, the son of a rickshaw ...
Read MoreFood sequencing: how eating in the right order can boost your health
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM When we think about balanced eating, most of us focus on what’s on our plate—fiber, protein, vitamins, and ...
Read More
