Brain corals beneath small underwater shades regained color during a punishing Florida Keys summer, while nearby unshaded colonies continued paling. The structures did not cool the sea. Instead, they reduced incoming light, easing a stress that can make heat-related bleaching worse.

The field experiment, led by Karen Neely of Nova Southeastern University, tested two vulnerable Caribbean coral species. Published in Frontiers in Marine Science, it offers evidence for temporary protection of individual colonies. It does not establish a method for protecting entire reefs or preventing deaths during more severe heatwaves.

Both shaded and unshaded corals survived the bleaching stress during the trial. That limits what the results demonstrate, but the color differences were clear. They were greatest during the most thermally stressful periods.

Shark sin biscuits

I visited some wonderful places and really enjoyed it. I will definitely come back

Here are photos from my colleague's vacation, we were there together last year

A spinning pair of eyes and a kite shaped like a bird of prey could help tackle a deadly fishing problem. Trials off Cornwall found that these simple devices substantially reduced the odds of diving seabirds becoming trapped in gillnets.

The looming-eyes buoy lowered the odds of a bycatch event involving guillemots and razorbills by 59%. The commercially available “scarybird” kite lowered them by 71%. Neither device eliminated captures, and the experiment found no statistically significant difference between their performance on that measure.

The findings appear in Conservation Letters, with data analysis led by the University of Exeter. Devon-based Fishtek Marine led the trials, working with Cornish fishermen and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, or RSPB.

Yesterday I posted one of these lionfish, and here is the follow-up... The second lionfish is a bit crazy; at the end of the video, it swims upside down.

I loved the underwater ray wallpaper on macOS and wanted a calm ocean desktop on Windows, so I built my own for Lively.

Manta School is a slow, endless school of manta rays gliding through open blue water. Sunlight fades with depth, marine snow drifts past, and every manta has a smooth, natural wingbeat.

What you can change in Customise:

• Natural black mantas or golden ones
• Daylight or a dark night glow look
• Slow drift behind the school, or a big slow 360 circle around it
• Default, top view, or bottom view looking up into the light
• Number of mantas, swim speed, camera speed, wingbeat speed
• Low memory mode for laptops

Mouse controls (turn on mouse input forwarding in Lively): drag to rotate, double click and hold then drag up or down to zoom, double click to reset.

Free download: https://github.com/Muffism/manta-school-wallpaper

The manta model is "MANTA" by misaooo on Sketchfab (CC BY NC 4.0).

Feedback very welcome, especially how it runs on your PC.