Doomslayer: Progress Roundup
Appalachian lithium reserves, heat-resistant corals, a desalination record, and more.
Economics & Development
India and New Zealand have signed a free trade agreement, making all Indian exports to New Zealand duty-free and cutting or eliminating tariffs on 95 percent of New Zealand’s exports to India.
Energy & Environment
The United States Geological Survey recently estimated that there are over 2 million metric tons of undiscovered, economically recoverable lithium in the Appalachian Mountains, enough to supply the country for centuries at current levels of consumption.
Salmon populations are bouncing back in California following dam removals and a series of wet winters. Responding to that recovery, the Pacific Fishery Management Council has reopened commercial salmon fishing off the California coast.
Ribbed mussels are proliferating along Virginia Beach. These aren’t the kind of mussels you’d order at a restaurant, but ecologists say the growing population could help reduce erosion and clean up excess nitrogen, phosphorus, and bacteria in local waterways.
Scientists have found some remarkably heat-resistant corals near the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago off Western Australia. During an extreme 2025 marine heatwave and in lab tests, the corals showed little bleaching or mortality at temperatures that are typically deadly to coral. The researchers are still trying to explain the source of that resilience.
Health & Demographics
A recently published randomized controlled trial found that the GLP-1 drug semaglutide substantially reduced alcohol consumption in heavy drinkers compared to a placebo.
Australia has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. While the disease was already rare in most of the country, it remained endemic in some remote indigenous communities until recently.
Science & Technology
California is now allowing companies to test and deploy driverless trucks, beginning with a safety driver behind the wheel, then moving to fully driverless testing, and finally commercial deployment once companies satisfy the state’s requirements.
The Chinese battery manufacturer CATL has signed the world’s largest sodium-ion battery deal to date, which will supply 60 gigawatt-hours of sodium-ion batteries to Beijing HyperStrong Technology over three years. Sodium-ion batteries are less energy-dense than lithium-ion batteries, but they use cheaper, more abundant materials, making them especially promising for grid storage.
A desalination plant in Saudi Arabia has set a new desalination efficiency record: a reverse-osmosis unit at the Yanbu complex used just 1.55 kilowatt-hours to produce a cubic meter of fresh water, below the previous 1.7 kWh/m³ benchmark set earlier in 2026 and the 2.34 kWh/m³ record reported in 2025.
Violence & Coercion
Pakistan’s Punjab province has banned child marriage, following Sindh, which became the first Pakistani province to do so in 2013.
The Red Sea is one of the world's warmest seas, with surface water temperatures typically
ranging between 22°C (72°F) in winter and 32°C (90°F) in summer.
Water temperatures at the Great Barrier Reef remain warm year-round, generally ranging
from 23 degrees C to 30 degrees C .
Water temperatures at Ningaloo Reef are warm and tropical year-round, generally ranging between 19-22°C (66-72°F) in winter and 25-28°C (77-82°F) in summer. Peak summer months (Dec–Feb) can see temperatures rise to 30°C, while southern winter conditions can occasionally drop to around 18°C......and a bit further South , water temperatures at the Abrolhos Islands (Western Australia) generally range from 19°C to 25°C (66°F - 77°F). This region features a unique mix of tropical and temperate waters.[ with the warm Leeuwin Current flowing Southwards ].
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The Red Sea is home to "super corals" that have developed a unique biological resilience to high temperatures. While most corals worldwide bleach or die when water rises even 1 to 2 degrees C above their usual summer maximum, some Red Sea species can withstand temperatures as much 7 degrees C higher than their current peak.
1. The "Bab-el-Mandeb" Filter : Scientists believe this resilience was forged by a natural selection event thousands of years ago. As the last ice age ended, coral larvae from the Indian Ocean repopulated the Red Sea by passing through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. This narrow entrance was exceptionally shallow, warm, and salty. It acted as a "thermal sieve," allowing only the most heat-tolerant larvae to survive the journey and colonise the sea further north .
2. Genetic and Physiological "Memory": Because of this history, Red Sea corals—particularly in the northern regions like the Gulf of Aqaba—possess a genetic "preconditioning" for heat. Transcriptomic Resilience: They can rapidly change their gene expression to cope with thermal stress and then quickly return to a baseline state.
Symbiotic Stability: They often host specific types of heat-resistant algae (Symbiodinium or Durusdinium) and beneficial bacteria that continue to provide energy even when temperatures spike.
3. Ideal Environmental Factors : Beyond genetics, the Red Sea's geography creates a "perfect recipe" for coral health:
Water Clarity: Surrounded by desert and lacking major rivers, the sea stays free of land-based runoff and pollutants that usually cloud water and stress reefs.
High Salinity: Red Sea corals have adapted to thrive in salt concentrations (up to 42 parts per thousand) that would be toxic to many other species. Researchers at institutions like KAUST and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat are currently studying these reefs as a potential "refuge" to help understand how to save other reefs facing climate change.
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Tropical reefs are indeed the most diverse and "best" developed (in terms of biodiversity), they do not thrive on extreme heat. Rather, they thrive in a narrow, warm, and stable temperature range.
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Cold Water: Too cold slows down the metabolism of corals, inhibiting growth.
"Just Right" Water: Tropical waters , 23 to 29 degrees C , with CLEAR WATER to allow sunlight
to permeate the reef , and higher salinity , provide the best environment for rapid growth and biodiversity.
Too Hot Water: High temperatures cause bleaching, disease, and death [ if prolonged too long ].
Corals have a very narrow temperature tolerance. When temperatures become too high, it can trigger a 'catastrophic' reaction: Coral Bleaching:
When water temperatures remain 1 to 1.5 degrees C above the average summer maximum for several weeks, corals become stressed and expel their zooxanthellae. Without these algae, the coral turns white (bleaches) and loses its primary food source causing temporary starvation.
Starvation and Disease: Bleached corals are not dead, but they are starving and highly vulnerable to disease. *************N.B.......THEY ARE NOT DEAD !!!!!***********
AND YES....... the Great Barrier Reef continues to THRIVE ! .......Even achieving RECORD LEVELS !!!
"In 2022, two-thirds of the reef reported record-high coral cover since monitoring began."
WEIRDLY........the TRUE STORY OF OUR CORALS is seldom told , never explained properly and concealed beneath a veil of "half truths" and "down-right-lies" ! IT AIN"T IN DANGER FOLKS !!!
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"The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is not a single, static structure, but rather the current manifestation of a long history of reef growth and demise, often described as a "living onion" built on the bones of its predecessors.
Here are the key findings regarding its geological history:
A "Young" Reef System: While corals have existed for hundreds of millions of years, the Great Barrier Reef as a whole is geologically young, with its earliest beginnings only roughly 500,000 to 600,000 years ago.
Multiple Formations: The current reef is the latest in a long chain of structures that have grown, died, and regrown over at least 500,000 to 600,000 years.
"Five Reefs in 30,000 Years": A major 2018 study from the University of Sydney revealed that, rather than one constant structure, the reef has died and recovered five times in the past 30,000 years, largely due to shifting sea levels.
The Current Formation: The modern, living reef we see today is relatively young, beginning to form about 6,000 to 9,500 years ago as sea levels stabilized after the last Ice Age.
Driving Factors: As sea levels rose (due to melting glaciers) and fell (during glacial periods), reefs were submerged, buried under sediment, or exposed to air and died, forcing new coral to grow over the old frameworks.
The 7-formation claim is consistent with scientific understanding of multiple Pleistocene
reef-growth phases (often cited as "several," "many," or specifically "five" in more recent, high-resolution studies) over the past 600,000 years, confirming it is not a single, continuous structure."
IT'S A CONTINUALLY EVOLVING STRUCTURE.....on which a lot of time , energy and MONEY is being wasted "on "research to "SAVE THE REEF" as it is NO MORE IN TROUBLE NOW than it has ever been in the past.............and yet IT PERSISTS despite everything !
It DOESN'T REQUIRE OR NEED HUMAN INTERVENTION .....HOW ANNOYING MUST THAT BE....!???
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