Problems Loom for Caribbean Coral Reefs

In fact, according to a report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), many Caribbean reefs are already in dire straights. 

The cause of the the desperate situation for the reefs is management which includes fishing regulations that keep the numbers of fish critical to the health of the reef up.  Another cause is climate change which has caused the temperature of the waters to rise, and most reef building organisms have a small range of tolerance for water temperature.  
If we can get some sensible regulations in place and enforce regulations, some reefs in other parts of the world have shown a great resilience in their return to health.  However, it is extremely

Photo by ThinkP. Creative Commons License.                                                                             difficult to get these things in order, and it may be too late for the reefs.  
Although the reefs in the 60s and 70s had "50-60% live coverage", they are comparing to other reefs today with only around 30% live coverage and considered "relatively intact", with the Caribbean reefs still looking grim with less than 10% live coverage.   I believe it is telling that we consider a reef that is 70% dead reflective of something relatively intact.   But however they measure it, things are looking very bleak for Caribbean reefs.
National Geographic's Christine Dell'Amore has an article about the report released at the IUCN World Conservation Congress going on in South Korea.

Now for the NASA Budget Rant

Actually, I'll still hold off on the Rant, but the

NASA's "Dawn" Spacecraft to Move Along

I really do like NASA. 
They impress me with the things they have been able to accomplish with diminishing budgets.  From Hubble to the Mars rovers (including the latest one, "Curiosity") and numerous probes that are still out there exploring.  Of course their budget gets cut often because of ignorance of how much of the budget they get (or at least the impact of the cuts to NASA to the overall budget) as well as a generally poor understanding of the scientific contributions of NASA.  However, I will save that rant for another day.
Today I just wanted to mention NASA's "Dawn" spacecraft which traveled around 5 billion miles and has been examining an asteroid, but will now move along to a dwarf planet called "Ceres".

                                         (picture from article below)

I also wanted to slip from the Science part of this story to the Science Fiction part:  You will note that Dawn is powered by twin ion engines....  any Star Wars nerds??  That is what powered the TIE Fighters in the triology (TIE: Twin Ion Engine). 

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