Jellyfish plague coastal waters, a symptom of deeper problems

Darkfrog submitted, created time 3 months 1 week (www.nytimes.com)

Well, I can say with confidence that the jellyfish have been showing up on the coast of New Jersey more or less on schedule midsummer--just as the water turns from cold to warm--for about twenty years now. I only remember one year that could be called a bona-fide infestation. (Word of advice: ALWAYS rinse off and change clothes before the drive home. It's keeping the stingers next to your skin that causes what I'll delicately call "dermatological side effects.") This year wasn't one of them

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Extracellular matrix production and calcium carbonate precipitation by coral cells in vitro

davidd submitted, created time 10 months 1 week (www.pnas.org)

The evolution of multicellularity in animals required the production of extracellular matrices that serve to spatially organize cells according to function. In corals, three matrices are involved in spatial organization. In this report Paul G. Falkowski studies the change of Extracellular matrix component using an in vitro culturing system for coral cells.

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