Obviously, when extremely strong waves hit coral reefs, some coral breaks off.

Coral reefs teem with life.

Margaret Wertheim The beautiful math of coral

Coral reefs are threatened by climate change.

Coral is a very beautiful and unusual animal.

Threats Coral reefs are dying around the world.

104. Welcomes the publication of the Status of Coral Reefs in Tsunami Affected Countries 2005 by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network

Each coral head consists of thousand of individual polyps.

Do we have evidence of this? Yes, coral reef systems.

Your theory of everything Garrett Lisi I'm used to coral.

And this is why I use the analogy to coral.

It turns out there's a lot we can learn from coral.

Climate change could cause the loss of 85 of coral reefs.

In the next scene, you're going to see a nice coral bottom.

Clearly, protecting coral reefs is a much better use of limited resources.

Focusing on coral reefs turns out to be a surprisingly efficient target.

Sponges are another key they live in crevices in the coral reefs.

The southern islands are limestone, with level terraces and fringing coral reefs.

The island is the second largest upraised coral atoll in the world.

Unlike us, a hyper intelligent coral would be uniquely prepared to understand quantum mechanics.

Aldabra is the world's second largest coral atoll and forms part of the Seychelles.

Judging from the state of the world's rain forests, wetlands, and coral reefs, we're not.

For a coral, branching into different copies is the most natural thing in the world.

And it tells us our reality is continually branching into different possibilities, just like a coral.

It allows me to spend a lot of my time hanging out with hyper intelligent coral.

Margaret Wertheim leads a project to re create the creatures of the coral reefs using a crochet technique invented by a mathematician celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep diving into the hyperbolic geometry underlying coral creation.

In the Caribbean, more than 60 of coral reefs are threatened by sediment, pollution, and over fishing.

The other kinds of effects of climate change this is coral bleaching. It's a beautiful picture, right?

This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps.

A coral reef encircling much of the island ensures protection for ships and a habitat for fish.

It's as if each of us, like Schrödinger here, are a kind of coral branching into different possibilities.

Coral color inspired by cochinilla, a natural dye from the Peruvian Andes, making it visible from a distance.

What that was, was a forest of sponges and coral, which is a critical habitat for the development of fish.

Coral reefs unable to tolerate warmer waters made 30 percent more acidic by excess carbon dioxide are experiencing widespread bleaching.

Coral reefs, 27 of which have already disappeared, sustain marine resources that add 375 billion to the global economy each year.

Closer to the shore, many natural ecosystems, most notably coral reefs and mangroves, act as natural shock absorbers and wave breakers.

But protecting coral reefs would bring the highest returns, amounting to an extraordinary 24 worth of benefits for every dollar spent.

When you are poor, you are more likely to slash and burn rain forest or fish atop coral reefs with dynamite.

If we imagine this to be a hyper intelligent coral, we can single out an individual and ask him a reasonable question.

The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north east coast and extends for over .

Coral reefs are very sensitive to light and temperature. If the water they live in gets too hot, they might not survive.

In shallow water flora and fauna is concentrated around coral reefs where there is little variation in water temperature, purity and salinity.

Coral reefs, mega deltas (which include cities like Shanghai, Kolkata, and Dhaka), and small island states are also extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels.

To reduce the loss of coral reefs by half would cost about 3 billion each year and yield at least 72 billion in benefits.

And in recent years, the island has become a popular tourist destination because of its beautiful coral reef and the Tao people s distinctive culture.