by Admin | Mar 2, 2018 | Reefs in Art, Science
Fluoroscenes 1 by Coral Morphologic Coral Morphologic presents Fluoroscenes 1 – an album of nine records inspired by the corals’ cosmic ability to synchronize their lives to Earth’s daily rotation around its axis, the Moon’s monthly revolution around Earth, and Earth’s yearly revolution around the Sun. Incorporating NASA audio samples of sounds recorded from our solar system & beyond, Fluoroscenes 1 presents corals as sojourners on a galactic trip around a black hole that humans are still trying to comprehend. The Print Edition features a set of nine 5″ x 5″ photographs, each inspiring one of the records on the album. First edition limited to 23 photo sets, hand numbered & stamped with the Universal Corallimorph logo. Tags: ambient, Coral Morphologic, NASA This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2018 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. by drynne_ | Jan 31, 2018 | Reef, Science
2018 is the International Year of the Reef, a world-wide initiative enacted by the ICRI to strengthen awareness globally about the value of, and threats to, coral reefs. Learn more about #IYOR2018 with an immersive Google Earth Voyager Story. Tags: Coral Morphologic, Google Earth, Google Voyager, International Year of the Reef, IYOR2018 This entry was posted on Monday, January 1st, 2018 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Natural History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. by Admin | Jul 27, 2016 | Conservation, Fish, Reef, Science
Coral Morphologic is proud to announce a partnership with Mission Blue, an alliance of conservationists founded by Dr. Sylvia Earle, with the shared goal of exploring the ocean and engendering empathy for Earth’s marine life. By joining the Mission Blue network, we look forward to helping advance Mission Blue’s goals, including increasing marine protected areas (Hope Spots) around the globe 20% by 2020, developing sustainable fisheries, and reducing oceanic pollution. Coral Morphologic is committed to educating the public and building new paradigms around the value of the ocean and its essential role as Earth’s life support system. Please explore Mission Blue’s website and watch the eponymous 2015 documentary about Dr. Earle “Mission Blue” on Netflix.
Tags: Coral Morphologic, Mission Blue, Sylvia Earle, Sylvia Earle Alliance
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on Monday, July 25th, 2016 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Research.
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by Admin | Jul 15, 2016 | Reef, Science
[embedded content] We are psyched to share the first release in a series of apparel recycled from post-consumer plastic bottles, in collaboration with our friends at Waterlust. The ‘Cosmic Coral’ leggings feature a Coral Morphologic zoanthid print, and are now available to purchase from the Waterlust online shop. Zoanthids are a type of colonial soft coral that form honeycomb-like mats of polyp clones that grow over rocks on the reef, including those here in Miami. The leggings are 86% RPET (recycled polyester), 14% lycra, giving 10 post-consumer plastic bottles a positive future. Additionally, they are printed using dye-sublimation, an environmentally friendly process which uses no water and minimizes waste. 10% of profits go toward our efforts to research and document Miami’s imperiled coral reefs.
Tags: Coral Morphologic, Miami, Waterlust
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on Tuesday, July 12th, 2016 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Miami.
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by Admin | Apr 23, 2016 | Aquaculture, Corals, Reef, Science, Technology
These Palythoa sp. zoanthids contain a remarkably potent chemical, palytoxin, proven to selectively destroy cancerous cells. Several years ago we were excited to report that our survey of zoanthid soft corals from South Florida had resulted in the identification of several undescribed species. Today, we are even more excited to report that one of these Palythoa species zoanthids, collected off the PortMiami seawall, contains an extremely powerful compound with proven anti-cancer properties. Coral Biome, our partners in Europe, have officially received a patent for the chemical’s extraction and application in the treatment of cancer and other serious diseases. From Coral Biome’s inception in 2011 in Marseilles, France, we have been assisting them in the collection, identification, and aquaculture of soft corals that produce medically-valuable chemicals, a process known as ‘bioprospecting’. The chemical Coral Biome isolated, palytoxin, has long been known to be one of the most deadly non-protein compounds in the natural world, however it is only recently that its remarkable anti-cancer properties have come to light. As it turns out, the Palythoa aff. ‘clavata’ we found encrusting Miami’s aquatic infrastructure produces significantly higher concentrations of palytoxin than any species previously known to science. Palytoxin is such an extremely complex molecule to produce in a lab that it has been referred to as ‘the Mt. Everest of organic synthesis’ by chemists. Therefore, production of this chemical for pharmaceutical use will depend on Coral Biome’s patented extraction method from these aquacultured, super-potent Miami zoanthids. Palytoxin kills cells by disrupting the potassium/sodium ion channels, but according to Coral Biome’s CEO Frederic Gault, “it is a million times more toxic to cancer cells than to healthy ones, which is a huge area for potential”. This discovery highlights just how important coral reef biodiversity is to humans, and our pursuit for new medicines and biotechnology. This new species of zoanthid, along with our previously reported hybrid ‘super coral’, highlight once again just how much there is still left to discover right in our own backyard. If a potential breakthrough cure for cancer can be found right here within PortMiami, how many more unidentified species and cures are left to be discovered elsewhere amongst the planet’s thousands of far flung reefs? [embedded content] Palythoa sp. zoanthids feeding on plankton. The coral reef is an exceptionally good place to prospect for medicinally active compounds, particularly within the soft corals and sponges. While stony corals are largely protected from predators by their limestone skeletons, soft corals and sponges frequently rely on chemicals for their defense mechanisms. In addition to making them distasteful, soft corals will also release growth-inhibiting chemicals into the surrounding water to prevent other organisms from encroaching onto their real estate. And because water is such an ideal medium in which to transfer chemical signals, the coral reef will likely exceed the rainforests as a potential source for future medicinal discoveries. Thankfully, a revolution in coral aquaculture means that we can now obtain these medicinal compounds sustainably, without negatively impacting the wild reefs. Identifying and using medicinal compounds from the coral reef is not a new phenomenon. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s, the Caribbean gorgonian soft coral Plexaura homomalla was the primary source for extracting the chemical prostaglandin, which is used to induce childbirth clinically. Pseudopterosin A, extracted from the Bahamian gorgonian Antillogorgia elisabethae is used by Estee Lauder to make an exceptionally expensive anti-aging skin creams. But it’s not just the organic chemicals that interest biomedical researchers; stony corals are now being grown in labs to serve as human bone graft substitutes, while the stinging nematocyst cells of corals are serving as a model for developing needle-less vaccine delivery systems. The insertion of coral fluorescent proteins into the genome of other organisms has revolutionized the field of genetics, earning its developers a Nobel Prize in 2008. The recent understanding by scientists of how a coral’s microbiome serves its host has resulted in a paradigm shift in the way we now perceive microbes, human health, and even evolution. The coral reef may well be the most important living model we have for the betterment of human health, making their preservation, with all their untold biological secrets, of paramount importance to us all. And while the reefs around the world head into a third consecutive year for bleaching, never has it been more urgent to catalog and clone the global biodiversity of coral for the collective benefit of us all.
Tags: Cancer, Coral Biome, Coral Morphologic, Palytoxin
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on Tuesday, April 19th, 2016 at 11:44 am and is filed under Research.
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