Mass bleaching has killed more than a third of the coral in the northern and central parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, though corals to the south have escaped with little damage, scientists said. Researchers found that around 35 percent of the coral in the northern and central sections of the reef are dead or dying, said Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. And some parts of the reef had lost more than half of the coral to bleaching. Coral that has died is gone for good, which affects other creatures that rely on it for food and shelter.
Chemicals of life are found in comet's halo
Scientists have found further evidence supporting the theory that some of the building blocks for life may have come to Earth from outer space. Using instruments aboard the European space probe Rosetta, researchers detected glycine and phosphorus in the dusty halo around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Scientists said adding a high concentration of those molecules to a body of water could have produced the "primordial soup" that gave birth to life on our planet more than 4 billion years ago.
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