{"id":671,"date":"2026-10-19T13:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=671"},"modified":"2026-10-19T13:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:08:27","slug":"bleached-coral-recovers-touching-healthy-clone-stanford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=671","title":{"rendered":"DYING CORAL GOT A HUG FROM ITS TWIN \u2014 AND CAME BACK TO LIFE! | Stanford\u2019s ghost-white fragments fully recovered in seven weeks just by touching a healthy clone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s some good news from the bottom of the sea. Stanford scientists watched <strong>bleached corals on the brink of death fully recover<\/strong> in the lab within <strong>seven weeks<\/strong>, just by touching a healthy clone of themselves. It\u2019s the fastest documented recovery to date, according to the study in <em>Science Advances<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-10-scientists-reverse-coral.html\">Phys.org<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>Quick refresher: when water gets too hot, corals spit out the colorful algae living in their tissues that feed them. That leaves them pale, starving and wide open to harmful algae. Recovery normally takes months to years, if it happens at all.<\/p>\n<p>The idea started with an accident. In 2025, co-author <strong>Steve Palumbi<\/strong> noticed two fragments from the same colony, one bleached and one healthy, had tipped over in a tank and were touching. Where they met, color came back.<\/p>\n<p>So lead author <strong>Danny Collins<\/strong>, a Stanford oceans Ph.D. student, set up <strong>10 pairs<\/strong> of bleached and healthy fragments from the same animal. Five pairs touched; the other five sat just millimeters apart. The touching ones fully recovered. The ones without contact died.<\/p>\n<p>The trick: genetically identical corals recognize each other and fuse tissue, and the healthy partner pumps over enough algae and nutrients to kick-start recovery in about <strong>three days<\/strong>. \u201cWhile bleached corals may be dying, they are not dead yet,\u201d Collins said. It\u2019s lab work for now, but the team says it could inspire new ways to rescue reefs fast as marine heat waves get worse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-10-scientists-reverse-coral.html\">Phys.org \/ Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability \u2014 Scientists discover a way to reverse coral bleaching at record speed (Oct. 18, 2026)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stanford\u2019s ghost-white fragments fully recovered in seven weeks just by touching a healthy clone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-coral-twin-recovery-1019.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}