There's Even an App For That!

Corals only cover relatively small areas of the oceans. They are, however, home to much of the planet's biodiversity. In recent years, temperature rise-associated bleaching events, have decimated coral populations in many parts of the world. Tracking such changes in the health of coral species has, until now, been slow and laborious. NASA scientists seem, however, to have devised a solution (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/nasa-coral-reefs-nemo-net-tool-noaa). The scientists have taken a coral-identification game (NeMO-Net) and have converted it into a tool for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The scientists developed a fluid lensing model (generating images in shallow seas as sharp as those on land). This can be attached to drones which 'capture' images of coral reefs. In the first month of operation, they recruited 100,000 volunteers to study the images. People vary greatly in their ability to recognise coral species. The collected data is fed, however, into a supercomputer. This improves identification of coral species to an accuracy of around 95%. This greatly speeds up monitoring changes in the health of the reefs.