You might also like...
Check out some other posts from Michigan State University
Why this matters: Warming ocean temperatures are causing a phenomenon called coral bleaching, putting corals at a greater risk of starvation, disease and death. This study shows that rice coral, an important reef-building species, passes on thermal resistance to their offspring and avoids coral bleaching. Understanding this is important to building healthier coral reefs and protecting their future. Coral reefs are habitats for nearly a quarter of all marine life, protect coasts from erosion and support the livelihoods of millions. Protecting coral reefs is crucial to preserving the future of our oceans. Plunge into the shallows off the Florida Keys, Hawaiʻi or the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and you are likely to meet a startling sight.
Where there were once acres of dazzling coral — an underwater world of dayglo greens, brassy yellows and midnight blues — is now a ghostly landscape, with many reefs seemingly drained of their pigment.
Caused by stressful conditions like warming ocean temperatures, coral bleaching is a leading threat to some of our planet’s most diverse and vital ecosystems.
Now, a team of researchers has found that some corals survive warming ocean temperatures by passing heat-resisting abilities on to their offspring.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, are the result of a collaboration between Michigan State University, Duke University and the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology, or HIMB, at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. This work, funded by the National Science Foundation and a Michigan State University Climate Change Research grant, is crucial in the race to better conserve and restore threatened reefs across the globe.
Coral reefs are habitats for nearly a quarter of all marine life, protecting coastlines from storms and erosion and supporting the livelihoods of millions of people around the world. Though still alive, bleached corals are at a much higher risk of disease, starvation and eventual mortality.
In their latest study, the team explored how resistance to thermal stress is passed down from parent to offspring in an important reef-building species known as rice coral. These findings are helping researchers breed stronger, heat-tolerant generations to better face environmental stress.
“The Coral Resilience Lab in Hawaiʻi has developed amazing methods to breed and rear corals during natural summer spawning,” said Spartan biochemist and study co-author Rob Quinn, whose lab takes samples of these corals and generates massive datasets on their biochemistry with instruments at MSU.
“This is a true scientific collaboration that can support coral breeding and reproduction to cultivate more resilient corals for the warming oceans of the future.” A colorful crowd The kaleidoscopic of shades we associate with healthy coral is the product of a bustling exchange of resources between a coral animal and its algae partners.
When all is well, you might think of this relationship as that of tenants living in a home and paying a bit of rent.
In exchange for cozy, sheltered spaces found within the coral tissue as well as nutrients, algae use photosynthesis to produce sugars. These sugars can provide up to 95% of the energy that coral needs to grow and form the sprawling, breathtaking reefs we know.
In tropical waters often lacking nutrients, disruptions in this exchange — like those that occur during bleaching events — can be disastrous.
When looking at a specimen of coral that’s suffered bleaching, you’re glimpsing a coral that’s “kicked out” its algae, leaving behind a pale skeleton.
“Corals are like the trees in an old growth forest; they build the ecosystems we know as reefs on the energetic foundation between the animal and algae,” explained Crawford Drury, an assistant researcher at the Coral Resilience Lab at HIMB and co-author of the study In the waters of Kāneʻohe Bay, the Coral Resilience Lab is spearheading research to best understand this coral reef ecology and the molecular mechanisms driving thermal stress.
The lab is likewise pioneering the breeding of thermally resistant coral for experiments and the restoration of reefs, a highly specialized process few labs in the world can achieve.
So, while you’d usually be hard pressed to find fresh coral for study in East Lansing, MSU’s partnership with the Coral Resilience Lab has led to a globe-spanning collaboration that closes the gap between field and laboratory.
“HIMB and MSU have developed a really amazing partnership. I’m just happy they’ve let me be a part of it. I can’t wait to see what comes out of it next,” said Ty Roach, a visiting faculty at Duke University and lead author of the new study.
Heat-resistant hand-me-downs In the wild, rice coral takes on a dizzying array of shapes, from jutting, spiky protrusions to flat, tiered terraces — all identifiable by the tiny grain-like projections that lend the species its name.
When samples arrive at MSU, Quinn applies an analytical approach known as metabolomics to understand the complex biochemistry of the organisms.
Like a snapshot of life in motion, metabolomics allows researchers to get an idea of what’s occurring within a cell or tissue sample at a precise moment in time.
Leveraging advanced instrumentation found in MSU’s Mass Spectrometry and Metabolomics Core, the team searched for biochemical signatures associated with bleaching resistance in their samples.
This included analyzing coral sperm, eggs, embryos and larvae, as well as their algal “collaborators.”
Through their analyses, the researchers discovered that both coral and algae pass along the biochemical signature of thermal tolerance, and that this tolerance was successfully maintained from parent coral into the next generation.
Given rice coral’s method of reproduction and the numerous stages of the coral life cycle, this was an impressive feat.
“Corals usually spawn based on the lunar cycle; for our experiment, this means late nights around the summer new moons and months of work rearing coral larvae and juveniles,” said Drury. This summer, Quinn group graduate student Sarah VanDiepenbos had the chance to join Coral Resilience Lab researchers to witness one such nighttime coral spawning and breeding event.
“It was such a serene, beautiful experience. The timing is impeccable, as the process only lasts 20 to 30 minutes total,” VanDiepenbos explained.
“The coral bundles slowly float upward, trying to find another gamete to combine with once they get to the surface. This release is gradual, so they can have a maximum chance of finding spawn from a different coral,” she added.
Tougher genes for warmer seas While many species of corals uptake symbionts from the surrounding seawater, rice coral provide their eggs with algae, handing this relationship down from parent to child.
“To have this algae’s thermal tolerance remain through an entire generation and all the stages of coral development, that’s surprising, and promising for the future of coral reefs,” Quinn said, who’s also an associate professor in MSU’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Especially compelling was the fact that the earliest stages of the coral lifecycle, like embryos and larva, showed chemical signatures linked to whether parent organisms were thermally tolerant or not.
This means that not only do offspring receive heat-resistant genes, but also beneficial molecules to give them a head start against heat stress.
“Some of the most interesting findings from this work is that coral lipid biochemistry is maintained through all stages of development during reproduction,” Quinn said. “Importantly, these lipids come from both the host coral and its algal symbiont, indicating there is crosstalk between them to prepare the next generation to resist bleaching,” he added.
In showing how inherited thermal resistance originates from both coral and algae, this research provides deeper insight into the finely tuned, symbiotic microcosm found in corals across the world’s oceans.
Most exciting for the team is how these findings are contributing to the science behind the restoration of reefs and the breeding of stronger, more heat-tolerant coral generations.
“Our metabolomics research at MSU could support reef restoration efforts at places like the Kāneʻohe Bay by identifying corals that are resistant to bleaching,” Quinn said. To connect with the researchers, click on the profile icon below.
Why this matters: MSU researchers say that young athletes who specialize in just one sport experience more injuries and injury-related surgeries. Switching sports for one season a year, or roughly three months, can keep young athletes safer and provide a better outlook for their long-term health. This information is important for parents, coaches, young athletes and their health practitioners as they make decisions about upcoming sports seasons. Some professional football players practice ballet. An NCAA champion runner also swims. An Olympic gold medal speed skater does six-hour biking sessions. According to researchers from Michigan State University, these athletes are ahead of the game because cross-training can help prevent injury in youth athletes.
Nathan Fitton, associate professor of orthopedics in the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, chief medical information officer for MSU Health Care, and MSU Athletics team physician; Jared Lutsic, MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine alumni and orthopedic surgery resident at Henry Ford Warren; and others studied the effects of sport specialization on collegiate athletes. Their findings were recently published in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine and reveal a direct association between the intensity of sport specialization and incidence of injuries while as a college athlete.
“We expected to learn that highly specialized athletes would have higher injury rates,” Fitton said. “What’s alarming is a statistically significant increase in surgical procedures after an injury. We found that the more specialized an athlete was, the more likely they were to need surgery to correct an injury. This was true for male and female athletes.” “There are lifelong implications for youth sports injuries,” he added. “Injured athletes don’t always return to their pre-injury state. In the short term, this may mean they don’t get back to the sport at a level where they want to be. Longer term, we see arthritis from trauma to joints at an earlier age than would be expected. And we see 30- and 35-year-olds who need additional surgeries or lifestyle modifications to recover from an injury they experienced as a youth athlete.”
In the survey, NCAA Division I, II and III athletes were asked about their sports participation, specialization, injuries, recovery periods and treatment methods. Findings showed that highly specialized athletes were more likely to report injuries and, of those who said they had been injured, more than half reported a reinjury.
“We asked college athletes about their specialization status and learned that those who had a history of being highly specialized in high school got injured more frequently in college and had more severe injuries,” Lutsic said. “Parents, physicians and coaches should consider this when advising student athletes.”
Crosstrain for better performance and lower risk of injury “Athletes can still be very committed to a single sport and reduce their risk of injury by playing just one other sport for three months,” Fitton explained. “Cross-training is like rotating the tires on your car. You’ll get longer use and better performance when tires are regularly rotated. For our bodies, diversification of movement reduces the risk of injury and helps maintain healthy functioning.” Fitton says that other activities, like dance class or participating in a school play, can offer the break young athletes need. Even taking a day or two a week to do something that uses different muscle groups would be beneficial, he added.
When the news started to spread on July 1, 2025, about a new object that was spotted from outside our solar system, only the third of its kind ever known, astronomers at Michigan State University — along with a team of international researchers — turned their telescopes to capture data on the new celestial sighting.
The team rushed to write a scientific paper on what they know so far about the object, now called 3I/ATLAS, after NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS. ATLAS consists of four telescopes — two in Hawaii, one in Chile and one in South Africa — which automatically scans the whole sky several times every night looking for moving objects.
MSU’s Darryl Seligman, a member of the scientific team and an assistant professor in the College of Natural Science, took the lead on writing the paper.
“I heard something about the object before I went to bed, but we didn’t have a lot of information yet,” Seligman said. “By the time I woke up around 1 a.m., my colleagues, Marco Micheli from the European Space Agency and Davide Farnocchia from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, were emailing me that this was likely for real. I started sending messages telling everyone to turn their telescopes to look at this object and started writing the paper to document what we know to date. We have data coming in from across the globe about this object.”
The discovery Larry Denneau, a member of the ATLAS team reviewed and submitted the observations from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile shortly after it was observed on the night of July 1.
Denneau said that he was cautiously excited. “We have had false alarms in the past about interesting objects, so we know not to get too excited on the first day. But the incoming observations were all consistent, and late that night it looked like we had the real thing.
“It is especially gratifying that we found it in the Milky Way in the direction of the galactic center, which is a very challenging place to survey for asteroids because of all the stars in the background,” Denneau said. “Most other surveys don't look there.”
John Tonry, another member of ATLAS and professor at the University of Hawaii, was instrumental in design and construction of ATLAS, the survey that discovered 3I. Tonry said, “It's really gratifying every time our hard work surveying the sky discovers something new, and this comet that has been traveling for millions of years from another star system is particularly interesting.”
Once 3I/ATLAS was confirmed, Seligman and Karen Meech, faculty chair for the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, both managed the communications flow and worked on getting the data pulled together for submitting the paper.
“Once 3I/ATLAS was identified as likely interstellar, we mobilized rapidly,” Meech said. “We activated observing time on major facilities like the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope and the Gemini Observatory to capture early, high-quality data and build a foundation for detailed follow-up studies.”
After confirmation of the interstellar object, institutions from around the world began sharing information about 3I/ATLAS with Seligman.
What scientists know about 3I/ATLAS so far Though data is pouring in about the discovery, it’s still so far away from Earth, which leaves many unanswered questions. Here’s what the scientific team knows at this point:
It is only the third interstellar (meaning from outside our solar system) object to be detected passing through our solar system. It’s potentially giving off gas like other comets do, but that needs to be confirmed. It’s moving really fast at 60 kilometers per second, or 134,000 miles per hour, relative to the sun. It’s on an orbital path that is shaped like a boomerang or hyperbola. It’s very bright. It’s on a path that will leave our solar system and not return, but scientists will be able to study it for several months before it leaves. The James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope are expected to reveal more information about its size, composition, spin and how it reacts to being heated over the next few months.
“We have these images of 3I/ATLAS where it’s not entirely clear and it looks fuzzier than the other stars in the same image,” said James Wray, a professor at Georgia Tech. “But the object is pretty far away and, so, we just don’t know.”
Seligman and his team are specifically interested in 3I/ATLAS’s brightness because it informs us about the evolution of the coma, a cloud of dust and gas. They’ve been tracking it to see if it has been changing over time as the object moves and turns in space. They also want to monitor for sudden outburst events in which the object gets much brighter.
“3I/ATLAS likely contains ices, especially below the surface, and those ices may start to activate as it nears the sun,” Seligman said. “But until we detect specific gas emissions, like H₂O, CO or CO₂, we can’t say for sure what kinds of ice or how much are there.”
The discovery of 3I/ATLAS is just the beginning. For Tessa Frincke, who came to MSU in late June to begin her career as a doctoral student with Seligman, having the opportunity to analyze data from 3I/ATLAS to predict its future path could lead to her publishing a scientific paper of her own.
“I’ve had to learn a lot quickly, and I was shocked at how many people were involved,” said Frincke.
“Discoveries like this have a domino effect that inspires novel engineering and mission planning.”
For Atsuhiro Yaginuma, a fourth-year undergraduate student on Seligman’s team, this discovery has inspired him to apply his current research to see if it is possible to launch a spacecraft from Earth to get it within hundreds of miles or kilometers to 3I/ATLAS to capture some images and learn more about the object.
“The closest approach to Earth will be in December,” said Yaginuma. “It would require a lot of fuel and a lot of rapid mobilization from people here on Earth. But getting close to an interstellar object could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“We can’t continue to do this research and experiment with new ideas from Frincke and Yaginuma without federal funding,” said Seligman, who also is a postdoctoral fellow of the National Science Foundation.
Seligman and Aster Taylor, who is a former student of Seligman’s and now a doctoral candidate in astronomy and astrophysics and a 2023 Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellow, wrote the following:
“At a critical moment, given the current congressional discussions on science funding, 3I/ATLAS also reminds us of the broader impact of astronomical research. An example like 3I is particularly important to astronomy — as a science, we are supported almost entirely by government and philanthropic funding. The fact that this science is not funded by commercial enterprise indicates that our field does not provide a financial return on investment, but instead responds to the public’s curiosity about the deep questions of the universe: Where did we come from? Are we alone? What else is out there? The curiosity of the public, as expressed by the will of the U.S. Congress and made manifest in the federal budget, is the reason that astronomy exists.”
In addition to MSU, contributors to this research and paper include European Space Agency Near-Earth Objects Coordination Centre (Italy), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech (USA), University of Hawaii (USA), Auburn University (USA), Universidad de Alicante (Spain), Universitat de Barcelona (Spain), European Southern Observatory (Germany), Villanova University (USA), Lowell Observatory (USA), University of Maryland (USA), Las Cumbres Observatory (USA), University of Belgrade (Serbia), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of Michigan (USA), University of Western Ontario (Canada), Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago (Chile) and Boston University (USA).
