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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Phys.org [phys.org]:

Rising ocean temperatures are killing coral reefs, but researchers discovered corals have a secret buried in their genes that just might help them fight off seasonal changes in temperature.
...
This project, funded by the National Science Foundation and part of a bigger initiative aimed at understanding the effects of hurricanes on coral reefs, catapulted Rodriguez-Casariego to further research the adaptation responses of corals. For 17 months, he collected more than 200 Staghorn coral samples with former CREST undergraduate student Ivanna Ortiz Rivera and former CREST postdoctoral researcher Alex Mercado-Molina.

Together, they studied the corals across all four seasons. What they found was eye-opening. Depending on the season, corals modified the activity of their DNA in order to adapt to changes in temperature and other conditions. These epigenetic changes do not involve a change in DNA itself but can affect how genes are expressed.

Corals are able to modify how their DNA behaves according to environmental conditions.

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