Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By John Archibald
We humans have a love-hate relationship with bugs. I’m not talking about insects — although many of us cringe at the thought of them too — but rather the bugs we can’t see, the ones that make us sick. Sure, microorganisms give us beer, wine, cheese, and yoghurt; hardly a day goes by without most people consuming food or drink produced by microbial fermentation.
By Charles Sheppard
Coral reefs are the most diverse ecosystem in the sea. In some ways they are very robust marine ecosystems, but in other ways, perhaps because of their huge numbers of species, they are very delicate and susceptible to being damaged or killed. On the one hand, healthy reefs are glorious riots of life, and marine scientists have spent several decades unravelling the complicated ways in which they work. On the other hand, at least one third of the world’s reefs have already died – gone for ever in terms of human lifetimes at least – even when the cause of their demise is lifted.
