'Assisted evolution' plan to save the Great Barrier Reef

Australia's unique and iconic Great Barrier Reef is under threat. A rise in water temperatures, pollution, more severe cyclones and attacks by crown-of-thorns starfish are among the issues facing the Reef.

Source: AP

Like all coral reefs, it's like a sea-life rain forest, providing food for humans and marine animals, shoreline protection for coastal communities and jobs for tourist economies. For the past five years, researchers in Hawaii and Australia have been conducting experiments to try to speed up coral's evolutionary clock to breed "super corals" that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. Rather than editing genes or creating anything unnatural, researchers are just speeding up what could already happen in the ocean by using selective breeding