Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

The waters off the Southern California coast are now approaching tropical temperatures found in parts of the balmy Caribbean Sea: 79.2 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the highest since measurements began in 1916, and 7-8 degrees warmer than average. Emanuele Di Lorenzo, a marine scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said the event is local. Still, Southern California's balmy oceans will likely stay warm for a while — much longer than terrestrial heat waves. Oceans aren't "so easy to cool off," said Di Lorenzo.

It’s hot. But it may not be the new normal yet. Temperatures are still rising....“What we’re seeing today is making me, frankly, calibrate not only what my children will be living but what I will be living, what I am living currently living,” said Kim Cobb, a professor of earth and atmospheric science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. “We haven’t caught up to it. I haven’t caught up to it, personally.”

Study by on dehydration's effect on the mind is resonating in the public media. It has now caught the eye of National Public Radio. According to College of Sciences' biologists Mindy Millard-Stafford and coauthor Matthew Wittbrodt, dehydration muddies the mind. Similar coverage comes from Third Age.

Coral reefs' survival from overfishing, climate change, and other threats is jeopardized by a thumbnail-sized snail that preys on the coral species that environmentalists hope could revive damaged reefs. "The Porites coral is kind of the last man standing, the last hope for some of these reefs coming back, and they are the ones these snails selectively prey on,” Mark Hay, a biologist at Georgia Tech and author on the study. “As you get fewer and fewer corals, the snails focus on the fewer and fewer of these colonies that remain. This is part of the downward spiral of the reefs."

A composite flexible packaging material made with polymers from crab shells and trees is catching on. Here is Physics World's take. Plastic Today has similar coverage. Georgia Tech researchers including College of Sciences' polymer chemist John Reynolds developed the promising material.