The biosphere is being edited

Gene-edited coral fragments were deployed to sections of the Great Barrier Reef in late 2025 — corals engineered to express enhanced heat-shock proteins, designed to survive temperatures 1.5–2°C above current bleaching thresholds. Early results in 2026 are being watched closely. Meanwhile, the Nature Communications study from February confirmed that natural species turnover — the rate at which ecosystems swap old species for new ones — has decelerated by a third since the 1970s. The self-repair ...