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THE Moon destroyed a forest on Earth just by wobbling, according to a new study. The theory solves a mystery from 2015 which involved tens of millions of mangrove trees dying in Australia.... ...The researchers used 30 years of national satellite data to conduct their research and correlate the Moon's behavior with the mass tree death. This helped them spot a pattern of trees dying every 18 to 19 years, which is in keeping with the Moon wobble timeline....

Scientists have discovered the world's largest known bacteria, reaching up to one centimetre (0.4-inches) in length. The species, called Thiomargarita magnifica, was discovered on sunken leaves in the waters of a mangrove swamp in Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. It appears as thin white filaments like vermicelli pasta, and contains microscopic sulphur granules that scatter light, giving it a pearly gleam. The 'giant' organism is thousands of times larger than most bacteria and can therefore be seen by the naked eye. Thiomargarita magnifica 'challenges the prevailing view of bacterial cell size' and the assumption that microbes are only visible...

A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water, first appearing during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene epochs, and became widely distributed in part due to the movement of tectonic plates. The San Pedro Martir mangrove forest was once on the shores of a vast ocean where the temperature was much warmer, but is now situated more than 170 kilometres inland due to climatic changes in sea levels. The forest offers a snapshot of the ancient past, allowing scientists to understand how environments adapted to changing sea levels as the global climate changed... In...

Claims that coastal tree barriers can halt the might of a tsunami are false and dangerous, a team of international marine scientists said today.

"The tsunami left a horrific human tragedy in its wake, but also some lessons. Among them is the tremendous importance of mangroves, which are one of the world's most threatened tropical ecosystems," said Faizal Parish, director of Malaysia's Global Environment Center and a co-author of the study. Interested in technology and innovation news? Add this site to your "Favorites" to find your way back easily next time. Scientists say they've found areas with coastal forests, such as mangroves, were substantially less damaged by the 2004 tsunami than other areas. The research, published in the journal Science, is believed the first...

Ancient mangrove forests found under reef North Queensland marine researchers have opened a window into the past by exposing ancient mangrove forests entombed beneath the Great Barrier Reef. Dr Dan Alongi from the Australian Institute of Marine Science says they have unearthed 9,000-year-old mangroves in old river channels that were swamped when sea levels rose after the last ice age. He says the relic mangroves show an abrupt rise in the sea level, 20 times faster than previously thought. "Material was very much intact, it didn't even have time to fully decompose when it was buried, so it does tell...