Pink sand. It makes Bermuda’s beaches some of the most beautiful and picturesque in the world…but what makes it pink?

Last week three BIOS scientists – Tim Noyes and Dr. Eric Hochberg in the Coral Reef Ecology and Optics Lab [CREOL] and Andrew Collins in the Bermuda Ocean Acidification and Coral Reef Investigation [BEACON] Lab – presented their research at the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium [ICRS] in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

Imagine going for a Sunday drive in the family submarine.

In a nod to the value of crowdsourcing as an effective forecasting method, the Risk Prediction Initiative (RPI2.0) announces the start of its seasonal forecast competition, in which participants can win up to $5000.

Colonies of corals build reefs. As stony corals construct new animals on top of themselves, the lower sections die. The skeletons of these hard corals form the structure of the reef. Sand fills in the framework and calcareous algae cements it.

Ruth Curry, Senior Research Specialist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is used to the challenges that come with deep-ocean research; after all, she has spent the last three decades measuring circulation pathways in the Atlantic Ocean. But she never expected that, on a calm day in November, she’d require the help of two ships and an underwater robot to literally save her research program, an undertaking she describes as, “the most exciting thing I’ve done in my 32 years of going to sea.”

Bermuda’s coral reefs could be indirectly impacted by the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig explosion that saw millions of gallons of oil leaked into the ocean — ironically not by the oil, but by chemicals used in the clean up.

The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences [BIOS] said they are pleased to announce the return of the Atlantis Mobile Laboratory, owned by Universite Laval, to the BIOS campus to continue its work on environmental and human health issues in Bermuda.

Between April 1, 2011 and April 1, 2012, a total of 622 babies were born at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.  The wellbeing of these babies and their mothers is of great importance to the health and vibrancy of the local community. To this end, Laval University’s Atlantis Mobile Laboratories, stationed at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) and supported by a grant from the Lepercq Foundation, is facilitating a National Maternal Nutrition Survey to assess the nutritional status and needs of pregnant women in Bermuda.