Australian Institute of Marine Science

As if they don't already face enough challenges from bleaching, many of the world's coral reefs are currently being eaten by the crown-of-thorns starfish. A simple new portable test kit, however, could detect their presence sooner than ever before.

A new study has demonstrated how the atomic bomb tests from the Cold War era could help fill in some of the blanks for marine biologists, with scientists using nuclear isotopes to measure the age of the whale shark for the first time.