The projected widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 will likely have devastating consequences for millions of people, a new research published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE warned.

Coral reefs around the world are at risk because of manmade carbon emissions, increasing global temperatures and acidification of oceans. A new study by Duke University and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale researchers warned that coral reefs in Western Mexico, Micronesia, parts of Indonesia, Australia and Southeast Asia will be gone by 2050.

Some Southern Hemisphere regions like South America served as a type of refuge for species at the time of the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) extinction event that killed as much as three-quarters of life on Earth, a new study suggested.

A team of paleontologists led by Michael Donovan, a PhD student at Pennsylvania State University, studied fossils and determined that there was an extinction event in South America at the same time as a similar event occurred in North America.

Adding to a lengthening list of evidence that the climate is changing, a new study revealed that Arctic sea ice struggled tremendously to rebound in October after shrinking to its second-lowest extent on record in the previous month.

Advent of the winter season and rapidly declining daylight typically equate to the growth of Arctic sea ice. After hitting its lowest level in early September, sea ice started recovering but the process slowed in October.

Saudi Arabia bestowed eight scientists with the prestigious Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water at a ceremony held at New York-based United Nations headquarters on Wednesday.

Dr. Shafiqul Islam of Tufts University and Dr. Rita Colwell of University of Maryland were awarded the “Creativity Prize” for their work to predict cholera outbreaks using satellite data. The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Dr. Peter J. Webster shared the same prize for his work on predicting floods during monsoons.