Bleached corals fully recover within seven weeks after contact with healthy clones in lab study

Summary

Scientists observed severely bleached corals on the brink of death recover fully after brief contact with genetically identical healthy corals in laboratory experiments. The corals regained their color and were fully healthy within seven weeks, which one report describes as the fastest documented recovery to date. Some corals began healing after as little as five days of contact. The study was published in Science Advances.

Timeline

1. Phys.org

   18 Oct 2026, 16:00 UTCSource ↗

   Phys.org reports that bleached corals on the brink of death fully recovered in a laboratory within seven weeks after brief contact with healthy clones, which it describes as the fastest documented recovery to date, according to a study published in Science Advances.

2. ScienceDaily

   19 Oct 2026, 11:05 UTCSource ↗

   ScienceDaily reports that severely bleached corals regained their color and fully recovered within seven weeks after touching healthy, genetically identical corals in laboratory experiments, and that as little as five days of contact sometimes started the healing process.