MIAMI -- It was a marvelous night for coral sex.
Warm waters bathed the reef a mile off Key Biscayne. A nearly full moon signaled to staghorn polyps that the time was right. A team of eager University of Miami scientists and student divers waited underwater, nets ready to collect a flurry of eggs and sperm that would float to the surface in what they describe as a magical snowglobe effect.
Birds do it. Bees do it. Corals — which are living, procreating animals and not just ornate rocks — do it, too.
