Welcome to Getting Curious. I'm Jonathan Vaness and every week I sit down for a gorgeous

conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.

On today's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Julie Burwald, where I ask her,

what's a day in the life of a coral reef.

Welcome to Getting Curious. This is Jonathan Vaness. We have such an interesting episode

for you today. So welcome to the show, Dr. Julie Burwald, who is a science writer living in Austin,

Texas. Yes, Austin, Texas. She's the author of Spineless, the science of jellyfish and the art

of growing a backbone. Her new book, Life on the Rocks, Building a Future for Coral Reefs, is out now.

Our guiding question for today is how deep can we dive in coral reefs? Or on coral reefs?

Really however you want to think about it. But first of all, how are you, Dr. Julie?

I'm so fantastic. And this is so wonderful to be on Getting Curious. I can't believe that it's

really a dream. Thank you for having me.

Ah, well, thank you for having us. So let me tell you about why this kind of like started.

My husband and I went to Turks and Kekos for our honeymoon last year. And we got to like go snorkeling

in this like stunning coral reef. And I realized that there was like all of this bleaching. Like a lot

of like the coral was like getting bleached. And I was asking our tour guide, is this like the thing

that I was reading about in like the news? And he was like, yeah, like when I was little, it wasn't

like this. And now it's like all like this. And I was like, no, so that's how I got curious about

coral reefs. Coral reefs 101. This is going to be, you know, deep. Yeah, I hope you can handle it.

Just kidding. What is the coral reef? It's a really good question because until like really the

1700s people didn't know what coral were, they thought they were plants because they look so

planting. It turns out corals are animals just like we are. And they have nervous systems and

...