The Great Barrier Reef is an icon, and we want to know what we can do to save it. We would not be able to do this kind of broad-reaching work without NASA. With this satellite data delivery service we're able observe and understand what's happening in the ocean in ways we've never been able to before.

The scary thing is that even in the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most protected reefs in the world, researchers are seeing more diseases every time they look.

I didn't set out to be an icon, to save the lesbians of the world. But women were hungry. We were starving for someone who talked about what we were thinking and feeling. And somehow I stumbled into a clearing -- here are some things I found that maybe would be useful -- and I flew them out like model airplanes.

Captain James Cook's ship, The Endeavour, hit a coral outcrop in the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. Cook and his crew camped in what is now called Cooktown for nearly two months while making repairs. Then they sailed south, where Cook claimed the east coast of Australia as British territory.

We don't know the rates of (reef) growth.

A fallen lighthouse is more dangerous than a reef