CORAL CURES: Watch dolphins line up to self-medicate skin ailments at coral “clinics.” “When lead author Gertrud Morlock, an analytical chemist and food scientist at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany, and her team used planar separations combined with on-surface assays and high-resolution mass spectrometry to analyze samples of the gorgonian coral Rumphella aggregata, the leather coral Sarcophyton sp., and the sponge Ircinia sp., they found 17 active metabolites with antibacterial, antioxidative, hormonal, and toxic activities. This discovery of these bioactive compounds led the team to believe that the mucus of the corals and sponges is serving to regulate the dolphin skin’s microbiome and treat infections.”