• Scientists are conducting a pioneering large-scale deep-sea coral restoration in the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which damaged 1,994 square kilometers (770 square miles) of seafloor habitat.
• Underwater robots and Navy divers using specialized gear to work at depths up to 100 meters (328 feet) plant coral fragments on the ocean floor, while labs in Texas, South Carolina and Florida grow corals in tanks for future transplantation.
• The novel eight-year, multi-million-dollar project has achieved milestones including high deepwater coral survival rates at sea and the first successful spawning of deep-sea corals in captivity, which produced more than 1,000 baby corals.
• The restoration faces ongoing threats from climate change, commercial fishing, agricultural runoff and potential future oil spills, with nearly 1,000 spills occurring in U.S. waters in 2021 and 2022 alone.

Welcome one and all to BigFriendly.Guide (or BigFriendlyGuide.c om, if you’re nasty). This is the new home for Jeffrey Parkin and myself, Ryan Gilliam. For the last 10 years or so, you’ve been able to find Jeff and my bylines all over a website called Polygon. We don’t work at that website anymore, due to circumstances beyond our control — namely Vox Media selling it and laying almost all of us off in the process. While we worked for Vox, Jeff and I worked on a lot of guide projects together and discovered we had a mutual love in the world of games: helping others enjoy them. So when we found ourselves unemployed, it didn’t take us long to come together and decide it was time for us to make something of our own. And thus, BigFriendly.Guide was born.

The thesis: We’re a completely employee-owned website — me and Jeff, we’re the employees and we own the joint — dedicated not to serving Google the kinds of guides it’s looking for, but serving you, our readers, community members, and, hopefully, subscribers.

Welcome one and all to BigFriendly.Guide (or BigFriendlyGuide.c om, if you’re nasty). This is the new home for Jeffrey Parkin and myself, Ryan Gilliam. For the last 10 years or so, you’ve been able to find Jeff and my bylines all over a website called Polygon. We don’t work at that website anymore, due to circumstances beyond our control — namely Vox Media selling it and laying almost all of us off in the process. While we worked for Vox, Jeff and I worked on a lot of guide projects together and discovered we had a mutual love in the world of games: helping others enjoy them. So when we found ourselves unemployed, it didn’t take us long to come together and decide it was time for us to make something of our own. And thus, BigFriendly.Guide was born.

The thesis: We’re a completely employee-owned website — me and Jeff, we’re the employees and we own the joint — dedicated not to serving Google the kinds of guides it’s looking for, but serving you, our readers, community members, and, hopefully, subscribers.

Welcome one and all to BigFriendly.Guide (or BigFriendlyGuide.c om, if you’re nasty). This is the new home for Jeffrey Parkin and myself, Ryan Gilliam. For the last 10 years or so, you’ve been able to find Jeff and my bylines all over a website called Polygon. We don’t work at that website anymore, due to circumstances beyond our control — namely Vox Media selling it and laying almost all of us off in the process. While we worked for Vox, Jeff and I worked on a lot of guide projects together and discovered we had a mutual love in the world of games: helping others enjoy them. So when we found ourselves unemployed, it didn’t take us long to come together and decide it was time for us to make something of our own. And thus, BigFriendly.Guide was born.

The thesis: We’re a completely employee-owned website — me and Jeff, we’re the employees and we own the joint — dedicated not to serving Google the kinds of guides it’s looking for, but serving you, our readers, community members, and, hopefully, subscribers.

• Applications for deep-sea mining permits in Brazil have soared in recent years: of the 950 requests filed since 1967, nearly half were submitted between 2020 and 2024.
• Demand for key minerals used in the clean energy transition, as well as geopolitical uncertainties, are driving the race to the seabed.
• Loopholes in Brazilian legislation are allowing mining companies to work without environmental licensing, a situation made worse by the lack of specific rules for deep-sea mining.
• Researchers warn that the lack of environmental impact studies could have widespread impacts on marine ecosystems, especially on coral reef biodiversity.