In the spring of 2005, Craig Downs, Ph.D., a forensic ecotoxicologist in Virginia, received an unusual phone call from the National Park Service. “They wanted to figure out what was happening to the bay around Trunk Bay in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” he says. Specifically, “they wanted to know what was killing all the coral reefs.” Curious, Downs, who is the executive director of Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, flew down with a team of researchers to investigate the nearshore habitat. They were stumped…. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT VOGUE.COM.