The coordination of the programme is facilitated by the Sandwatch Foundation, and is supported by the University of Puerto Rico Sea Grant Program.

UNESCO: Small Island Developing States

In a paper in Science, Sandra Garrett and Joshua Rosenthal of the University of Puerto Rico illustrate how the instructions in the DNA are not always followed faithfully.

ECONOMIST: A hitherto-unknown way to evolve

San Juan, Puerto Rico's biggest city, "is the sexy younger sister of New York, " says Sotirios Kotoulas, a Canadian-born New York architect and professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

CNN: Hot new things to do in Puerto Rico

In its solar system there is another planet, Gliese-581d, that is also of interest in the search for life, according to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.

CNN: 3 new planets could host life

Rafael Joglar, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico, has noted the diminishing nighttime calls in decades of research on the island and not just from the three species believe to have gone extinct.

NPR: Alarm Over Vanishing Frogs In The Caribbean

Native to Central and South America, iguanas arrived in Puerto Rico in the 1970s as part of the pet trade, says Rafael Joglar, a biology professor at the University of Puerto Rico who has studied the animals.

WSJ: To Battle Iguanas, Puerto Rico Has New Plan: Put Them on Menu

"There is no agreement by the astrobiology community on how to measure habitability, " said Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, who is working on several planetary indexing systems.

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Much of the work is done by Cornell University's Arecibo radar-telescope in Puerto Rico, which is facing federal funding cuts.

ECONOMIST: The ultimate environmental catastrophe