A newly discovered species of wasp, native to the cloud forests of Colombia’s tropical Andes, has been named in honor of Duke University conservation scientist Stuart Pimm.

Man’s best friend may also be man’s best bet for figuring out how environmental chemicals could impact our health. Researchers from North Carolina State University and Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment used silicone dog tags as passive environmental samplers to collect information about everyday chemical exposures, and found that dogs could be an important sentinel species for the long term effects of environmental chemicals.

Duke University has received a $20 million gift to strengthen research and education at the Nicholas School of the Environment, aiming to solve the most pressing environmental challenges confronting society, President Vincent E. Price announced today.

Small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon poses a health hazard not only to the miners and communities near where mercury is used to extract gold from ore, but also to downstream communities hundreds of kilometers away where people eat mercury-contaminated river fish as part of their diet.

Governments at every level have taken steps over the last decade to reduce the flow of plastic pollution into the world’s oceans, according to a recently published Duke University policy analysis. The analysis finds, however, that the vast majority of new policies have focused specifically on plastic shopping bags.

The relief fund, in partnership with Duke’s Office of Durham & Community Affairs, will help provide relief grants for local organizations.

Reusing low-saline oilfield water mixed with surface water to irrigate farms in the Cawelo Water District of California does not pose major health risks, as some opponents of the practice have feared, a study led by Duke University and RTI International researchers finds.

Six Nicholas School of the Environment doctoral students have been awarded Graduate Student Training Enhancement Grants that will enable them to do remote summer internships that augment their doctoral research.

High-intensity fires can destroy peat bogs and cause them to emit huge amounts of their stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, but a new Duke University study finds low-severity fires spark the opposite outcome.

By providing the first estimate of how much hydrogen is available to fuel microbial life in the sunless sub-seafloor crust beneath the Mid-Ocean Ridge (MOR), a new Duke University-led study sheds light on one of Earth’s least understood biospheres.

Betsy Albright and Tim Johnson are the recipients of the Nicholas School of the Environment’s inaugural Lynn Maguire Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Professional Students.

A new $2.44 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will support a Duke University-led initiative to help utilities and wholesale electricity markets improve their efficiency and reliability while reducing emissions and costs, at a time of needed transformations to tackle climate change.

While some energy experts are uncertain about the long-term environmental effects, ‘we should be investing in the technologies of tomorrow,’ they say