When scientists want to study Earth’s very ancient geological past — typically greater than 100 million years ago — they often turn to rocks called carbonates.
In recent years, the field of microbiome research has grown rapidly, providing newfound knowledge — and newfound questions — about the microbes that inhabit human and animal bodies. A new study adds to that foundation of knowledge by using DNA analysis to examine the relationship between diet, the environment and the microbiome.
Princeton University researchers have received a $2.5 million federal grant to lead an interdisciplinary effort with academic, city government and nonprofit partners that will develop a scientific process for establishing urban food systems that are less wasteful and environmentally detrimental. The grant will be administered by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI).
Solar and wind farms are popping up around the country to lower carbon emissions, and these renewables also have another important effect: keeping more water in the ground.
A new Princeton University-led study in Nature Communications is among the first to show that solar and wind energy not only enhance drought resilience, but also aid in groundwater sustainability.
For three hurricane seasons in a row, storms with record-breaking rainfall have caused catastrophic flooding in the southern United States: Harvey in 2017, Florence in 2018 and Imelda in 2019.
The Amazon is the world’s largest and most diverse tropical forest and the ancestral home of over 1 million indigenous peoples. How to preserve it was the centrally urgent theme at a conference at Princeton on Oct. 17-18.
The University’s Sustainability Action Plan — released in April 2019 — outlined seven key action areas and included a target of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2046.
In this video, Ted Borer, director of the campus energy plant, discusses some of the ways the University is approaching this goal — by reducing energy usage, delivering energy efficiently and using renewable energy sources.
In the summer of 2019, a group of Princeton undergraduates embarked on a six-week Global Seminar in central Kenya, studying ecology and conservation as well as filmmaking fundamentals with Princeton faculty and other renowned instructors.
Their classroom was Mpala, 48,000 acres of privately owned conservation lands managed by the University in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museums of Kenya and the Kenya Wildlife Service.
The fabled use of canaries in coal mines as an early warning of carbon monoxide stemmed from the birds’ extreme sensitivity to toxic conditions compared to humans.
In that vein, some avian species can indicate environmental distress brought on by overdevelopment, habitat loss and rising global temperatures before an ecosystem has collapsed. Not all bird species, however, respond to environmental disturbances equally.
The ecological impacts of extreme weather, a national “climate park” in the New Jersey Meadowlands, and engineered nanoparticles that target groundwater pollutants are among the 13 projects funded by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) as part of its Water and the Environment Grand Challenge program.
