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Inhaling dust that contains fly ash particles from coal combustion has been linked to lung and heart disease, cancer, nervous system disorders and other ill effects. But tracking the presence of coal ash in dust has been a challenge for scientists.

The ongoing transition from coal to natural gas and renewables in the U.S. electricity sector is dramatically reducing the industry’s water use, a new 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû study finds.

Predicting if droughts and heat waves will kill forests is difficult, but new work by scientists and engineers at Duke, Princeton, Stanford and the University of Alabama (UA) could help scientists spot problems early enough that they can still mitigate the threats and help restore at-risk forests.

With the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) poised to loosen coal ash rules for dry onsite storage and large fill projects, a new study from 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû finds that leaving those contaminants exposed may significantly heighten the risk of toxic contamination to nearby soil and waterways.

Allowing coal ash to be spread on soil or stored in unlined pits and landfills will raise the risk that several toxic elements, including carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, could leach out of the coal ash and contaminate nearby water supplies across the U.S., according to preliminary findings from a new 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû study.

John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû’s Nicholas School of the Environment, has received an $848,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the effects of declining elephant populations on Africa’s forests.

The Duke Forest is a 7,000 acre teaching and research forest used by the university since 1931 to facilitate research and education. Today, it remains an outdoor classroom and living laboratory but the topics under study and the people driving the work are far more diverse than ever before.

Algae may hold the key to helping scientists devise a negative-emissions technology that produces electricity and provides protein for millions of people worldwide while simultaneously removing substantial amounts of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere and reducing deforestation.