Preventing acute respiratory diseases in Bangladesh, creating biodegradable composite materials for the building industry, reducing the social and environmental impact of Chile’s salmon farming industry – these are the crucial interdisciplinary research projects funded by Stanford's Environmental Venture Projects program.

Tagged: Environmental Research, Environment & Sustainability, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Humanities & Sciences

The wonder of Hawaii's coral reefs brings thousands of awed tourists to the islands every year.  But pollution from a variety of human activities is threatening to ruin this economic and ecological lifeblood of the Hawaiian Islands.

Tagged: Environmental Research, Hawaii, Environment & Sustainability, Engineering

Each year indoor air pollution, caused in part by cookstoves, is a key factor in the deaths of two million children from acute respiratory infections in developing countries. Since 2006, Stanford researchers have been working in Bangladesh to find practical, low-cost incentives that would encourage people to use cleaner, safer cookstoves.

Tagged: Environmental Research, pollution, Environment & Sustainability, International Issues, Engineering, Medicine

Stanford researchers are using genetic engineering and some of the world's smallest microscopes to better understand how specific circuits in the brain operate.

Tagged: brain imaging, NeuroVentures, Human Health, Engineering, Humanities & Sciences, Medicine

Stanford engineers and others create a structural design that lets buildings rock during earthquakes, then pull themselves into plumb when the shaking stops, confining damage to replaceable steel "fuses."

Tagged: On Campus, Engineering

Imagine a tiny organism that lives inside your body, detecting imbalances caused by disease and immediately responding with natural chemicals. Stanford students are attempting to engineer just such non-pathogenic bacteria.

Tagged: Health Research, Human Health, Engineering

The first few times that scientists mapped out all the DNA in a human being in 2001, each effort cost hundreds of millions of dollars and involved more than 250 people.  In a paper published online Aug. 9 by Nature Biotechnology, a Stanford University professor reports sequencing his entire genome for less than $50,000 and with a team of just two other people.

Tagged: genome, Health Research, Human Health, Engineering

What are the chances of a nuclear world war? What is the risk of a nuclear attack on United States soil? The risk of a child born today suffering an early death due to nuclear war is at least 10 percent, according to Martin Hellman, Stanford Professor Emeritus in Engineering,

Tagged: war, On Campus, Engineering

A century after German physicist Gustav Mie derived the math to explain why the colors in some stained glass windows look especially resplendent in the sunlight, a team of Stanford engineers has built upon his work to potentially improve a means of harvesting energy from the sun.

Tagged: solar, Environment & Sustainability, Engineering

At any moment, the winds in high-altitude jet streams hold roughly 100 times more energy than all the electricity being consumed on Earth, according to a study by Stanford environmental and climate scientists Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira.

Tagged: Environmental Research, Environment & Sustainability, Engineering, Humanities & Sciences