Latest research

International negotiators will meet in Scotland this Sunday for the latest UN Climate Change Conference. Stanford experts in a range of fields discuss their hopes for the talks as well as major themes likely to influence negotiations, keys to success and more.

Stanford water experts discuss lessons learned from previous droughts, imperatives for infrastructure investment and pathways for the state to achieve dramatically better conservation and reuse of its most precious resource.

A new model of ancient asteroids bombarding the Earth has been applied to understand how oxygen levels in Earth’s atmosphere evolved.

A mathematical model of the body’s interacting physiological and biochemical processes shows that it may be more effective to replace red blood cell transfusion with transfusion of other fluids that are far less in demand.

Researchers found increased concentrations of air pollutants downwind from oil and gas wells in California, likely affecting millions of Californians who live near them.

A bill under debate in Congress would pave the way to verifying and paying for farms’ carbon savings. Stanford scientists explore this and other opportunities for growing climate change solutions on U.S. farms.

An oil spill from the FSO Safer could increase cardiovascular and respiratory hospitalizations and disrupt access to food and water for millions of people, researchers predict.

A sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries. The discovery is an early step toward predicting how evolution will play out on the other side of the current extinction crisis.

A new Stanford University study shows rising oxygen levels may explain why global extinction rates slowed down over the past 541 million years. Below 40 percent of present atmospheric oxygen, ocean dead zones rapidly expand, and extinctions ramp up.

Environmental law expert Professor Deborah Sivas discusses the spill and regulations surrounding off-shore oil drilling.

California should use its $260 billion annual spending and $1 trillion pension funds to advance its climate agenda through climate risk disclosure requirements, according to a Stanford-led group of advisors appointed by Gov. Newsom. Two advisors explain how more disclosure can do that.

Analyses lay out a blueprint for speeding development of methane removal technologies and modeling how the approach could improve human health and have an outsized effect on reducing future peak temperatures.

A new method for quantifying plant evolution reveals that after the onset of early seed plants, complexity halted for 250 million years until the diversification of flowering plants about 100 million years ago.

A deep learning approach to classifying buildings with wildfire damage may help responders focus their recovery efforts and offer more immediate information to displaced residents.

Humanity is likely to consume more fish and shellfish in the coming decades. Preparing for that future requires better data on the types of fish that people eat, sustainable expansion of aquaculture and improved understanding of the local context for the food on our plates.

Hunger, malnutrition and obesity affect billions of people. A first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the so-called blue foods sector reveals challenges and opportunities for creating a healthier, more sustainable, equitable and resilient global food system.

The most devastating tornadoes are often preceded by a cloudy plume of ice and water vapor billowing above a severe thunderstorm. New research reveals the mechanism for these plumes could be tied to “hydraulic jumps” – a phenomenon Leonardo Da Vinci observed more than 500 years ago.

Interviews with Northern California residents reveal that social norms and social support are essential for understanding protective health behaviors during wildfire smoke events – information that could be leveraged to improve public health outcomes.

Stanford Law School’s Professor Buzz Thompson, one of the country’s leading water law experts, discusses California’s wildfires, drought, water, and climate change with Stanford Legal on SiriusXM co-hosts Professors Joseph Bankman and Richard Thompson Ford.