Antarctica's Lake Vida, a body of brine always covered by at least sixty feet of ice, contains some of the world's oldest organisms. Peter Doran (2008) is co-leading the first drilling through the lake's ice cap to collect about ten feet of core samples to study the present ecosystem and its past history.

As precipitation increases with global warming, excess runoff can bring viruses and bacteria into waterways and make people sick. With a $900,000 grant from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Jonathan Patz (2005) is co-leading a study about how floods affect health.

Standards for making shellfish farming sustainable have been released by the Bivalve Aquaculture Dialogue of the World Wildlife Fund. Shellfish producers, scientists, and conservationists are among the stakeholders who took part.

Evidence is growing that climate change is already impacting human health and threatening lives with flooding, drought, and fires as temperatures increase. Legislation to reduce these effects is being overshadowed by the health care debate, but addressing climate change now will generate health care savings, says Karen Holl (2008). Read her op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News.

Emmett Duffy (2006) is co-leading an initiative to develop algae-based biofuel; the effort aims to create energy from renewable resources while attacking pollution.

To better understand how environmental events can affect risks of viral, parasitic, and bacterial diseases, Tom Hobbs (2004) is leading a study on chronic wasting disease, or CWD, in deer.