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Scientists from Stanford and elsewhere joined to create a mini-lab in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The device can simulate predicted future ocean conditions – such as rising carbon dioxide levels – and their effects on ecosystems such as coral.

Intricate, often invisible chains of life are threatened with extinction around the world. A new study quantifies one of the longest such chains ever documented.

Researchers from Stanford and Purdue universities found that climate change's impact on corn price volatility could far outweigh the volatility caused by changing oil prices or government energy policies mandating biofuels production from corn and other crops. "Frankly, I was surprised that climate had the largest effect of these three influences," said Noah Diffenbaugh, assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at the School of Earth Sciences and a fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "These are substantial changes in price volatility that come from relatively moderate global warming."

"They're thought of as ephemera – a map that stays in the car and you use it until you throw it away," said Julie Sweetkind-Singer, head librarian of Stanford's Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections. "It's a source of research information, just in a different format – a cartographic format instead of a text  format," she said. "It's one of the most significant road map collections in the West."