Diane Toomey

An unusual single celled organism that seems to flourish in polluted waters is being blamed for massive fish kills in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina. The disease agent is called Pfiesteria, and scientiests have dubbed it the cell from hell. Now, some researchers, anglers and divers suspect it may also harm humans. The pfiesteria […]

Human disease can often be chalked up to both our genes and the environment. But, just how these two factors conspire with each other is poorly understood. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences wants to shed light on that complex interplay through a new effort dubbed the Environmental Genome Project. A Human Genome Project […]

Lemurs are some of the most endangered primates in the world. Found only in Madagascar and one group of neighboring islands, these creatures have lost fully 90 percent of their habitat since humans first landed on Madagascar two millennium ago. But, now researchers at Duke University’s Primate Center hope to give lemus a chance at […]

A scientist’s efforts to bring back what was once called “the king of trees”–the American Chestnut.

We’ve heard how both researchers and the lay public can help count up the earth’s creatures. Now, in the final segment of Living on Earth’s special, we’ll see how technology is helping to speed up the identification of species. But first, we’ll see how things were done the old fashioned way. And for that, Living […]