Earth

A lower dose of zoledronic acid than currently recommended for prevention of bone fractures due to osteoporosis decreases bone resorption and increases bone density, and may be effective in reducing the risk of osteoporotic fractures, a study finds. The new research findings will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston.

A new study comparing lifelong obesity with the weight fluctuations of "yo-yo dieting" suggests it is better to attempt to lose weight despite repeated failures at keeping the weight off than to not diet and remain obese. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston.

PASADENA, Calif.—When geologists survey an area of land for the potential that gas or petroleum deposits could exist there, they must take into account the composition of rocks that lie below the surface. Take, for instance, sandstone—a sedimentary rock composed mostly of weakly cemented quartz grains. Previous research had suggested that compaction bands—highly compressed, narrow, flat layers within the sandstone—are much less permeable than the host rock and might act as barriers to the flow of oil or gas.

Researchers now understand more about why platinum is so efficient at producing power in hydrogen fuel cells.

"Understanding platinum's properties for speeding up chemical reactions will potentially enable scientists to create significantly cheaper synthetic or metal alloy alternatives for use in sustainable devices like fuel cells," says Gregory Jerkiewicz, a professor in the Department of Chemistry who led the groundbreaking study.

This world-first has its origins in Hamburg. Jörg Weißmüller, a materials scientist at both the Technical University of Hamburg and the Helmholtz Center Geesthacht, has carried out research on this groundbreaking development, working in cooperation with colleagues from the Institute for Metal Research in Shenyang, China.

The human impact on the environment, especially through the release of greenhouse gases, is an area of controversy in public understanding of climate change, and is important for predicting future changes. Many studies into our collective impact use climate models to understand the causes of observed climate changes, both globally and in specific regions.

The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures within the next 20 to 60 years if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, according to a new climate study by Stanford University scientists. The results will be published later this month in the journal Climatic Change.

The ALPHA Collaboration, an international team of scientists working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, has created and stored a total of 309 antihydrogen atoms, some for up to 1,000 seconds (almost 17 minutes), with an indication of much longer storage time as well.

ALPHA announced in November, 2010, that they had succeeded in storing antimatter atoms for the first time ever, having captured 38 atoms of antihydrogen and storing each for a sixth of a second. In the weeks following, ALPHA continued to collect anti-atoms and hold them for longer and longer times.

Berkeley — Trapping antihydrogen atoms at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has become so routine that physicists are confident that they can soon begin experiments on this rare antimatter equivalent of the hydrogen atom, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

New York — June 5, 2011 — Moisture and heat fluctuations from the land surface to the atmosphere form a critical nexus between surface hydrology and atmospheric processes, especially those relevant to rainfall. While current theory has suggested that soil moisture has had a positive impact on precipitation, there have been very few large-scale observations of this.

The rate of release of carbon into the atmosphere today is nearly 10 times as fast as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55.9 million years ago, the best analog we have for current global warming, according to an international team of geologists. Rate matters and this current rapid change may not allow sufficient time for the biological environment to adjust.

"We looked at the PETM because it is thought to be the best ancient analog for future climate change caused by fossil fuel burning," said Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences, Penn State.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Think "mass extinction" and you probably envision dinosaurs dropping dead in the long-ago past or exotic tropical creatures being wiped out when their rainforest habitats are decimated. But a major mass extinction took place right here in North America in the first half of the 20th century, when 47 species of mollusk disappeared after the watershed in which they lived was dammed.

When earthquake, tsunami, tornado or flood strike, among the most vulnerable group are the elderly. Writing in the International Journal of Emergency Management, researchers in New Zealand suggest that emergency response plans must take into account the age-related needs of adults with regards to the personal and social resources they have available.

and Spanish.

COPENHAGEN (3 JUNE 2011)—A new study has matched future climate change "hotspots" with regions already suffering chronic food problems to identify highly-vulnerable populations, chiefly in Africa and South Asia, but potentially in China and Latin America as well, where in fewer than 40 years, the prospect of shorter, hotter or drier growing seasons could imperil hundreds of millions of already-impoverished people.