Earth | Page 878 | Science Codex

Osteoporosis screening recommendations may miss two-thirds of women aged 50 to 64

FINDINGS:

Women who are 65 and older routinely undergo bone-density testing to screen for osteoporosis. But for those between the ages of 50 and 64, it has been unclear who should be screened.

Researchers sought to determine how well the current screening strategy recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — the independent expert panel appointed by the federal government to review and recommend various screenings — would perform in identifying candidates in this age range for screening.

Down to EARTH: Interview with Department of the Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell

Alexandria, VA – EARTH Magazine sits down with Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to discuss the role of geoscience at the Department of the Interior, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore development of both renewable and conventional energy resources.

To calculate long-term conservation pay off, factor in people

Paying people to protect their natural environment is a popular conservation tool around the world – but figure out that return on investment, for both people and nature, is a thorny problem, especially since such efforts typically stretch on for years.

"Short attention-span worlds with long attention-span problems" is how Xiaodong Chen, a former Michigan State University doctoral student now on faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill sums it up.

Diagnosis just a breath away with new laser

University of Adelaide physics researchers have developed a new type of laser that will enable exciting new advances in areas as diverse as breath analysis for disease diagnosis and remote sensing of critical greenhouse gases.

UD catalyst can convert CO2 to CO with 92 percent efficiency

A team of researchers at the University of Delaware has developed a highly selective catalyst capable of electrochemically converting carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — to carbon monoxide with 92 percent efficiency. The carbon monoxide then can be used to develop useful chemicals.

The researchers recently reported their findings in Nature Communications.

Quicker method paves the way for atomic-level design

A new X-ray method will enable the development of more efficient catalysts. The method opens up new opportunities to work on atomic level in a number of areas of materials science. Researchers from Lund University are among those behind the new method.

The new X-ray method is used to determine the atomic structure of the surface of different materials. The goal of the present research is to understand how catalysts work at atomic level – both the catalytic converters used for vehicle emissions control in cars and catalysts used in industry.

Researchers identify 9 steps to save waterways

The key to clean waterways and sustainable fisheries is to follow nine guiding principles of water management, says a team of Canadian biologists.

Fish habitats need waterways that are rich in food with places to hide from predators and lay eggs, according to the framework published today in the journal Environmental Reviews.

NSA pursues quantum technology

In this month's issue of Physics World, Jon Cartwright explains how the revelation that the US National Security Agency (NSA) is developing quantum computers has renewed interest and sparked debate on just how far ahead they are of the world's major labs looking to develop the same technology.

Savanna vegetation predictions best done by continent

A "one-size-fits-all" model to predict the effects of climate change on savanna vegetation isn't as effective as examining individual savannas by continent, according to research published in Science this week.

Savannas – grasslands dotted with trees – cover about 20 percent of the earth's land and play a critical role in storing atmospheric carbon, says Dr. William Hoffmann, associate professor of plant and microbial biology at North Carolina State University and co-author of the study.

Faster X-ray technology paves the way for better catalysts

By using a novel X-ray technique, researchers have observed a catalyst surface at work in real time and were able to resolve its atomic structure in detail. The new technique, pioneered at DESY's X-ray light source PETRA III, may pave the way for the design of better catalysts and other materials on the atomic level. It greatly speeds up the determination of atomic surface structures and enables live recordings of surface reactions like catalysis, corrosion and growth processes with a time resolution of less than a second.

Deaths attributed directly to climate change cast pall over penguins

Climate change is killing penguin chicks from the world's largest colony of Magellanic penguins, not just indirectly – by depriving them of food, as has been repeatedly documented for these and other seabirds – but directly as a result of drenching rainstorms and, at other times, heat, according to new findings from the University of Washington.

Penguin future uncertain in the face of climate change

Changes in average climatic conditions combined with the increasing frequency of unpredictable, extreme weather events may disrupt scientific predictions of the future penguin populations, according to a study published in PLOS ONE on January 29, 2014 by Amélie Lescroël from the Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS), France and colleagues.

Sea level variations escalating along eastern Gulf of Mexico coast

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Around the globe, sea levels typically rise a little in summer and fall again in winter. Now, a new study shows that, from the Florida Keys to southern Alabama, those fluctuations have been intensifying over the past 20 years. Summer peaks have been getting higher and winter troughs dipping lower, potentially increasing flooding from hurricanes and stressing delicate ecosystems, the researchers report.

From rivers to landslides: Charting the slopes of sediment transport

In the Earth Surface Dynamics Lab at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) the behavior of rivers is modeled through the use of artificial rivers—flumes—through which water can be pumped at varying rates over a variety of carefully graded sediments while drag force and acceleration are measured. The largest flume is a 12-meter tilting version that can model many river conditions; another flume models the languid process of a nearly flat river bed forming a delta as it reaches a pool.

Modeling buildings by the millions: Building codes in China tested for energy savings

RICHLAND, Wash. – China can build its way to a more energy efficient future — one house, apartment and retail store at a time — by improving the rules regulating these structures, according to a study by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

PNNL scientists at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a partnership with the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., have created a unique model that projects how much energy can be saved with changes to China's building energy codes.