Antarctica was once downright balmy, lush with plants and lakes, but not any time recently. Despite all of the climate change and global warming of the last few million years, the continent has been a barren, cold desert of ice.

What might we expect there in the future as Earth's atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide grows? More of the same. Antarctica's ancient lake deposits have remained frozen for at least the last 14 million years, suggesting that the surrounding region, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, or EAIS, has likewise remained intact. 

Hydraulic fracturing is an important technological advance in the extraction of natural gas and petroleum from black shales, but wastewater produced along with shale gas and petroleum following fracking is extremely saline and contains high concentrations of barium.

The flu virus infects up to one-fifth of the U.S. population each year and kills thousands of people, many of them elderly. A new study explains why the flu vaccine is less effective at protecting older individuals, the people it is supposed to protect. 

Flu vaccines, which contain proteins found in circulating viral strains, offer protection by eliciting the production of antibodies -- proteins that help the immune system identify pathogens and protect against infectious disease. While vaccination is considered the most effective method for preventing influenza, it is less effective in the elderly. But until now, the molecular mechanisms underlying this decrease in vaccine efficacy were unknown.

Soap and water have been mainstays in the prevention of infection for open fractures but a new study finds that it is actually less effective than just using saline water.

The finding could lead to significant cost savings, particularly in developing countries where open fractures are common. 

(Boston)-- Healthcare consumers, policy and insurance organizations rely heavily on hospital ranking reports, but how accurate are they? Do differences in patient preferences for life-sustaining treatments that exist between different hospitals affect how hospitals are ranked?

The climate is complex and nothing shows that more than when numerical models are forced to stop predicting the past and have to actually project what could happen in the future.

But the past can at least inform if models are really wrong and an analysis of fossil corals and mollusk shells from the Pacific Ocean reveals there is no link between the strength of seasonal differences and El Niño, a complex but irregular climate pattern with large impacts on weather - but the top nine climate models in use today simplistically associate exceptionally hot summers and cold winters with weak El Niños, and vice versa.