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Vaccines are just for kids, right? Not any more. U.S. health officials now recommend at least a half dozen vaccines for adults, to prevent pneumococcus virus, hepatitis, shingles and other ailments. And although the portion of adults who get these vaccinations rises slightly each year, the rates are still far too low to slow the spread of dangerous diseases throughout the general population. Children receive a full slate of vaccinations at a young age, but the schedule for adults—which treatments to receive at which ages—is more complicated....

By Jennifer Chaussee SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California’s drought is expected to cost the state an estimated $2.2 billion this year, along with a loss of more than 17,000 jobs, as farmers are forced to fallow some valuable crops, a report by scientists at the University of California in Davis showed on Tuesday. The report stressed the need for local governments to better manage emergency water reserves, including using measurement tools to track the amount of groundwater that is used during dry years and a statewide system for transporting stored water to where it is needed....

After a five-year decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise again. The culprit: a rebounding economy. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels rose 2.39 percent in 2013 compared with 2012 and grew 7.45 percent for the first two months of 2014 compared with the same period in 2013, according to new data released by the U....

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s wetlands have shrunk nearly 9 percent since 2003, forestry officials said on Monday, aggravating water scarcity in a country where food production, energy output and industrial activity are already under pressure from water shortages.China has more than a fifth of the world’s population but only 6 percent of its freshwater resources, and large swathes of the nation, especially in the north, face severe water distress.Since 2003, wetlands sprawling across 340,000 sq....

Climate scientists have thought up plenty of futuristic ways to cool the planet, but an analysis published on October 26 examines what may be their wildest idea yet: spraying tiny diamonds high into the atmosphere. Researchers have for years discussed the merits of pumping water-based sulphate spray into the sky to reflect and scatter the Sun’s energy—essentially, mimicking the cooling caused by volcanic eruptions. Like most kinds of geoengineering, the idea is highly controversial and so far untested....

International Polar Year–Why? When I first heard of the concept of an International Polar Year (IPY), I rolled my eyes and gave one off those stupid “this is a boring idea” looks I had learned from my teenage son. How could an idea hatched by a military officer in the 1880s have any use in our age of hyper connectivity? The images from previous IPYs were filled with grimy men wrapped in parkas launching balloons, recording numbers in notebooks in small shacks and shooting off explosives....

On a typical summer Saturday morning Matt Avery and his wife, Sheila (not their real names), cook breakfast with their two sons, ages five and eight. Then they get organized with towels, goggles and water wings and load the family into the car for an afternoon at the pool. “Weekends are all about family time,” Matt says. Matt and Sheila have been happily married for 11 years. “She’s my soul mate,” Matt says....

For the first time, there is evidence that a vaccine protects people from Ebola. The interim study results, unveiled by the World Health Organization on July 31 and published online by The Lancet, suggest that a single shot can protect people who were directly or indirectly exposed to individuals with the disease. The vaccine, which appears safe, could fundamentally alter how well humans contain future Ebola outbreaks. Already, the current epidemic has led to more than 11,000 deaths and 27,000 cases....

Human fathers might pride themselves on being dedicated breadwinners, diligent carpool drivers or convenient camping buddies. But plenty of other dads in the natural world go above and beyond the average animal call of duty as a matter or course—as egg incubators or food providers. Most reptile, amphibian and bug offspring never meet their fathers (or mothers, for that matter); they often emerge from eggs into the cold cruel world to fend for themselves....

Neutrinos are devious little particles. Only in the late 1990s were they shown to have mass, after decades of head-scratching hints to that effect. They can oscillate between three neutrino types, or “flavors,” changing their identity on the fly. And, perhaps most famously, they were accused just last year of breaking cosmic law by traveling faster than light. (The jury is out, but an acquittal appears imminent.) Now investigators are just a bit closer to figuring out the neutrino’s modus operandi....

They may not take up surfing or start second careers as cupcake-makers, but chimpanzees and orangutans seem to go through a ‘mid-life crisis’, just like humans. A study of 508 great apes in captivity published today shows that the animals’ sense of well-being bottoms out in their late 20s to mid-30s, the ape equivalent of middle age, before rebounding in old age. The finding that mid-life crises may not be uniquely human suggests that the events might have a biological, rather than a sociological, cause....

A nearby cluster of galaxies is reaching out into the universe with colossal plasma arms — galactic tentacles so long they are nearly five times the width of the Milky Way, astronomers say. The discovery suggests the cores of turbulent galaxy clusters may be much less chaotic than scientists previously thought. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have discovered titanic arms of plasma glowing brightly, with X-rays emanating from the core of the Coma Cluster....

The United Nations Food Systems Summit held last September was eclipsed by a powerful countermobilization effort led by farmers and scientists, as well as civil society groups allied with Indigenous communities and small-scale food producers across the world. These are the very people critical to achieving the summit’s stated goals of ending hunger and promoting sustainable agriculture. The scientists and advocates accused summit organizers of compromising on food security, democratic accountability, sustainability, and the human rights of producers and workers in favor of transnational agribusinesses....

Researchers rely on the rumble of magma moving underground to predict impending volcanic eruptions. But standard seismic tools provide only a rough picture of what’s happening beneath Iceland’s ice-covered volcanoes. ETH Zurich seismologist Andreas Fichtner and his colleagues recently showed how the same ice sheets that hide these volcanoes can amplify otherwise undetectable seismic signals. Iceland’s most active volcano, Grímsvötn, is entirely covered by Europe’s largest glacier. In recent history it has erupted explosively about once per decade, generating flood hazards and dangerous ash clouds....

Scientific American’s resident skeptic Michael Shermer writes about the doping scandals plaguing cycling, baseball and other sports, and he suggests how to curb those practices. Please ignore him. It would be a global tragedy if his meddling were to ruin the most eagerly awaited competitions of 2008. No, not this summer’s Olympics. Those will of course be modestly fun demonstrations of physical prowess. The pursuit of true excellence is cruel and unforgiving, however, which is why devotees of the absolute best in athletic achievement instead turn to the quadrennial Hyper Games....

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY I have a bone to pick, related to “The Power to Persuade,” by Kevin Dutton. Too often people blame others for their bad decisions. In Mariette DiChristina’s comments in her column From the Editor, she says that she could not figure out what the art salesperson had done to “make” her buy the pen-and-ink set, implying that she had had no option but to buy it. Persuasion may be potent, but it is not helpful to allow people to excuse themselves for not making a better decision....

A liquid-water ocean hides under the frozen surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, new evidence confirms. The presence of this water boosts Enceladus’ ranking among the top places in the solar system to look for extraterrestrial life, scientists say. Enceladus has intrigued researchers since 2005, when NASA’s Cassini probe discovered water-rich plumes spewing from the moon’s south pole, raising the possibility that they were venting from a buried liquid sea. The same probe has now bolstered the sea hypothesis by measuring Enceladus’ gravitational field....

In Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, the business-minded mess officer Milo Minderbender ends up with a surplus of Egyptian cotton, which he considers unloading by covering it with chocolate and serving it in his to the soldiers. Even if one were to be comfortable with the idea of eating cotton–“the fabric of our lives” and not the candy–its seeds contain the harmful toxin gossypol that is known to cause low potassium levels in the blood and is associated with malfunctioning kidneys....

More than half of all opioid prescriptions in the United States are written for people with anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders, according to a new study that questions how pain is treated in this vulnerable population. People with mood disorders are at increased risk of abusing opioids, and yet they received many more prescriptions than the general population, according to an analysis of data from 2011 and 2013. “We’re handing this stuff out like candy,” said Dr....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. If you or I jump in the air as high as possible, we can stay off the ground for about half a second. Michael Jordan could stay aloft for almost one second. While there are many events at the Winter Olympics that feature athletes performing feats of athleticism and strength while high in the air, none blur the line between jumping and flying quite as much as the ski jump....