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Chemists have taken another major step in the quest to use carbon-hydrogen bonds to create new molecules, a strategy that aims to revolutionize the field of organic synthesis.

The journal Nature is publishing the work by chemists at Emory University. They demonstrated the ability to selectively functionalize the unreactive carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds of an alkane without using a directing group, while also maintaining virtually full control of site selectivity and the three-dimensional shape of the molecules produced.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Biologists at Indiana University have significantly advanced understanding of the genetic pathways that control the appearance of different physical traits in the same species depending on nutritional conditions experienced during development.

In many animals, nutrition -- not genetic differences -- controls the appearance of certain physical traits. Ants and bees, for example, grow into workers or queens based upon the food eaten as larvae.

Walking through Harvard Yard, you see it every day - one person stops to look up at a tree, perhaps trying to catch a glimpse of hawks that call the area home - and soon most passers-by are stopping to look in the same direction.

It's a phenomenon known as "gaze following" - and although it's been demonstrated in dozens of species, researchers have theorized that it may develop in a unique way in humans, because it plays a critical role in learning and socialization.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016, San Diego: A promising new test is detecting prostate cancer more precisely than current tests, by identifying molecular changes in the prostate specific antigen (PSA) protein, according to Cleveland Clinic research presented today at the American Urological Association annual meeting.

The study - part of an ongoing multicenter prospective clinical trial - found that the IsoPSATM test can also differentiate between high-risk and low-risk disease, as well as benign conditions.

Employees' experiences of fairness at work can impact on their health, according to a new study involving the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The researchers investigated whether perceptions of what they call 'procedural justice', such as the processes in place to decide on rewards, pay, promotion and assignments, are related to employees' health.

They found that when perceptions of fairness changed, the self-rated health of employees also changed, for example those who experienced more fairness on average over the period studied reported better health.

In a world first study researchers have found that coral bleaching and death can have dramatic repercussions for how small reef fish learn about and avoid predators. The new results are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

New research from Denmark involving more than 100,000 individuals suggests that the excess risk of premature death associated with obesity has decreased over the past 40 years. All-cause mortality was higher in obese individuals than in normal weight individuals in 1976-78, but not in 2003-13.

Scientists have discovered rapidly rising seasonal sea temperatures are the likely trigger for coral reproduction allowing them to predict when mass spawning will occur.

Mass coral spawning is considered to be one of nature's most spectacular phenomena with dozens of coral species releasing eggs and sperm into the sea, on a few nights each year.

The event attracts divers to ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef to witness the corals in action. Up until now, what drives the release has been a mystery.

For more than 50 years, scientists have known of the existence of "jumping genes," strands of DNA material that can move from one location in the genome to another.

Now, for the first time, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) have demonstrated conclusively that one of these jumping genes appears to play a key role in the generation of cancer. The study was published today in the journal Genome Research. It is the first study to ever elucidate this process.

Kichitaro Nakajima, a graduate student at the Graduate School of Engineering Science, Hirotsugu Ogi, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering Science, and Yuji Goto, Professor at Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University succeeded in increasing the velocity constant for a reaction in which proteins causing Alzheimer disease (AD) turn into toxic substances to 1,000 times by using optimum frequency of ultrasonic irradiation.

DURHAM, N.C. -- A new study finds that the more than 90,000 species of mushrooms, molds, yeasts and other fungi found everywhere in the soil, water and air may owe their abilities to grow, spread, and even cause disease to an opportunistic virus they caught more than a billion years ago.

Induced pluripotent stem cells hold promise for regenerative medicine because they can, in theory, turn into any type of tissue and because they are made from a patient's own adult cells, guaranteeing compatibility. However, the technique that turns adult cells into these iPS cells is not foolproof; after reverting to their pluripotent state, these cells don't always correctly differentiate back into adult cells.

The first annual State of the World's Plants report, which involved more than 80 scientists and took a year to produce, is a baseline assessment of current knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, the global threats these plants currently face, as well as the policies in place and their effectiveness in dealing with threats.

The true incidence of hazing in youth sports is unknown because victims don't report the mistreatment or fail to recognize it as hazing, according to a review of scientific literature on the subject by a team of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) researchers.

One study revealed that of the 47 percent of student athletes who had been hazed, only 8 percent labeled the behavior as hazing. Another study found that college students perceived hazing as having more positive benefits than negative effects.

A new study from Tel Aviv University, Cornell University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine reveals genetic proof of the Jewish roots of the Bene Israel community in the western part of India. They have always considered themselves Jewish.