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Overweight and obesity in adolescents have increased substantially in recent decades, and currently affect a third of the adolescent population in some developed countries. This is an important public health concern because obesity early in life is considered to be a risk factor for death from cardiovascular disease and from all causes in adulthood.

The research group of Prof. Paolo Melchiorre at ICIQ has developed a new methodology for the selective formation of chiral molecules. The work, that has been published in Nature, combines two strategies which require very mild reaction conditions -- enantioselective iminium ion chemistry and photoredox catalysis -- to set quaternary carbon stereocentres with high enantioselectivity.

A 20 per cent tax on sugar-sweetened drinks would result in widespread, long-lasting public health benefits and significant health cost savings, a new study shows.

University of Queensland School of Public Health researcher Dr Lennert Veerman said such a tax would raise an estimated $400 million a year and reduce annual health expenditure by up to $29 million.

"Our modelling scoped the effects over the lifetime of adult Australians alive in 2010," Dr Veerman said.

"We found there would be 800 fewer new Type 2 diabetes cases each year once the tax was introduced.

In an evolutionary game of cat and mouse, predators have adapted a clever arsenal of new tricks to capture their ever-elusive prey.

Now, new research from Shunyi Zhu et al. appearing recently in the early online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution, has identified the molecular clues driving the effectiveness of scorpion toxins.

Maintaining a stable weight loss is the biggest struggle for obese individuals, yet new research from University of Copenhagen have allowed researchers new insights into the complex processes involved in obesity and especially weight loss in obesity. It is now possible to offer overweight people a clearer understanding of how to sustain weight loss.

Protein is the fundamental substance of life. The genetic code directing protein synthesis is stored in DNA. When a cell is instructed, the code information transfers from DNA to mRNA. Then, information on mRNA is further transferred to protein.

A team led by experts at Cardiff University has provided new evidence to explain why deep sea creatures were able to survive the catastrophic asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago.

Like the dinosaurs themselves, giant marine reptiles, invertebrates and microscopic organisms became extinct after the catastrophic asteroid impact in an immense upheaval of the world's oceans, yet deep sea creatures managed to survive.

Tohoku University Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization (ToMMo) has revealed that in 2014, three years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, depressive symptoms continue to be higher in the coastal areas than in the inland areas of Miyagi Prefecture.

During their life, plants constantly renew themselves. They sprout new leaves in the spring and shed them in the fall. No longer needed, damaged or dead organs such as blossoms and leaves are also cast off by a process known as abscission. By doing so, plants conserve energy and prepare for the next step in their life cycle. But how does a plant know when it is the right time to get rid of unnecessary organs? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University of Oslo (UiO) now shed light on this process.

Although the second-largest and rather concrete metropolis in the United States might not be anywhere near one's immediate association for a biodiversity hotspot, the fly fauna of Los Angeles is quite impressive. As part of BioSCAN, a project devoted to exploring the insect diversity in and around the city, a team of three entomologists report on their latest discovery - twelve new scuttle fly species.

The key to unlocking cleaner energy might be in our DNA, according to a new study by Stanford scientists. By combining synthetic DNA with microscopic particles, Yuran Zhang and a team of geothermal energy researchers hope to tap into the widely available but often overlooked cleaner energy source all over the world.

Alcohol addiction causes almost 3.8 per cent of deaths worldwide but a study led by QUT researchers offers new hope in the form of a drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Neuroscientist Professor Selena Bartlett from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation said the drug, pindolol, is an inexpensive approach for treating alcohol dependence once the human clinical trials are conducted.

Through the studies that will be presented, PharmaMar will reveal the new results of its three molecules that are presently under clinical investigation in different types of solid and hematological tumors. Each one of these compounds has a very different mechanism of action. Apart from its direct activity on tumor cells, lurbinectedin (PM1183) also attacks the microenvironment, rendering tumor growth unfeasible.

SEATTLE - Funding earmarked for improving maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries has grown faster since 2010 than funding for HIV, TB, and malaria.

SEATTLE-- Global inequities in health spending are expected to persist and intensify over the next 25 years, according to a new study that estimates total health financing in countries around the world.

Published in The Lancet on April 13, 2016 "National spending on health by source for 184 countriesbetween 2013 and 2040" draws from a joint research collaboration between the World Bank Group and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.