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Crops with improved yields could more easily become a reality, thanks to a development by scientists.

Researchers studying a biological process that enables tiny green algae to grow efficiently have taken the first steps to recreating the mechanism in a more complex plant. Their findings could lead to the breeding of high yield varieties of common crops such as wheat, rice and barley.

Protein in the cell membrane

Scientists have long known that birds are feeling the heat due to climate change. However, a new study of a dozen affected species in the Western Cape suggests their decline is more complex than previously thought - and in some cases more serious.

According to the study, published today (Monday) in Conservation Physiology, by scientists from the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute at the University of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, there could be several reasons why birds are being negatively affected by man-made climate change.

Data science continues to gain ground as an immensely powerful tool for medicine, accelerating physicians' ability to identify new strategies to improve patient care. This is the focus of events at AAO 2015, the 119th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The Academy announced important clinical insights gleaned from its IRIS Registry®, the country's only national comprehensive database of ophthalmic patient outcomes. These findings revealed new information on rare complications following common eye procedures.

Being bullied in childhood has been associated with increased risk for anxiety, depression and even eating disorders. But according to new research, it's not only the victims who could be at risk psychologically, but also the bullies themselves.

Australia's national science research organisation, CSIRO, has developed an innovative new coating that could be used to improve medical devices and implants, thanks to a "goo" thought to be have been home to the building blocks of life.

The molecules from this primordial goo - known as prebiotic compounds - can be traced back billions of years and have been studied intensively since their discovery several decades ago.

For the first time, Australian researchers have uncovered a way to use these molecules to assist with medical treatments.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- As electronic cigarette use skyrockets among youth, even teens agree with parents that what's known as "vaping" needs stricter rules.

More than three fourths of both teens and adults say e-cigarettes should be restricted in public spaces, come with health warnings and be taxed like conventional cigarettes, according to today's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at the University of Michigan.

Dublin, Ireland, November 16th, 2015 - An international team led by scientists in Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Cambridge University, has, for the first time, sequenced ancient genomes from the Late Upper Palaeolithic period. In doing so, the team has discovered a new strand of European hunter-gatherer ancestry.

The first sequencing of ancient genomes extracted from human remains that date back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period over 13,000 years ago has revealed a previously unknown "fourth strand" of ancient European ancestry.

This new lineage stems from populations of hunter-gatherers that split from western hunter-gatherers shortly after the 'out of Africa' expansion some 45,000 years ago and went on to settle in the Caucasus region, where southern Russia meets Georgia today.

New research using advanced computer modeling sheds light on how behaviors may become "contagious" in large groups, showing that the memory of one individual can indirectly influence that of another via shared social connections. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Johns Hopkins Children's Center specialists report they have successfully treated and put in remission a 2-year-old, now age 5, with a highly virulent form of tuberculosis known as XDR TB, or extensively drug-resistant TB. The case, researchers say, provides the first detailed account of a young child in the United States diagnosed and treated for XDR TB.

Orange, Calif. -- UC Irvine Health researchers have developed a cost-effective one-step test that screens, detects and confirms hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. Dr. Ke-Qin Hu, director of hepatology services, will present findings at the Annual Meeting of American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) in San Francisco, Nov. 14-16. Current blood-based HCV testing requires two steps and can be expensive, inconvenient and is not widely available or affordable globally.

Among patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy, treatment with an injection in the eye of the drug ranibizumab resulted in visual acuity that was not worse than panretinal photocoagulation at 2 years, according to a study appearing in JAMA. This study is being released to coincide with its presentation at the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting.

AMHERST, Mass. - A new analysis of maternal mortality worldwide conducted by the United Nations inter-agency group on maternal mortality estimation, with lead statistician Leontine Alkema of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, found that the maternal mortality ratio saw a relative decline of 43.9 percent during the 25-year period of 1990-2015. Details appear in an early online issue of The Lancet.

Melting glaciers are causing a loss of species diversity among benthos in the coastal waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, impacting an entire seafloor ecosystem. This has been verified in the course of repeated research dives, the results of which were recently published by experts from Argentina, Germany and Great Britain and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in a study in the journal Science Advances.