Müllerian mimicry among bees and wasps: a review of current knowledge and future avenues of research.

Many bees and stinging wasps, or aculeates, exhibit striking colour patterns or conspicuous coloration, such as black and yellow stripes. Such coloration is often interpreted as an aposematic signal advertising aculeate defences: the venomous sting. Aposematism can lead to Müllerian mimicry, the convergence of signals among different species unpalatable to predators.

Desulfonative Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling of Sulfonyl Fluorides.

Sulfonyl fluorides have emerged as powerful "click" electrophiles to access sulfonylated derivatives. Yet, they are relatively inert towards C-C bond forming transformations, notably under transition-metal catalysis. Here, we describe conditions under which aryl sulfonyl fluorides act as electrophiles for the Pd-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling.

Composition and organization of highly speciose Empidoidea (Diptera) communities in tropical montane forests of northern Thailand.

This study is based on more than 25,000 specimens of the superfamily Empidoidea (Diptera) collected throughout a full year on a 2000 m elevational habitat succession gradient along a 21 km transect on Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand. The samples were sorted to 58 genera and 458 morphospecies (Empididae, 73; Hybotidae, 203; Dolichopodidae, 179; Brachystomatidae, 3).                                                                                                                          The data were used to prepare the first thorough taxon-focussed description of how diversity of a major group of Diptera is structured in tropical forest biotopes.

Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling of (Hetero)Aryl Sulfones: Complementary Reactivity Enables Iterative Polyaryl Synthesis.

Ideal organic syntheses involve the rapid construction of C-C bonds, with minimal use of functional group interconversions. The Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling (SMC) is a powerful way to form biaryl linkages, but the relatively similar reactivity of electrophilic partners makes iterative syntheses involving more than two sequential coupling events difficult to achieve without additional manipulations. Here we introduce (hetero)aryl sulfones as electrophilic coupling partners for the SMC reaction, which display an intermediate reactivity between those of typical aryl (pseudo)halides and nitroarenes.

Native iron reduces CO to intermediates and end-products of the acetyl-CoA pathway.

Autotrophic theories for the origin of life propose that CO was the carbon source for primordial biosynthesis. Among the six known CO fixation pathways in nature, the acetyl-CoA (AcCoA; or Wood-Ljungdahl) pathway is the most ancient, and relies on transition metals for catalysis. Modern microbes that use the AcCoA pathway typically fix CO with electrons from H, which requires complex flavin-based electron bifurcation.