The twelfth edition of “Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum“, a particle physics conference specialized in QCD and Heavy Ion physics, will be held in Thessaloniki this year, from

By studying fossils from southern China, scientists have gained insights into how primates in Asia evolved to resemble the array seen today. The results suggest that a distinct period marked by cooler weather served as a filter of sorts in Asia, altering the makeup of primates there to reflect fewer anthropoids (monkeys and apes) and more strepsirrhines, a suborder of primates that includes lemurs. Primates are sensitive to shifts in temperature, and thus, to climate change.

Males who evolve in male-dominated populations become far better at securing females than those who grow up in monogamous populations, according to new research into the behaviour of fruit flies at the University of Sheffield.

The study, led by Dr Allan Debelle and Dr Rhonda Snook in the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, looked at the mating patterns of fruit flies after they evolved for 100 generations in either polyandrous populations (where several males have to compete for a single female) and monogamous populations (where each male has access to only one female).

May 5, 2016 -- Exchange of immunization data between a centralized city immunization registry and provider electronic health records led to significant improvements in pediatric immunization coverage, a reduction in over-immunization for adolescents, and increased completeness of immunization records, according to a study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian, and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Citywide Immunization Registry. Researchers compared the percent of children who were up-to-date for their age-appropriate immunizations and those who received extra, unnecessary immunizations before and after the implementation of two-way data exchange at point of care.

HANOVER, N.H. - Context plays a big role in our memories, both good and bad. Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" on the car radio, for example, may remind you of your first love -- or your first speeding ticket. But a Dartmouth- and Princeton-led brain scanning study shows that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of those memories.

The findings have a range of potential applications centered on enhancing desired memories, such as developing new educational tools, or diminishing harmful memories, including treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The study appears in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. A PDF is available on request.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Every hospital's intensive care unit has treated them -- the critically ill patients who spend weeks going from crisis to crisis, never quite getting better enough to get out of the ICU, but never quite dying.

Now, new research shows they really are a different kind of patient -- and that despite their tiny numbers, they're using a vast chunk of healthcare resources.

Just 5 percent of ICU patients account for 33 percent of all days that ICU beds get used, the study shows. The researchers have even given a name to what these patients have: Persistent Critical Illness, or PerCI for short.

A review of six studies that evaluated the effects of meat and vegetarian diets on mortality involving more than 1.5 million people concluded all-cause mortality is higher for those who eat meat, particularly red or processed meat, on a daily basis.

The work by physicians from Mayo Clinic in Arizona published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association helps to affirm claims by the United Nations International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) claim that meat is a carcinogen as dangerous as plutonium or cigarette smoking. Despite variability in the data, they still conclude that increased intake of red meat, especially processed red meat, is associated with increased all-cause mortality.  

It's known as the cocktail-party problem: in the cacophony of sound made by insects in a spring meadow, how does one species recognize its own song?

Insects such as the tree cricket solve this problem by singing and listening at a single unique pitch.

But if that's the case, U of T Scarborough researchers wondered what happens when the temperature changes, because that affects the frequency of the tree cricket's song. The higher the temperature, the higher the pitch.

A male tree cricket (right) sings with his wings up, as a female standing next to him. Credit: Ken Sproule

Putting surgery one step closer into the realm of self-driving cars and intelligent machines, researchers show for the first time that a supervised autonomous robot can successfully perform soft tissue surgery. The robot outperformed expert surgeons and current robot-assisted surgical techniques in open bowel surgery in pigs. By taking human intervention out of the equation, autonomous robots could potentially reduce complications and improve the safety and efficacy of soft tissue surgeries, about 45 million of which are performed in the U.S. each year. Robot-assisted surgery currently relies on the surgeon to manually control it, and outcomes can vary depending on the individual's training and experience.

Vultures are often cartoon-ish characters in parched deserts. No one wants them around because in western films it means they are just waiting for you to die.

Cultural jokes aside, vultures in some parts of the world are in danger of disappearing. And according to a new report from University of Utah biologists, such a loss would have serious consequences for ecosystems and human populations alike.