The ICHEP conference in Chicago is drawing to a close, and although I did not have the pleasure to attend it (I was busy with real work, you know ;-) I think I can post here some commentary of a few things I find interesting among the multitude of analyses and searches that were shown there. It goes without saying that the selection is biased by my personal interest, plus by my limited patience with peeking at talk slides. In fact, here I only cover one specific Higgs boson decay mode!

But a digression first - and a digression on the digression

People who live in provinces with policies that allow pharmacists to administer influenza vaccines are more likely to be vaccinated, according to a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

"Individuals living in provinces with a policy allowing administration of publicly funded influenza vaccines by pharmacists were more likely to report receipt of a seasonal influenza vaccine in the year before survey participation than those living in jurisdictions without a pharmacy policy," writes Dr. Jeffrey Kwong, Public Health Ontario and Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), with coauthors.

Teenagers who regularly play online video games tend to improve their school results, according to new research from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

But school students who visit Facebook or chat sites every day are more likely to fall behind in maths, reading and science.

Associate Professor Alberto Posso, from RMIT's School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, investigated the results of testing by the globally recognised Program for International Student Assessment.

PISA tested more than 12,000 Australian 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science, as well as collecting data on the students' online activities.

Posso said video games could help students to apply and sharpen skills learned at school.

Stem-cell research holds promise for the treatment of a broad range of diseases and conditions, from spinal cord injury to autism. But more work is needed to turn this research into safe and effective therapies.

HOUSTON - (Aug. 8, 2016) - While binge eating affects about 10 percent of adults in the United States, the neurobiological basis of the disease is unclear. Researchers at the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital found that certain neural circuits have the ability to inhibit binge-like eating behavior in mice. Their report appears today in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

New research from North Carolina State University finds that major volcanic activity on the planet Mercury most likely ended about 3.5 billion years ago. These findings add insight into the geological evolution of Mercury in particular, and what happens when rocky planets cool and contract in general.

There are two types of volcanic activity: effusive and explosive. Explosive volcanism is often a violent event that results in large ash and debris eruptions, such as the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980. Effusive volcanism refers to widespread lava flows that slowly pour out over the landscape -- believed to be a key process by which planets form their crusts.

Results provide evidence for long and varied history of water in Mars Gale Crater

Sulphur and iron rich groundwater in Gale Crater was habitable by Earth standards

New research published online in The FASEB Journal, describes a protein created by the body's "biological clock" that actively represses inflammatory pathways within the affected limbs during the night. This protein, called CRYPTOCHROME, has proven anti-inflammatory effects in cultured cells and presents new opportunities for the development of drugs that may be used to treat inflammatory diseases and conditions, such as arthritis.

First study to show ovarian environment changes with age and likely hurts quality of eggs
Older ovaries are scarred and inflamed
Findings could result in treatments to preserve fertility by delaying ovarian aging

CHICAGO --- Women's decreased ability to produce healthy eggs as they become older may be due to excessive scarring and inflammation in their ovaries, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study in mice.

This is the first study to show the ovarian environment ages and that aging affects the quality of eggs it produces. These findings could result in new treatments that preserve fertility by delaying ovarian aging.

The sudden emergence of the Zika virus epidemic in Latin America in 2015-16 has caught the scientific world unawares. A little known disease that was first diagnosed in the Zika forest environment of Uganda in 1947, the disease largely affected populations in Africa until its emergence in French Polynesia a few years ago and then in Brazil and South America last year. The Zika virus is spread mainly by the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and, like the dengue virus, belongs to the flaviviridae family along with Japanese encephalitis and West Nile virus.