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.

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. 

Nearly one in three British Columbia women over age 65 received inappropriate levels of prescription medicines in 2013, while only one in four men of the same age did, according to a new paper.

The work analyzed population-based health-care datasets to find out which medical and non-medical factors influence patients' risk of receiving prescription drugs on the American Geriatrics Society's list of drugs that should be avoided for older patients. The biggest non-medical risk factor was an individual's sex.

The authors found that, even when results were adjusted for all other risk factors, women were as much as 23 per cent more likely than men to be prescribed inappropriate drugs.

Photosynthesis, vision, and many other biological processes depend on light, but it’s hard to capture responses of biomolecules to light because they happen almost instantaneously.

Nearly half of glaucoma patients don't take their daily prescription eye drops as prescribed, due to forgetfulness or physical limitations like arthritis. However, missing vital doses of glaucoma medication makes these patients vulnerable to increased vision loss and blindness.

A medicated silicone ring that rests on the surface of the eye reduced eye pressure in glaucoma patients by about 20 percent over six months, potentially benefiting 3 million people in the United States who have glaucoma. Phase 2 clinical trial results on this technology were published today and the results are also being presented today at the Ophthalmology Innovation Summit in New Orleans.