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Teens may begin their driving habits with great caution, but as months behind the wheel pass, they begin to multi-task at higher frequency rates – dialing cell phones, eating, and talking to passengers, etc. – and therefore greatly raise their risk of crashes and/or near-crash incidents.

These findings from a study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development appear in the Jan. 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

TORONTO, Jan. 2, 2014—Tripling taxes on cigarettes around the world would reduce the number of smokers by one-third and prevent 200 million premature deaths from lung cancer and other diseases this century, according to a review published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Such a large tax increase would double the street price of cigarettes in some countries and narrow the price gap between the cheapest and most expensive cigarettes, which would encourage people to stop smoking rather than switch to a cheaper brand and help young people not to start.

Drivers eat, reach for the phone, text, or otherwise take their eyes off the road about 10 percent of the time they are behind the wheel, according to a study using video technology and in-vehicle sensors.

Risks of distracted driving were greatest for newly licensed teen drivers, who were substantially more likely than adults to be involved in a crash or near miss while texting or engaging in tasks secondary to driving, according to the researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Virginia Tech.

BOSTON – A novel breast-cancer therapy that partially reverses the cancerous state in cultured breast tumor cells and prevents cancer development in mice, could one day provide a new way to treat early stages of the disease without resorting to surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, a multi-institutional team led by researchers from the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported January 1 in Science Translational Medicine.

Scientists have discovered how plants use steroid hormones to choose growth over defence when their survival depends on it.

The findings published in the open-access scientific journal eLife could be used to engineer crops that combine size with pathogen resistance.

"A major dilemma faced by plants is whether to invest their energy in growth or defending against pathogens," said Professor Cyril Zipfel from The Sainsbury Laboratory.

"Knowing how this is controlled adds a powerful tool in our ability to breed disease resistant plants with maximum yield."

In a study that included more than 800 women who had undergone surgery for breast cancer, the majority reported some level of pain 12 months after surgery, and factors associated with pain included chronic preoperative pain, chemotherapy, preoperative depression and pain in the area to be operated, according to a study appearing in the January 1 issue of JAMA.

Many people think of deserts as inhospitable places devoid of life, but numerous plants and animals have adapted to this harsh environment, where they often compete for limited resources. In desert environments, the most limited resource is usually water, forcing plants to adopt different strategies to compete with their neighbors for this precious resource.

December 30, 2013 New York, NY / Los Angeles, CA: Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), the charitable initiative supporting ground-breaking research aimed at getting new cancer treatments to patients in an accelerated timeframe, announces that Jeffrey A.

Final word: Task Force says screen high-risk populations for lung cancer

It's taken nearly 200 years, but scientists in Arizona and Europe have teased out how the molecular switch for sex gradually and adaptively evolved in the honeybee.

Bethesda, Md. (Dec. 30, 2013)—Recent data shows that more than 500,000 women in the U.S. report drinking during pregnancy, with about 20 percent of this population admitting to binge drinking. Even one episode of heavy drinking can lead to the collection of birth defects known as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Along with growth retardation, head and face abnormalities, and neurological problems, FAS also causes heart problems in just over half of those with this condition.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Most large, clinical trials of vitamin supplements, including some that have concluded they are of no value or even harmful, have a flawed methodology that renders them largely useless in determining the real value of these micronutrients, a new analysis suggests.

By the time they're two, most children have had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and suffered symptoms no worse than a bad cold. But for some children, especially premature babies and those with underlying health conditions, RSV can lead to pneumonia and bronchitis – which can require hospitalization and have long-term consequences.

The ability to sequence the DNA of plants and animals has revolutionized many areas of biology, but the unstable character of DNA poses difficulties for sequencing specimens in museum collection over time. In an attempt to answer these issues, a recent study of 31 target spider species from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, discovers that both time and body size are significant factors in determining which specimens can produce DNA barcode sequences.

DNA barcoding is used as an effective tool for both the identification of known species and the discovery of new ones. The core idea of DNA barcoding is based on the fact that just a small portion of a single gene already can show that there is less variation between the individuals of one species than between those of several species.