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DURHAM, N.C. -- With the human population expected to climb from 7.4 billion to more than 11 billion people by 2100, some scientists hope that manipulating the plant microbiome could open up new ways to meet the growing demand for food.

But breeding more beneficial communities of microbes in and on crop plants may be easier in some plant tissues and growing conditions than others, finds a study led by researchers at Duke University.

The results appear July 12 in Nature Communications.

Using folded DNA to precisely place glowing molecules within microscopic light resonators, researchers at Caltech have created one of the world's smallest reproductions of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night. The reproduction and the technique used to create it are described in a paper published in the advance online edition of the journal Nature on July 11.

London, 13 July 2016 - New peer-reviewed research published today shows that smokers who completely substitute conventional cigarettes with commercial e-cigarettes experience dramatic reductions in exposure to harmful chemicals that are thought to contribute to tobacco-related diseases, not that dissimilar to complete smoking cessation.

Washington, DC - July 11, 2016 - A team of Italian investigators has discovered a new variant of an emerging antibiotic resistance mechanism. The new variant, dubbed mcr-1.2, confers resistance to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens. The research is published July 11, in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Some autoimmune diseases and persistent infections are characterized by high levels of antibodies in the blood. But what are the causes of this hypergammaglobulinemia? A team headed by INRS's Professor Simona Stäger has successfully identified the mechanisms triggering the phenomenon. For the first time ever, she has established a link between B-cell activation by a protein--type 1 interferon--and unusually high antibody levels.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (JULY 12, 2016). Abusive head injury, sometimes referred to as shaken baby syndrome or non-accidental trauma (NAT), is the third leading cause of head injuries in small children in the US. For children under the age of 1 year, it is the cause of the majority of serious head injuries. Outcomes often result in severe, permanent disability and sometimes death.

Suicide prevention hotlines in California respond to callers in need and reduce caller distress, but could improve their services and reach more users by expanding digital offerings such as chat services and establishing better programs to monitor and improve the quality of their services, according to new studies from the RAND Corporation.

July 12, 2016, Porto, Portugal - A study by York University researcher Caroline Davis and her colleagues at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is the first to demonstrate that variants of the Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) gene contribute to why some of us overeat or engage in episodes of binge eating. They investigated how the OXTR gene influences appetite, food preferences, food intake and personality risk traits associated with brain-reward mechanisms.

In a new study examining how parenting contributes to snacking, researchers found that parents who have a hands-off approach to feeding children may unknowingly contribute to an increase in children's snacking. 

In the 18-month study researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Michigan and Temple University's College of Public Health determined that more than 40 percent of children's daily intake of added sugars came from snacks. Researchers focused on Hispanic children, as they are disproportionately affected by obesity. 

A lone Sentinel cell monitors and coordinates the defense of the entrance to the colon's most sensitive parts. The Sentinel cell detects nearby bacteria and signals to a line of defensive cells to send out a cascade of mucus to push away the invaders. As a final self-sacrificing action the cell commits suicide and ejects itself into the intestinal lumen.

A lone and unique population of about 30 reddish to dark violet-maroon orchids grows on the small patch of land between the borders of two Colombian departments. However, its extremely small habitat is far from the only striking thing about the new species.

A closer look at its flowers' heart reveals what appears to be a devil's head. Named after its demonic patterns, the new orchid species, Telipogon diabolicus, is described in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

Female academic physicians at public medical schools had lower average salaries than their male counterparts, a disparity that was only partly accounted for by age, experience, medical specialty, faculty rank and other factors, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

While the number of women in medicine has grown rapidly since the 1970s, significant sex differences persist in job achievement and compensation.

Total spending on advertising to the public by 890 cancer centers in the United States was $173 million in 2014, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Cancer centers commonly advertise clinical services directly to the public. This practice has potential benefits by alerting patents to available treatments and removing stigma from cancer but also potential risks including creating false hope and increasing demand for unnecessary tests and treatments.

State mandates requiring commercial health plans to cover services for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were associated with increased diagnoses but the treated prevalence of ASD was still lower than estimates of community prevalence, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.

Hamilton, ON (July 11, 2016) - An analysis led by McMaster University researchers has found that women who undergo armpit lymph node surgery for breast cancer are much more likely to develop chronic pain.

CMAJ today published their review of studies exploring risk factors for developing chronic pain after breast cancer surgery which also included younger age and radiation therapy.