Dying cancer patients are less likely to want aggressive end-of-life care if they watch a short video about CPR than if they simply hear about it, according to a new study. Angelo Volandes, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the study’s lead author.

A government task force recommended that doctors discuss the dangers of smoking with all patients ages 10 to 17, citing evidence that children who learn about the dangers of smoking from their doctors will be less likely to become addicted to cigarettes. Claire McCarthy, HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.

A blue-ribbon panel of scientific and technology advisers to President Obama warns that the nation risks losing its longstanding supremacy in food production because research in agriculture has not kept up with new challenges like climate change, depleted land and water resources and emerging pests, pathogens and invasive plants. Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and an HMS professor of systems biology, is a co-chair of the panel.