When my wife (a librarian) was first working at an academic library I learned a lot about collection development, including how librarians decided which journals they would subscribe to. 25 years ago, there were reference publications that provided librarians with information about what the “top” journals in each field were. In philosophy, information was available that described which journals a library should have if they only had space for a small number of journals. Most of those reference publications were weak on methodology and lacked transparency in their process. They have largely vanished, replaced by more rigorous methodologies such as those developed by ISI to measure the value of journals as a tool to help librarians make collection development decisions.…
Blog.
[Los Angeles Times] For the first time, scientists have created human embryos that are genetic copies of living people and used them to make stem cells — a feat that paves the way for treating a range of diseases with personalized body tissues but al…
I’m currently in the middle of reading Robert Caro’s first book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. I’ll be blogging intermittently about this wonderful book over the next few weeks. Expect a few of those posts to be focused…
If you have been paying attention to US healthcare policy debates lately, you know that hospitals have a price problem. Walk across the street from one hospital to a competitor hospital, and you could easily find yourself facing a $30,000 increase in …
[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that Swiss law does not provide sufficient guidelines on the extent of the right to die, in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights . Article 8 protects an in…
Followers of this blog, and I mean both of you, know by now that I am a fan of getting the word out about good writing. Here’s a nice example from the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly. It is from the cover article, titled “We Will Never Run Out Of…
05/17/2013
The SUPPORT Study and the Standard of Care
Lois Shepherd
05/16/2013
Vermont Passes Physician-Assisted-Suicide
Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
Awaiting the governor’s signature, Vermont is poised to become the fourth state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. While Oregon and Washington legalized physician-aid-in-dying through public referendum and Montana through a court decision, Vermont’s is occurring through the legislative process.
The first U.S. aid-in-dying law was the Oregon 1994 Death with Dignity Act. The law faced a referendum to appeal it in 1997 and a Bush administration court challenge was ruled on in 2006.
The Vermont law mirrors those of Oregon and Washington. The patient must be at least 18 years of age, have a life-threatening condition and be a state resident.…
05/16/2013
What Does It Mean to Be an Organism?
In a tremendous article in The Smithsonian Magazine, Richard Conniff writes about the largely unexplored oodles of microorganisms that make us what we are. The article overflows with wonderful facts: for instance, that there are 150 microbial species, …
John D. Lantos