The ‘Thing’ from this world

This thing called life

Academic pursuits are inseparable from the medium within which they take place - life. The lives of medical trainees can present many challenges that are independent of academic demands. Poor psychological health has been found to develop in medical trainees. Can medical educators minimize this decline in well-being? Positive education - learning skills for traditional academia and to foster ha...

Where Are the Switches on This Thing?

Controlled responses differ from reflexes because they can be turned off and on. This is a critical part of what distinguishes animals from automatons. How does the nervous system gate the flow of information so that a sensory stimulus that elicits a strong response on some occasions, evokes no response on others? A related question concerns how the flow of sensory information is altered when w...

Continuous bioprocessing: The real thing this time?

The Annual bioProcessUK Conference has acted as the key networking event for bioprocess scientists and engineers in the UK for the past 10 years. The following article is a report from the sessions that focused on continuous bioprocessing during the 10(th) Annual bioProcessUK Conference (London, December 2013). These sessions were organized by the 'EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in E...

What is this thing called somnolence?

What is this duplicate publication thing?

One of the commonest queries I receive as Editor-in-Chief is whether a submission can be accepted when the author's message is already known. The paper may have been presented at meetings a couple of times and might even have appeared in abstract form. Can we, as a journal, go ahead and publish without eyebrows being raised and the accusation of duplicate publication being made? The story start...