In the light of increasing public mistrust, there is an urgent need to clarify the moral status of the medical profession and of the relationship of the clinician to his/her patients. In addressing this question, I first establish the coherence, within moral philosophy generally, of the concept of supererogation (the doing of more than one’s duty). I adopt the notion of an act of “unqualified” ...

Computer viruses and network worms have evolved through a continuous series of innovations, leading to the recent wave of fast-spreading and dangerous worms. A review of their historical development and recent outbreaks leads to a number of observations. First, while viruses were more common than worms initially, worms have become the predominant threat in recent years, coinciding with the grow...

Wormlike micelles are flexible polymerlike chains formed by the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules either in water ("normal" worms) or in oil ("reverse" worms). Normal and reverse worms have both been studied extensively and have generally been found to exhibit analogous rheological properties (e.g., Maxwell fluidlike behavior). Here, we report a hitherto unexplored difference between these...