What is the role of bacterial exposure in asthma protection and prevention? This topic is receiving increasing attention, particularly based on epidemiological findings relating to the ‘hygiene hypothesis’. More than a decade ago the observation was made that infants living in a microbial-rich environment show a high degree of protection, particularly against respiratory allergies and allergic ...

Afew years ago, I received a phone call from a desperate sixth grade reading teacher. “Help!” she cried, “I have a literary mutiny on my hands. I need your help now!!” I immediately raced upstairs. Our sixth graders read Louis Sachar’s Holes as a required novel. The teacher uses Holes as part of her unit on fantasy. In a time where many middle schoolers are steeped in Harry Potter and Paolini, ...

When thinking about the future, people tend to envision dramatically advanced technology, architecture that resembles something from another planet, and social norms that have shifted in radical ways—all of it vivid, dynamic, and exciting. What people don’t realize is that the story they tell themselves about the future actually has rules. The mind applies these rules to ensure that people arri...

This paper argues that narrative elements from the science fiction (SF) literary genre are used in the discourse of Nanoscience and Technology (NST) to bridge the gap between what is technically possible today and its inflated promises for the future. The argument is illustrated through a detailed discussion of two NST texts. The paper concludes by arguing that the use of SF narrative technique...

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the integration of individual clinical expertise with the best available research evidence from systematic research and the patient's values and expectations. A hierarchy of evidence can be used to assess the strength upon which clinical decisions are made. The efficient approach to finding the best evidence is to identify systematic reviews or evidence-based cl...