Why is it that so much otherwise excellent “popularized” science writing lacks an essential ingredient, a lack that minimizes its lasting value? I have found that scientific publications can be qualitatively evaluated into those which include bibliographic citation data and those which do not. Scientists frequently are stimulated to order publications cited in articles. Is the exclusion of cita...

This article investigates the contexts, or "listening niches", in which people hear popular music. The study spanned a century of popular music, divided into 10 decades, with participants born between 1940 and 1999. It asks about whether they know and like the music in each decade, and their emotional reactions. It also asks whether the music is associated with personal memories and, if so, wit...

The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism of ready intelligibility, I believe, usually has little or nothing to do with the complexity of subject matter, and nothing at all to do with profundity of thought. It has to do almost entirely with certain confusions of the academic writer about his own status. Introduction The purpose of this review essay is t...

The article by Homedes and Ugalde in this week’s issue of PLoS Medicine is an important addition to the global discussion about Mexico’s 2003 health reform, the Seguro Popular (SP) [1]. While this reform has been controversial in Mexico [2], it has been highly praised in international circles. The Lancet ran a special series on the reform in 2006, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton lauded S...