“Becoming Acquainted with All That Pain”: Nursing as Activism in Naomi Mitchison’s Science Fiction

UbiqUitoUs sUstainability: Citizen sCienCe & aCtivism Ubiquitous Sustainability: Citizen Science & Activism

In this workshop we propose to explore new approaches to bring about real environmental change by looking at the success of empowering technologies that enable grassroots activism and bottom up community participation. Ubiquitous computing is transforming from being mostly about professional communication and social interaction to a sensor rich personal measurement platform that can empower ind...

‘Becoming a Physician’–medical students get acquainted with disadvantaged populations, and practise sensitive and effective communication

BACKGROUND The three-year pre-medical programme 'Becoming a Physician' focuses on different aspects of medical professionalism. Objectives are to increase awareness and sensitivity to disadvantaged populations, and practise sensitive effective communication skills. METHODS The curriculum includes: (1) Visits to treatment centres for people with special needs, mental illnesses, substance abuse...

Pain as Pleasure: Tough Girls’ Love in Fan Fiction

Fan fiction writers use an existing fictional universe to develop scenarios and characters in creative ways within the logic of the original universe. In this chapter, I examine the representations of the erotics of pain in two fanproduced, so-called femslash texts describing romantic and sexual relationships between the two vampire slayers Buffy and Faith from Joss Whedon’s TV series Buffy the...

Asthma protection with bacteria--science or fiction?

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 ...

Fiction informed by science.