Gendered Innovation in Natural Science, Medicine, and Engineering

Disruptive innovation as a driver of science and medicine

Academic medicine is an ecosystem. Like any ecosystem, critical factors affecting sustainability include diversity, disruptive external forces, and natural selection. Perhaps the most important issue we must grapple with is the extent to which we can proactively shape the future of academic medicine versus being subject to the natural forces of change. In thinking about this question, I am remi...

Innovation in Database Management: Computer Science vs. Engineering

Vendors of commercial database management system face many challenges in incorporating into their products innovative technologies developed in academia. Pragmatic considerat,ions and operational requirements can limit the viability of applying promising research. Technology leadership in commercial products is often the result of taking unconventional approaches rather than following “conventi...

What Science Underlies Natural Language Engineering?

One of the most thought-provoking proposals I have heard recently came from Lori Levin during the discussion that concluded the EACL 2009 Workshop on the Interaction between Linguistics and Computational Linguistics. Lori proposed that we should form an ACL Special Interest Group on Linguistics. At first blush, I found the idea weird: Isn’t it a little like the American Academy of Pediatrics fo...

Science, Innovation, and Innovation in the Science of Pharmacy

The legacy of Islamic world in modern medicine and science

The legacy of the Islamic world in medicine and natural science is the legacy of Greece, increased by many additions, mostly practical. Rhazes, the Iranian, was a talented clinical observer, but not a Harvey. Abd al-Latif, the Arab, was a diligent seeker in anatomy, but in no way to be compared to Vesalius. The Muslims possessed excellent translations of the works of the Hippocratic Corpus and ...