Lift the Siege

The siege of science

Science is in a state of siege. The traditional stage for scientific ideas through peerreviewed academic journals has been hijacked by an overpriced journal monopoly. After a wave of mergers and take-overs, big business publishing houses now exercise economic control over access to knowledge and free scientific discourse. Their ‘all is number’ rationale, made possible and perpetuated by single-...

The deep sea under siege

P T a o c f fi l s t s t r s h s Mineral source: The fluid ejected from hydrothermal vents (black smokers) contains valuable minerals, which accumulate in the sediment around the vents. The image shows a black smoker known as The Brothers, off the coast of New Zealand. (Photo: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/ Wikimedia Commons.) eneath deep ocean waters, the sea oor remains very...

Prefix Coding under Siege

A novel lossless source coding paradigm applies to problems in which a vital message needs to be transmitted prior to termination of communications, as in Alfréd Rényi’s secondhand account of an ancient siege in which information was obtained to prevent the fall of a fortress. Rényi told this story with reference to traditional prefix coding, in which the objective is minimization of expected c...

Sepsis under siege

The understanding of severe sepsis and septic shock could be on the verge of a breakthrough, in view of research overturning the long-held belief that the conditions are caused only by Gram-negative bacterial infections. The implications—and potential treatments—could be huge, as severe sepsis and septic shock affect 3 people in every 1,000 and kill at least 135,000 Europeans each year, about t...

Martial Law and the State of Siege