Why PLoS Became a Publisher

Why PLoS Became a Publisher

Communication among scientists has undergone a revolution in the last decade, with the movement of scientific publication to a digital medium and the emergence of the Internet as the primary means for distributing information. Millions of articles are, in principle, just a mouse click away from our computers. For many of us, PDFs have replaced printed journals as the primary form in which we re...

Why the atmosphere became oxygenated: A proposal

The increase in the oxidation state of the atmosphere during Earth history is well documented, but not the reasons for this process. The course of atmospheric evolution has been dominated by the effects of photosynthesis and by the composition of volcanic gases. The H2/H2O ratio of volcanic gases has remained essentially constant during most of Earth history. It is here proposed that their CO2/...

Why I became an occupational physician ...

In gratitude for their prompt help in a serious accident in a new sewer tunnel outside the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, the medical staff were invited to see the work excavating the wide bore, using as a rough guide the layer of pebbles on what had been the bed of the Rhine 18 000 years ago. That was so interesting that registrars arranged visits to other local enterprises, including Colman's ...

Why PLoS Sponsored a Roundtable of Medical Whistleblowers

Editorial Open access, freely available online O n May 15, 2005, the Public Library of Science and the Government Accountability Project, a public interest legal group that advises and supports whistleblowers (www.whistleblower. org), co-sponsored a private meeting near the Capitol Building in Washington, D. C. In the room were four of the most high profi le medical whistleblowers of recent tim...

Why Earth became so hot 50 million years ago and why it then cooled.