In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argued that a scientific revolution takes place as the result of an episode of noncumulative changes where one paradigm is replaced in whole or in part. Kuhn observed that the process of a scientific revolution begins with an existing paradigm, during which normal science is performed. Eventually, an increase in anomaly leads to a...

Seldom does a disruptive technology just appear on the scene like an intergalactic hitchhiker on a meteor or asteroid. The smart phone might seem to be one of those. It revolutionized the way we think about and conduct our lives. It’s really not a phone at all but a mini-computer with which we make the occasional real-time voice call. Problem-based Learning (PBL) and the Multiple Mini Interview...

Editorial NIECR-a quiet revolution. If someone was to ask you to consider important advances in medicine, perhaps like me, you would think of Fleming's discovery of penicillin in the 1940s or the introduction of the portable defibrillator by Pantridge and team in the 1960s. I wonder if you would include today's health gadgets like the Fitbit. Another, quieter gradual revolution is going on in N...

Endovenous techniques (laser ablation, radiofrequency ablation and foam sclerotherapy) to treat varicose veins have increased rapidly during the past decade, and in some countries largely replaced the traditional high ligation and stripping, well before long-term data were available. These methods were introduced in the hope of being more effective than surgery with better outcomes, particularl...

Background: High-resolution magic angle proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HR 1H MAS MRS) provides a broad metabolic mapping of intact tumor samples and allows for microscopy investigations of the samples after spectra acquisition. Experimental studies have suggested that the method can be used for detection of apoptosis, but this has not been investigated in a clinical setting so far. We ...

The realisation that in the majority of sexually-reproducing organisms from angiosperm to primates females often mate with multiple males (polyandry) is not only revolutionising our understanding of sexual selection, sexual conflict and sex roles, but is also having profound repercussions for a number of other key evolutionary and ecological processes such as the evolution of sociality, sex chr...

Social media content has grown exponentially in the recent years and the role of social media has evolved from just narrating life events to actually shaping them. In this paper we explore how many resources shared in social media are still available on the live web or in public web archives. By analyzing six different event-centric datasets of resources shared in social media in the period fro...

The collection of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in and on the human body, collectively known as the microbiome, has recently emerged as an important factor in human physiology and disease. The gut in particular is a biological niche that is home to a diverse array of microbes that influence nearly all aspects of human biology through their interactions with their host; new technologies...

We use an evolutionary model to study splintering in rebels’ groups. We assume that rebels possess cultural traits that encourage cooperation, defection (splintering) or some sort of trigger behavior like Tit-For-Tat. We characterize the dynamic process through which the rebels’ discount rate determines whether splintering will occur in the population, even when cooperation is efficient. Contra...