Background Deciphering the amount of work provided by different co-authors of a scientific paper has been a recurrent problem in science. Despite the myriad of metrics available, the scientific community still largely relies on the position in the list of authors to evaluate contributions, a metric that attributes subjective and unfounded credit to co-authors. We propose an easy to apply, unive...

The genomics ‘‘revolution’’ is spreading. Originating in the molecular life sciences, it initially affected a number of biomedical research fields such as cancer genomics and clinical genetics. Now, however, a new ‘‘wave’’ of genomic bioinformation is transforming a widening array of disciplines, including those that address the social, historical and cultural dimensions of human life. Increasi...

The nature and scope of medical humanities are under debate. Some regard this field as consisting of those parts of the humanistic sciences that enhance our understanding of clinical practice and of medicine as historical phenomenon. In this article it is argued that aesthetic experience is as crucial to this project as are humanistic studies. To rightly understand what medicine is about we nee...

Is technology value-free or is it value-laden? How does technology affect human autonomy? These questions, viewed within the context of medicine, are the focus of attention in this article. The central argument is that we need neither to subscribe to the value-neutrality dictum nor to the all-encompassing value-ladenness thesis to explain the pertinent position of technology in medicine. Techno...

This is the first issue of 2008 and it is a very dense one with a Scientific contribution on computational biology, some announcements, reports of conferences and events, the MPS Chairs Column. Thus, the extra space is limited but we like to use few additional lines for introducing a new feature we are particularly happy with. Starting with issue 76 there will be a Discussion Column whose conte...

Although natural selection might be expected to reduce the incidence and severity of disease, disease persists. Natural selection leads to increases in the mean fitness of populations and so will reduce the frequency of disease-associated alleles, but other evolutionary processes, such as mutation and gene flow, may introduce or increase the frequency of these deleterious alleles. The pleiotrop...

Health Care professionals working in disaster situations have to face urgent choices which diverge from their normal deontological ethos and are more utilitarian. Such is the triage system used to choose whom to treat. Instead of entering a crisis these professionals should be thought that ethics is not harmonizable to all situations and that there are situations in which saving as many lives a...

Es indudable el crecimiento exponencial de la investigación enfermera en los últimos años, fiel reflejo del desarrollo académico que posibilita y potencia la formación de posgrado a nivel de máster y doctorado, así como la participación de enfermeras en grupos de investigación interdisciplinares. Estas nuevas coordenadas nos sitúan en una situación privilegiada, donde tenemos la posibilidad de ...