Making decisions to limit treatment in life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in children: a framework for practice

In this extraordinary world of medical miracles, one thing has not changed; the complexity, challenge and pain of that most difficult of decisions: is the treatment we are providing no longer in the best interests of the child? There is no technology to help us here—only guidance, discussion, and adequate time and information for truly shared decision making. Our commitment to the child's best interests must start before birth and continue through to palliative and end of life care. Even after death, a duty to provide bereavement support for parents and siblings is the natural conclusion to the difficult decisions we have made with them in the preceding weeks and months. This latest guidance on arguably the most difficult aspect of paediatric care has updated the decision making framework and incorporated more extensive advice on the direct involvement of children and young people. It also takes account of the broader possibilities flowing from developments in paediatric palliative care

An introduction to Jurassic biodiversity and terrestrial environments

This special issue of Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments is devoted to studies of Jurassic terrestrial floras. The special issue Jurassic biodiversity and terrestrial environments includes nine contributions that investigate plant fossils and their spores and pollen from a range of localities across the globe that stratigraphically span the Jurassic (Fig. 1). These papers are a collective contribution to the IGCP project 632: Continental crises of the Jurassic: Major extinction events and environmental changes within lacustrine ecosystems