KIE: Kuhse and Singer, the editors of this special issue of Bioethics, introduce seven articles on conflicting concepts, public policies, and standards for the determination of cardiorespiratory and brain death and the relationship of brain death to the beginning of "brain life" and to organ donation, especially from anencephalic infants. The articles are "Consciousness, the brain and what matters," by Grant Gillett; "Brain death and the anencephalic newborn," by Robert D. Truog and John C. Fletcher; "Brain death and brain life: rethinking the connection," by Jocelyn Downie; "A plea for the heart," by Martyn Evans; "The importance of knowledge and trust in the definition of death," by Bo Andreassen Rix; "Death, democracy and public ethical choice," by Reid Cushman and Soren Holm; and "Misunderstanding death on a respirator," by Tom Tomlinson.