Michael Pasquarello III, We Speak Because We Have First Been Spoken: A Grammar of the Preaching Life.

I-36: Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis - Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is now considered routine in IVF laboratories with micromanipulation capability and access to genetic diagnostic services. The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of PGD, the number of cycles performed, and the indications for which PGD has been used. This increase has been mirrored by a slow, but steady, increase in the range o...

A symbiotic view of life: we have never been individuals.

The notion of the "biological individual" is crucial to studies of genetics, immunology, evolution, development, anatomy, and physiology. Each of these biological subdisciplines has a specific conception of individuality, which has historically provided conceptual contexts for integrating newly acquired data. During the past decade, nucleic acid analysis, especially genomic sequencing and high-...

We Have Always Been . . . Cyborgs

philosophy of mathematics suited well the ‘‘general emphasisin later nineteenth-century mathematics on revisiting foundationalquestions’’ (p. 61). Pure geometry as it emerged from Frege, Paschand Hilbert, provided a diagram-free, purely sentential notion ofproof, which has lasted unto our own day.In the second, and greater, part of the book, Greaves traces outthe interre...

Where we have been, where we are going.

We age because we grow.

Why do we age? Since ageing is a near-universal feature of complex organisms, a convincing theory must provide a robust evolutionary explanation for its ubiquity. This theory should be compatible with the physiological evidence that ageing is largely due to deterioration, which is, in principle, reversible through repair. Moreover, this theory should also explain why natural selection has favou...