We review a recent paper in Genome Research by Guantes et al. showing that nuclear gene expression is influenced by the bioenergetic status of the mitochondria. The amount of energy that mitochondria make available for gene expression varies considerably. It depends on: the energetic demands of the tissue; the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutant load; the number of mitochondria; stressors present in the cell. Hence, when failing mitochondria place the cell in energy crisis there are major effects on gene expression affecting (...) the risk of degenerative diseases, cancer and ageing. In 2015 the UK parliament approved a change in the regulation of IVF techniques, allowing “Mitochondrial replacement therapy” to become a reproductive choice for women at risk of transmitting mitochondrial disease to their children. This is the first time that this technique will be available. Therefore understanding the interaction between mitochondria and the nucleus has never been more important. (shrink)

Explores the extraordinary states of expanded consciousness that arise during comas, both positive and negative.

A. F. Norman has recently suggested that a hitherto overlooked passage in Suidas is a fragment from the history of Eunapius of Sardis. He is clearly correct in referring the passage to an incident at the siege of Maiozamalcha during the Persian campaign of the emperor Julian, but I am not so sure that he is right in ascribing it to Eunapius, or in the conclusions he draws from this ascription. I give in parallel columns the accounts of Ammianus Marcellinus, (...) Zosimus, and the passage from Suidas, together with a further version of the incident, unfortunately without names, from the pen of Libanius. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Radical Roots Challenging the Tradition The Liberal Ironist Essays Against the Tradition Pragmatism References.

From Wodehouse to the White House: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Play, Fantasy and Dramatic Incongruity in Comic Writing and Laughter-Talk In this paper I consider two discourse types, one written and literary, the other spoken and semi-conversational, in an attempt to discover if there are any similarities in the ways in which humour is generated in such apparently diverse forms of communication. The first part of the paper is concerned with the explicitly comic prose of P. G. Wodehouse, whilst in (...) the second part of the paper, we investigate the laughter-talk, defined as the talk preceding and provoking, intentionally or otherwise, an episode of laughter, occurring during press briefings held at the White House during the Clinton era and the subsequent Bush administration. Both studies, by employing corpus analysis techniques together with detailed discourse reading, integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches to the respective data sets. (shrink)

(1986). Reason and Nuclear Deterrence. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 16, Supplementary Volume 12: Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Disarmament, pp. 129-159.

This book, first published in 1978, is a radical approach to the philosophical distinction between Being and beings, in which the life of Socrates is used as the metaphor for the theoretical life, in contrast to the continuous historical interest in that life as an object for biographical reconstruction and description. Professor Blum's main concern is to develop a story that coordinates stages of the theoretical life to practices which exemplify man's ideal relationship with language.

It is argued that reasonable partiality allows an agent to attach value to particular objects of attachment via recognition of the value of the holding of that relation between agent and object. The reasonableness of partiality is ensured by a background context set by the agent's virtues, notably justice. It is argued that reasonable partiality is the only view that is compatible with our best account of the nature of self-knowledge. That account rules out any instrumental relationship between moral demands (...) and moral character, but that familiar claim is given an unfamiliar explanation. Instrumentality depends on a prior objectification of the self and it is that kind of objectification that, in the ethical case, represents a form of ethical evasion. Self-knowledge is transparent, incomplete and essentially connected with first person endorsement. The transparency condition is that knowledge of one's state of mind is "taken" transparently to its object. More specifically, ethical transparency is the feature that my virtues do not exhibit themselves to me in self-knowledge, but take me transparently to the way in which they saliently represent the world as containing evaluative properties calling for various forms of response. It is concluded that reasonable partiality grounded in the nature of the virtues is the only reflective account of morality compatible with the most plausible account of the nature of self-knowledge. The demands of impartiality are incompatible with a condition of having a personal point of view, namely, that a self can stand in a non-alienated relation to itself via its capacity for self-knowledge. (shrink)

K. Danziger, Marking the Mind: A History of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 305 pp. £24.99. ISBN: 978-0-521-89815-7 (hdbk) and 978-0-521-72641-2 (pbk).

Michael Tooley defends infanticide by analysing ‘A has a right to X’ as roughly synonymous with ‘If A desires X, then others are under a prima facie obligation to refrain from actions that would deprive him [or her] of it.’ An infant who cannot conceive of himself or herself as a continuing subject of experiences cannot desire to continue existing. Hence, on Tooley’s analysis, killing the infant is not impermissible, for it does not go against any of the infant’s desires. (...) However, Tooley’s argument in support of his analysis seems to justify, instead, a slightly more subtle analysis—namely, ‘A has a right to X’ is roughly extensionally equivalent with ‘Unless A expresses his or her desire that not‐X, then others are under a prima facie obligation to refrain from actions that would deprive him or her of X.’ But given this analysis, the infant’s purported lack of any capacity to conceive of himself or herself as a continuing subject of experiences implies that we cannot be released from any duty that we might have not to harm him or her. In short, Tooley’s argument in support of his analysis actually implies that infanticide may well be impermissible. (shrink)

Die aramäischen Texte aus Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr-Katlimmu/Magdalu. By Wolfgang Röllig. Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr-Katlimmu, vol. 17. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014. Pp. lxiv + 284, illus. €84.

ABSTRACT All of the major German Idealists perceived a gap between ideals and social reality. Kant sought to bridge this gap through an institutional design that forced self-interest to track the public good. Fichte embraced cultural nationalism, according to which, to overcome the gap between ideals and reality, a nation must revive and strengthen its original culture. Hegel’s solution, in contrast, rests on the idea of ethical habituation. For Hegel, the institutions of a well-designed social order encourage the habits and (...) virtues needed for the successful reproduction of that order. The article reflects on the implications of these contrasts for the prospects of liberal democracy. (shrink)