Mitochondrial shape change, brought about by molecules that promote either fission or fusion between individual mitochondria, has been documented in several model systems. However, the deeper significance of mitochondrial shape change has only recently begun to emerge: among others, it appears to play a role in the regulation of cell proliferation. Here, I review the emerging interplay between mitochondrial fission‐fusion components with cell cycle regulatory machineries and how that may impact cell differentiation. Regulation of mitochondrial shape may modulate mitochondrial metabolism (...) and/or energetics to promote crosstalk between signaling components and the cell cycle machinery. Focused research in this area will reveal the exact role of mitochondria in development and disease, specifically in stem cell regulation and tumorigenesis. Such research may also reveal whether and how the endosymbiotic event that gave rise to the mitochondrion was crucial for the evolution of cell cycle regulatory mechanisms in eukaryotes that are absent in prokaryotes. (shrink)

Sedlakova and Traschel argue that conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) is more than a mere tool, but not quite an agent, as it “simulates having a therapeutic conversation [but] does not re...

During these five war years science has proclaimed and demonstrated its role as Hercules. It has employed as its loudspeaker the bursting bomb, and as its courier the swift vehicle. Its blows have been instantly lethal.Next, science has shown its skill as the fabricator of useable goods. And, lastly the giant has revealed some of its mild and even compassionate moods as the binder of man's mortal wounds and the healer of his fevers and mental abberations.

Few empirical studies in the UK have examined the complex social patterns and values behind quantitative estimates of the prevalence of pharmacological cognitive enhancement. We conducted a qualitative investigation of the social dynamics and moral attitudes that shape PCE practices among university students in two major metropolitan areas in the UK. Our thematic analysis of eight focus groups suggests a moral ecology that operates within the social infrastructure of the university. We find that PCE resilience among UK university students is (...) mediated by normative and cultural judgments disfavoring competitiveness and prescription drug taking. PCE risk can be augmented by social factors such as soft peer pressure and normalization of enhancement within social and institutional networks. We suggest that moral ecological dynamics should be viewed as key mechanisms of PCE risk and resilience in universities. Effective PCE governance within universities should therefore attend to developing further understanding of the moral ecologies of PCE. (shrink)

Bluhm et al. (2023) interviewed psychiatrists, patients with depression, and members of the public and concluded that participants recognized multiple categories of invasiveness, including emotiona...

Introduction Sartre at One Hundred — a Man of the Nineteenth Century Addressing the Twenty-First? THOMAS R. FLYNN We are celebrating the centennial year of ...

Foreword, by A. P. Brogan.--Retrospective introduction, by C. D. Leake.--Ethicogenesis, by C. D. Leake.--A philosopher's reply to a scientist's ethic, by P. Romanell.--A scientific versus a metaphysical approach to ethics, by C. D. Leake.--A naturalistic versus a positivistic approach to ethics, by P. Romanell.--A naturalistic logic with metaphysics, by P. Romanell.--Science implies freedom, by C. D. Leake.

Many theories of explanation evaluation are based on context‐independent criteria. Such theories either restrict their consideration to explanation towards a fixed goal, or assume that all valid explanations are equivalent, so that evaluation criteria can be neutral to the goals underlying the attempt to explain. However, explanation can serve a range of purposes that place widely divergent requirements on the information an explanation must provide. It is argued that understanding what determines explanations' goodness requires a dynamic theory of evaluation, based (...) on analysis of the information needed to satisfy the many goals that can prompt explanation; this view conforms to the commonsense idea that people accept and apply explanations precisely if those explanations give the information they need. A range of goals that can underly explanation is examined, and a theory is presented for evaluating whether an explanation provides the information an explainer needs for these goals. The theory is illustrated by sketching its implementation in the computer program, ACCEPTER, which does goal‐based evaluation of the goodness of explanations for surprising events in news stories. (shrink)