Surpassing our genes : The subversive post-human message of 'Gattaca'

The movie Gattaca is often referenced in public debates about the societal dangers of human gene editing. In the public imaginary, its message is clear: the dystopian future it portrays stands as a warning against the societal acceptance of genetic perfectionism and genetic discrimination. This article argues that such a reading misses a deeper message of this cinematic text. Rather than offer a bioethics lesson against the use of genetics to make better human babies, in our opinion, the film actually argues that such genetic tampering is unlikely to succeed, but that the genetic engineering of a superior post-human individual is both possible and desirabl

Autonomy-Mastery-Purpose: Structuring Clinical Courses To Enhance These Critical Educational Goals

“There is a science to what we do”This article takes its name from the keynote plenary that the authors presented at the 8th International Journal of Clinical Legal Education conference held at Northumbria University in July 2010 The presentation and this article link research on human motivation and well-being to the structure and methods of clinical legal education. The quote above is from a conference participant in response to a question that we posed to small groups at our plenary regarding how the concepts of autonomy support and mastery resonate with their experience in clinical education and legal education more generally.Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the “tripod of Type I behavior” formulated by Daniel H. Pink in his 2009 book, DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES US. Pink postulates “Type I” behavior as that driven by intrinsic, self-generated motivations as opposed to “Type X” behavior directed toward extrinsic factors outside the self such as imposed production quotas, bonuses, competitions to “best” others, or avoiding punishments.Pink develops a computer-operating-system metaphor to advocate “Motivation 3.0” as an optimal organizing principle for 21st century business built on providing employees opportunities for autonomy, mastery, and purpose as opposed to an outmoded “Motivation 2.0,” which assumes a controlling work environment based on the premise that people respond best to carrots and sticks. Pink’s book cites examples of businesses structured to support autonomy, mastery, and purpose and describes their successes in enhanced creativity, innovation, retaining valued employees, and productivity. He contrasts such businesses with work places organized around specifically dictated job conditions and traditional structures where workers are subject to externally controlled rewards and punishments.Pink provides an engaging, easily accessible entry to a body of social science literature on motivation, achievement, and feelings of well-being that also has been applied to legal education. This article seeks to provide user-friendly access to theory regarding the basic human needs for autonomy, mastery, and purpose as well as regarding intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. The article provides examples of choices clinical teachers can make to promote student learning and feelings of well-being through methods supporting satisfaction of those basic human needs and encouraging students to find their self-driven motivations.Part I describes the difference in extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and reviews the negative effects of business and educational models assuming extrinsic motivation to be most effective rather than seeking to stimulate intrinsic motivation. Part II describes the Carnegie Foundation’s Preparation for the Professions project’s call for law schools to focus on law students’ sense of identity and purpose as part of their professional education, as well as noting the similar goal that students learn “how to be” as articulated by the Tuning Project of the Bologna process regarding higher education in Europe. Part III provides basics on the theory of human needs for a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose on which the rest of the article is based. Part IV applies work contrasting autonomy-supportive teacher behaviors with controlling instructional behaviors to the clinical context. Part V of the article draws on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and learning theory to suggest four methods useful for assisting novice law students on the steep road to mastery of lawyering competence within the time constraints of clinical programs and the professional demands of client service. Methods identified also contribute to satisfaction of students’ need for relatedness, which too often is undermined in other parts of law school. Part VI extends the discussion of clinics’ potential contribution to the need for relatedness and focuses on clinical education’s capacity to support development of students’ sense of how a career in law can contribute to their sense of life purpose in being part of something larger than themselves.Many of this article’s applications of theory to clinical teaching are from the clinics in which students provide client representation or are engaged in transactional legal problem solving under faculty supervision, the type of clinics in which Professors Klein and Blaustone teach. We think, however, that clinical teachers will be able to see applications of the theory presented to the various types of clinical programs that exist around the world, e.g, street law programs in which students teach community members and externship programs in which students work under the supervision of a lawyer in an organization external to the law school. We hope, like Pink’s book, to offer an accessible gateway to a body of theoretical and empirical work that can help clinical teachers think critically and creatively about both their clinical program’s structure and their teaching and supervision. We hope to inspire teachers to think about ways they might apply this theory toward nurturing the type of life-long self-direction that motivates people to continually seek greater mastery and provides a sense of well-being both now and in the students’ future careers

Autonomy-Mastery-Purpose: Structuring Clinical Courses to Enhance these Critical Goals

Part I describes the difference in extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and reviews the negative effects of business and educational models assuming extrinsic motivation to be most effective rather than seeking to stimulate intrinsic motivation. Part II describes the Carnegie Foundation\u27s Preparation for the Professions project\u27s call for law schools to focus on law students\u27 sense of identity and purpose as part of their professional education, as well as noting the similar goal that students learn how to be as articulated by the Tuning Project of the Bologna process regarding higher education in Europe. Part III provides basics on the theory of human needs for a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose on which the rest of the article is based. Part IV applies work contrasting autonomy-supportive teacher behaviors with controlling instructional behaviors to the clinical context. Part V of the article draws on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and learning theory to suggest four methods useful for assisting novice law students on the steep road to mastery of lawyering competence within the time constraints of clinical programs and the professional demands of client service. Methods identified also contribute to satisfaction of students\u27 need for relatedness, which too often is undermined in other parts of law school. Part VI extends the discussion of clinics\u27 potential contribution to the need for relatedness and focuses on clinical education\u27s capacity to support development of students\u27 sense of how a career in law can contribute to their sense of life purpose in being part of something larger than themselves

Autonomy-Mastery-Purpose: Structuring Clinical Courses to Enhance these Critical Goals

Part I describes the difference in extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and reviews the negative effects of business and educational models assuming extrinsic motivation to be most effective rather than seeking to stimulate intrinsic motivation. Part II describes the Carnegie Foundation\u27s Preparation for the Professions project\u27s call for law schools to focus on law students\u27 sense of identity and purpose as part of their professional education, as well as noting the similar goal that students learn how to be as articulated by the Tuning Project of the Bologna process regarding higher education in Europe. Part III provides basics on the theory of human needs for a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose on which the rest of the article is based. Part IV applies work contrasting autonomy-supportive teacher behaviors with controlling instructional behaviors to the clinical context. Part V of the article draws on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and learning theory to suggest four methods useful for assisting novice law students on the steep road to mastery of lawyering competence within the time constraints of clinical programs and the professional demands of client service. Methods identified also contribute to satisfaction of students\u27 need for relatedness, which too often is undermined in other parts of law school. Part VI extends the discussion of clinics\u27 potential contribution to the need for relatedness and focuses on clinical education\u27s capacity to support development of students\u27 sense of how a career in law can contribute to their sense of life purpose in being part of something larger than themselves

MANIPULATING IMPLEMENT WEIGHT DURING WARMUP TO IMPROVE SHOT PUT PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this study was to evaluate kinematics and kinetics of the shot put when participants warmup using standard, overweight, or underweight implements. Ten collegiate shot putters warmed up using regulation, heavy, or light implements then completed six maximal effort competition throws. Whole body kinematics and ground reaction forces were recorded on each throw. Consistent with the literature, throw distance was significantly further after warming up with the heavy implement (p = .002). However, there were no differences in critical kinematic factors or ground reaction forces between conditions. While using overweight implements during warmup improves shot put performance, the mechanism by which this occurs is not through altering the critical factors or forces produced during the throw

Cross-Boarder Teaching and Collaboration

Since the publication of Best Practices for Legal Education, the globalization of both legal education and law practice has exploded. Today’s lawyers increasingly serve border-crossing clients or clients who present with transnational legal issues. As law schools expand their international programs, and enroll increasing numbers of non-U.S. law students, law students transcend cultural and legal borders. As a result, they deepen their understanding of—and sharpen their critical perspective on—their own national systems. Similarly, U.S. law teachers are increasingly called to engage in border-crossing teaching and other academic pursuits. Best Practices did not address these issues. The primary aim of this chapter of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (Lexis 2015) is to identify best practices for law teachers engaged with non-U.S. or “international” learners who study or train in a U.S.-style learning environment, either in the United States or abroad. This chapter also addresses collaboration of U.S. law teachers with their counterparts abroad in such areas as developing innovative teaching and clinical legal education, training and research. It identifies eight guiding principles that cut across types of international learning and then applies these principles to three specific contexts: 1) teaching international students in U.S. law school settings; 2) integrating international students in U.S.-based clinics; and 3) collaborating in legal education and reform efforts with law teachers abroad.https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-chapters/1001/thumbnail.jp

Integrated root phenotypes for improved rice performance under low nitrogen availability

Greater nitrogen efficiency would substantially reduce the economic, energy and environmental costs of rice production. We hypothesized that synergistic balancing of the costs and benefits for soil exploration among root architectural phenes is beneficial under suboptimal nitrogen availability. An enhanced implementation of the functional-structural model OpenSimRoot for rice integrated with the ORYZA_v3 crop model was used to evaluate the utility of combinations of root architectural phenes, namely nodal root angle, the proportion of smaller diameter nodal roots, nodal root number; and L-type and S-type lateral branching densities, for plant growth under low nitrogen. Multiple integrated root phenotypes were identified with greater shoot biomass under low nitrogen than the reference cultivar IR64. The superiority of these phenotypes was due to synergism among root phenes rather than the expected additive effects of phene states. Representative optimal phenotypes were predicted to have up to 80% greater grain yield with low N supply in the rainfed dry direct-seeded agroecosystem over future weather conditions, compared to IR64. These phenotypes merit consideration as root ideotypes for breeding rice cultivars with improved yield under rainfed dry direct-seeded conditions with limited nitrogen availability. The importance of phene synergism for the performance of integrated phenotypes has implications for crop breeding.Peer reviewe

The Lantern Vol. 66, No. 2, Spring 1999

• Dowry • The Ballad of the Lonely Thinker • Dissipation • Parliament Light • Reflecting Hood • Tonight • Decree • Not Yet • The Man in the Moon • The Sound and/or Fury • Uh Huh • Watch • The Futility of a Drizzle in a Worsening Draught • The Answering Machine • Felix Culpa • Kiss Off • Amorous • Summer of the Burning Pizzas • Life Without Shoelaces • Hermes and Aphrodite • Win! Twins! • From 69 Slices of Hell • Boardwalk Cowboyhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1154/thumbnail.jp

The FaceBase Consortium: A comprehensive program to facilitate craniofacial research

The FaceBase Consortium consists of ten interlinked research and technology projects whose goal is to generate craniofacial research data and technology for use by the research community through a central data management and integrated bioinformatics hub. Funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) and currently focused on studying the development of the middle region of the face, the Consortium will produce comprehensive datasets of global gene expression patterns, regulatory elements and sequencing; will generate anatomical and molecular atlases; will provide human normative facial data and other phenotypes; conduct follow up studies of a completed genome-wide association study; generate independent data on the genetics of craniofacial development, build repositories of animal models and of human samples and data for community access and analysis; and will develop software tools and animal models for analyzing and functionally testing and integrating these data. The FaceBase website (http://www.facebase.org) will serve as a web home for these efforts, providing interactive tools for exploring these datasets, together with discussion forums and other services to support and foster collaboration within the craniofacial research community