The First Direct Reprogramming of Adult Human Fibroblasts

In recent issues of Cell and Science, Yamanaka and colleagues (Takahashi et al., 2007) and Yu and colleagues (Yu et al., 2007) demonstrate that expression of four specific transcription factors gives adult human fibroblasts many of the characteristics of human embryonic stem cells. Refinements of this procedure will make it possible to produce pluripotent human cell lines without use of an embryo. There are profound scientific and social implications of this research

To Step or To Spring: The Influence of State Anxiety on Perceptual Judgments and Executed Action

To Step or To Spring: The Influence of State Anxiety on Perceptual Judgments and Executed Actio

How Do I Fit through That Gap? Navigation through Apertures in Adults with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder

During everyday life we move around busy environments and encounter a range of obstacles, such as a narrow aperture forcing us to rotate our shoulders in order to pass through. In typically developing individuals the decision to rotate the shoulders is body scaled and this movement adaptation is temporally and spatially tailored to the size of the aperture. This is done effortlessly although it actually involves many complex skills. For individuals with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) moving in a busy environment and negotiating obstacles presents a real challenge which can negatively impact on safety and participation in motor activities in everyday life. However, we have a limited understanding of the nature of the difficulties encountered. Therefore, this current study considered how adults with DCD make action judgements and movement adaptations while navigating apertures. Fifteen adults with DCD and 15 typically developing (TD) controls passed through a series of aperture sizes which were scaled to body size (0.9-2.1 times shoulder width). Spatial and temporal characteristics of movement were collected over the approach phase and while crossing the aperture. The decision to rotate the shoulders was not scaled in the same way for the two groups, with the adults with DCD showing a greater propensity to turn for larger apertures compared to the TD adults when body size alone was accounted for. However, when accounting for degree of lateral trunk movement and variability on the approach, we no longer saw differences between the two groups. In terms of the movement adaptations, the adults with DCD approached an aperture differently when a shoulder rotation was required and then adapted their movement sooner compared to their typical peers. These results point towards an adaptive strategy in adults with DCD which allows them to account for their movement difficulties and avoid collision

When an object appears unexpectedly: object circumvention in adults

Obstacles often appear unexpectedly in our pathway and these require us to make immediate adjustments. Despite how regularly we encounter such situations only few studies have considered how we adjust to unexpected obstacles in the pathway which require us to walk around them. The current study considered how adults adjust to the possibility of an obstacle appearing and then also how foot placement is adjusted to circumvent an obstacle. Fifteen healthy adults walked down an 11m walkway, initially they were told this was a clear pathway and nothing in the environment would change (no gate), they then performed a series of trials in which a gate may (gate close) or may not (gate open) partially obstruct their pathway. We found that medio-lateral trunk velocity and acceleration was significantly increased when there was the possibility of an obstacle but before the obstacle appeared. This demonstrates an adaptive walking strategy which seems to enable healthy young adults to successfully circumvent obstacles. We also categorised foot placement adjustments and found that adults favoured making shorter and wider steps away from the obstacle. We suggest this combination of adjustments allows participants to maintain stability whilst successfully circumventing the obstacle

The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries

Using British and Dutch interview data, this article demonstrates how people from different social classes draw strong symbolic boundaries on the basis of comedy taste. Eschewing the omnivorousness described in recent studies of cultural consumption, comedy audiences make negative aesthetic and moral judgements on the basis of comedy taste, and often make harsh judgements without the disclaimers, apologies and ambivalence so typical of ‘taste talk’ in contemporary culture. The article demonstrates how, in particular, Dutch and British middle class audiences use their comedy taste to communicate distinction and cultural superiority. We discuss several reasons why such processes of social distancing exist in comedy taste and not other cultural areas: the traditionally low status of comedy; the strong relation between humour and personhood; the continuity between comedy tastes and humour styles in everyday life; as well as the specific position of comedy in the British and Dutch cultural fields

Performance under varying constraints in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD): Difficulties and compensations

Purpose of Review Developmental coordination disorder is by very nature a disorder of movement and coordination. The constraints-based approach to motor control advocates the idea that the environment, the task and the individual can all constrain and promote movement/coordination. The purpose of this review is to describe factors which have been shown to explain the movement patterns in developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and discuss these in light of the constraints-based approach. Recent Findings Recent findings, within the DCD field, considering the perception-action relationship, the control of movement, the role of vision and individual differences in DCD can all be considered under the constraints-based which allows us to consider all factors involved in movement. Summary This paper has demonstrated the usefulness of the constraints-based approach in considering DCD and has also raised important questions regarding how we group and describe these individuals

Investigating motor planning in children with DCD: Evidence from simple and complex grip-selection tasks

Several studies suggest that children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) may be able to plan simple movements as well as their peers, but experience increasing difficulties as the movements become complex. The present study aimed to clarify the nature of motor planning in DCD, including a putative deficit, by being the first to investigate motor planning using converging measures of simple and complex motor planning in a single sample of children with DCD. Boys aged between 8 – 12 years with (n = 10) and without DCD (n = 17) completed three commonly used ‘simple’ (bar grasping, sword, and bar transport tasks) measures and one ‘complex’ (octagon task) measure of end-state-comfort (ESC), a classic measurement of motor planning ability. To achieve ESC when manipulating an object, a person may choose to start with an uncomfortable grip in order to end the movement in a comfortable position. Results indicate that the participants with DCD planned for ESC as efficiently as their peers when performing the ‘simple’ measures of ESC but were significantly less likely to end their performances in ESC than those without DCD for the more ‘complex’ octagon task. Taken together, our data suggest that school-aged children with DCD may be able to plan simple movements as efficiently as their peers, but have more difficulty doing so for multi-movement or complex sequences. Based on the assumption that the efficiency of such motor planning is dependent on the integrity of internal modelling systems, we argue that our study provides indirect support for the internal modelling deficit hypothesis