Monthly Archives: February 2017

Embryology

Extremism in Defense of Autonomy – Townhall

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Posted: Feb 23, 2017 12:01 AM

When confronted with opposition to abortion, many feminists reflexively assert that it is (Their) body and, therefore, (their) choice. Notice that I have used the term assert instead of argue. In order for an assertion to become an argument it must be accompanied by evidence. There simply is no evidence to support the position that the unborn is merely an extension of the womans body.

There are two ways to respond to this unsupported assertion. One is to simply quote from embryology textbooks, which uniformly conclude that the unborn is a distinct, living, and whole human being from the point of conception. Another is to share images of what the unborn child looks like at the earliest stages when surgical abortion is performed, which is around seven weeks after conception. By choosing this latter option, one can simply count the clearly discernible fingers on the blob of tissue and see that more than one body is involved. Pregnant women dont have four hands and twenty fingers.

Using scientific evidence to point out that it is not merely her body and her choice will usually force the pro-abortion choice advocate to modify her position with something like the following: Ok, there is another body involved but its still my choice. In other words, I dont care about the other body. My bodily rights still prevail!

Philosophically speaking, this is a hard position to defend. In effect, using a bodily autonomy argument to defend abortion is tantamount to saying that one can advance bodily autonomy through the act of dismembering bodies. At some point, this kind of thinking produces more than mere cognitive dissonance. It leads to a crisis in our conception (sorry) of human equality.

It should go without saying that you can use this justification for abortion only if a womans right to bodily autonomy is absolute. The absurdity of such absolutist claims should be obvious. If they are not, please consider a thought experiment originally offered by pro-abortion choice blogger Paul W. (paraphrased and modified slightly by yours truly).

First off, imagine that a woman enjoys being pregnant. And dont laugh. I have a good friend who has had eight children with his wife. Whenever I see her and she is pregnant she is beaming. When she is not pregnant she will tell you that she wished she were pregnant. In fact, she is never happier than when she is pregnant.

Now, just imagine that a new form of technology comes into existence, which allows a woman to remain pregnant as long as she wants. In other words, it stops the baby within her from developing past a certain point. All she has to do is to take a pill or get some sort of injection and the baby will stop growing and remain within her womb forever.

Further, also imagine that a woman gets pregnant at the age of 20, takes advantage of the new technology, remains pregnant, and lives until the age of 90. For 70 years, there is a tiny dwarf living inside of her who is fully aware of whom he is and who wants to escape to live a normal life. But, alas, he cannot. She has boldly proclaimed, It is my body and my choice! Nobody passes through my vagina without my permission! So her dwarf baby remains inside her womb trapped in involuntary servitude in rigid adherence to the principle of bodily autonomy.

The thought experiment proffered by Paul W. may well produce the objection that it doesnt apply to abortion, as the fetus is neither aware of its surroundings nor desirous of escape. But the solution to that is pretty simple. Just as one injection could stop the baby from growing, a second injection could knock it out as soon as it starts developing self-awareness. There would be no violation of human rights as long as the little human didnt know what was happening. In a sense, the bodily autonomy zealot could just borrow a page from the playbook of the rapist who sedates his victims in advance.

The bodily autonomy justification for abortion is indeed barbaric. But, unfortunately, it is often made to sound defensible by a much more famous thought experiment. That well-known hypothetical will be the subject of a future column.

To be continued.

Breaking:Alan Colmes Passes Away At Age 66

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Extremism in Defense of Autonomy - Townhall

Cell Biology

In a lab pushing the boundaries of biology, an embedded ethicist keeps scientists in check – STAT

T

he young scientists had a question. They were working with mouse embryos from which all living cells had been chemically dissolved away.

So far, so good, thought the bioethicist, as she listened to the presentation at a Harvard Medical School lab meeting.

The scientists were seeding the mouse scaffolds with human stem cells. Those cells were expected to turn into human liver cells and perhaps a mini human liver; and human kidney cells and perhaps mini human kidneys; andhumanheart and brain cells and

Wait.

Jeantine Lunshof insists she is not the ethics police. It says so on the door to her closet-sized office at Harvard. She doesnt find reasons to reflexively shut down experiments. She doesnt snoop around for deviations from ethical guidelines. But when scientists discuss their research in the twice-weekly lab meetings she attends, I will say, hmm, that raises some good questions, Lunshof said.

There is no shortage of good questions for Lunshof, who for the last three years has been embedded in the synthetic biology lab of George Church, the visionary whose projects include trying to resurrect the wooly mammoth and to write a human genome from scratch. Church is also famous for arguing that it is ethically acceptable to edit the genomes of human embryos if doing so will safely alleviate suffering, and for encouraging people to make their full genome sequence public, privacy be damned.

In the Church lab, Lunshof told STAT, you have incredibly interesting conversations.

George Church has a wild idea to upend evolution. Heres your guide

Rapid advances in genomics and stem cell biology are forcing researchers to regularly confront ethical quandaries that seem straight out of science fiction. The power to create organisms with cells, tissue, and even organs from different species,called a chimera, raises thornyquestions: What is the moral status of a primordial human brain nourished with a rudimentary heart and circulatory system, all inside a mouse scaffold? Can it feel pain? Should it not be created in the first place? Genome-editing presents otherchallenges: Where does therapy end and enhancement begin? Could genome-editing to prevent dwarfism, for example, go a little further and create a future NBA star? How should society balance competing values such as autonomy, like the freedom of parents to do everything they can for their children, and justice, as in not creating classes of genetic haves and have nots?

George is far ahead of everyone else in the kinds of experiments he undertakes, said John Aach, a senior scientist in Churchs lab who works closely with Lunshof. She performs a service in making them slow down to where the rest of the world is. Otherwise George might stumble. It doesnt take much to stumble and make a mess of things. Jeantine keeps things moving on the bioethics side as the science is moving ahead.

Lunshofs role is unusual if not unique. Genetics researchers will tap a bioethicist to join a grant or consult on a project, but it is rarely if ever the case that a genetics lab has a full-time bioethicist, said Brendan Parent, a bioethicist at New York University. He and others are unaware of any other such embeds. Instead, bioethicists and biologists tend to interact when they serve on committees convened by universities, scientific organizations, or government.

In contrast, Lunshof not only coauthors papers with Church and his colleagues, but also helps draft protocols for some of the cutting-edge science the lab conducts. By being present at the creation, she is able to flag ethical minefields before the lab finds itself bumbling acrossone.

She provides me with a comfort zone, Church said. I think much more about societal concerns that the labs research might raise. Shes here while were just starting to think about experiments, he added, and because of her we talk about [bioethics] earlier than most groups do. Jeantine is fearless in what she tackles.

The benefits of this collaboration extend beyond Church and his lab. Watching new biology emerge in real time has enabled Lunshof to develop much-needed new ways of thinking aboutbioethics, giving her field and the world outside the lab a fighting chance to keep up.

Its at the lab meetings every Monday and Thursday afternoon that Lunshof typically learns what might next land on her to-do list. The 50 or so scientists in attendance update Church on their research and others offer comments. The rows of chairs are generally all filled. Lunshof, in typically casual lab attire, rarely asks questions, instead taking notes and keeping track of who she needs to follow up with.

This week, researchers discussed plans to do cognitive testing on participants in a project centered on having their genomes sequenced. Lunshofs ears pricked up.

The combination of genetics and intelligence has long been a danger zone, largely because measurements of intelligence are imprecise and shaped by the dominant culture, as decades of debate about IQ tests have shown. The tests do not measure cognition, let alone intelligence, Lunshof said during the meeting, arguing for staying away from linking the genome to cognition or IQ. She urged the scientists to be more precise in describing what the tests measured: memory and mental processing speed. Correcting things later by saying, No, we are not measuring IQ, really were not, is very difficult, she said.

When I feel that something is a problem, I feel completely free to say, Dont go down that road, Lunshofsaid in an interview. She is not paid by Harvard. Born and raised in the Netherlands, sheis an assistant professor there, at University Medical Center Groningen, and she was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship to move to Boston and support her work in Churchs lab.

Audacious project plans to create human genomes from scratch

No one in the lab ever puts pressure on me to legitimize anything or to agree with what theyre doing, she said. I am always on the alert for things that could get into delicate areas.

Lunshofs collaboration with Church began in 2006. Itwas the start of the Personal Genome Project, an effort to sequence peoples full genomes and mine the data to link genetics to health. Church was causing consternation by proposing that people make their genome and their health history publicly available.

My first reaction was, this is totally crazy, Lunshof recalled. Anonymity and confidentiality were central to everything we do in biomedical ethics.

But then she thought, what if Church is right? He had argued that its impossible to guarantee that a DNA sample would remain anonymous. (Hewould beproved right in 2013.) So why not do away with that charade at the outset, and instead of making empty promises of anonymity, tell volunteers from the get-go that anyone could know who they were?

Lunshof had studied philosophy and Tibetan language and culture as an undergraduate, then had written a doctoral thesis on ethical issues in genomics. She also had earned a nursing degree, and worked at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. In 2006, she stumbled on the PGP website and sent an email expressing her interest in it. Church replied within hours and their partnership was born.

Together, they developed a new form of patient consent for the Personal Genome Project. Called open consent, it was founded on principles new to the bioethics of genetic research. It tells participants they wont have privacy and confidentiality. Instead, consent is based on values such as reciprocity (scientists and volunteers interact as equals) and veracity. Lunshof is also a big believer in the ethical concept of citizenry, including allowing ones genetic data to be accessed by all qualified scientists tohelp advance medical progress and alleviate human suffering.

Because of advances in genetics and genomics, it made sense to abandon the traditional idea of medical confidentiality, Lunshof said, or at least not make it central.

That was a minority opinion. The National Institutes of Health, a main funder of Churchs lab, wasnt ready to embrace the idea of genetic privacy being violable, said Aach. It and the genetics community went in the other direction, saying we have to take steps to protect privacy, a huge and costly undertaking.

With the development of open consent, the Personal Genome Project took off, and now has more than 5,000 participants in the United States alone.

When I feel that something is a problem, I feel completely free to say, Dont go down that road.

Bioethicist Jeantine Lunshof

The ethics debate around genomics intensified with publication of a breakthrough 2012 paperon CRISPR, the revolutionary new genome-editing technology. After Church and his team got CRISPR to edit the genomes of human cells, later that year, they and others quickly faced two quandaries: Should CRISPR ever be used to enhance peoples genetic inheritance? Should it be used to edit the genomes of human eggs, sperm, or early embryos, producing changes that could be inherited by offspring and, maybe, generations of designer babies?

For many scientists and ethicists, the line-in-the-sand position on such germline editing and genetic enhancement has long been no. Lunshof had other ideas.

From the bioethics standpoint, she told STAT one afternoon at a Harvard Medical School cafe, it is not clear why altering genes [for enhancement] is by definition unethical. Some philosophers have consistently argued that there is a duty to at least consider genetic enhancement.

The CRISPR patent decision: Your six takeaways

In the real world, Prospective parents decide to use or not to use reproductive technologies, Lunshof argued, and that could one day include germline genome editing.

That reflects the balancing act she brings to the ethical puzzles she tries to unravel. Sometimes two core values are in conflict. In the case of germline editing and enhancement, parental autonomy (to make reproductive choices) might clash with the idea that all children are entitled to an equal start in the world. But the latter is honored in the breach more than the observance, Lunshof says, and so should not be allowed to trump parental autonomy.

Last week, a report from the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine opened the door to germline editing. It opposed enhancement, but called the line between enhancement and therapy blurry. Lunshof beat them to it: The criteria for what is therapy and what is enhancement are fluid, she wrote two years ago.

For all the passions that germline editing incites, its effects would be small: It requires in vitro fertilization, so few parents would use it (unless reproductive sex goes the way of flip phones). Other applications of CRISPR could be more consequential. One could alter ecosystems. Calledgene drive, it is a technology for editing the genomes of an organism in a way that causes the change to be inherited by every offspring, contrary to usual inheritance patterns.

As scientists in Churchs lab and elsewhereinvolved the public in conversations about testing gene drives in wild populations of mice or mosquitoes, Lunshof recently raised a novel bioethics question: If a bioneer community says yes to gene drive, it sets a precedent and could lead people in other places to allow it, too, she said. How much would this community be held morally accountable for genetic interventions elsewhere that go wrong?

The ethical minefield created by the possibility of seeding mouse embryo scaffolds with human stem cells, and possibly growing a functional, if mini, human brain, has been trickier to navigate. Youd grow human organs, Lunshof said. My question was, what if this worked?

There didnt seem to be any government or other rules against it. Scientists using stem cells from embryos are supposed to clear experiments with an Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight (ESCRO) Committee, which many research universities have established. But Churchs lab proposed to use stem cells produced by reverting adult cells back to an embryo-like state. And although there are rules against creating human chimeras, it wasnt clear whether this thing would be a chimera: It wouldnt be a single living entity, though it might have living human cells or even organs.It seemed there was no bureaucracy to stop the experiment.

Lunshof spent hours with the two scientists who were planning the experiment. She primes the lab to be sensitive to ethical issues even when they dont know what to be sensitive about, Aach said. She proposed asking the ESCRO committee. Church agreed. It decided that the experiment did not violate any known guideline but asked him to keep the committee informed as the experiments progressed.

As it happens, the experiments didnt work and the lab moved on smack into another ethical conundrum.

First human-pig chimeras created, sparking hopes for transplantable organs and debate

This time, postdoctoral fellow Eswar Iyer was using a process called micropatterning to create special surfaces on glass slides. Placed on them, human stem cells formed a precisely shaped little colonythat differentiated into one or another organ.

Iyer described this work at a 2015 lab meeting. Twophrases made Lunshof sit up: embryo-like features and generation of cerebral organoids.

It was the de-cellularized mouse dilemma all over again, but with glass slides instead of mouse scaffolding, and, again, no rules seemed to apply. There are federal prohibitions against allowing an embryo to develop past the point where it forms a structure called a primitive streak, which happens on the 15th day after fertilization. At this point the embryo can no longer split (into twins) and is therefore widely regarded as a morally significant individual. But human cells or tissues developing on the micropatterned surfaces never form a primitive streak; only whole embryos do.

The question, Lunshof said, was, What is the threshold where a synthetic entity is enough of an embryo that the same moral questions must be considered?

That question loomed even larger with those cerebral organoids, primordial mini-brains that are even more realistic and much more embryo-like, Church said.

Cerebral organoids, too, fall through the cracks of the rules on embryo research, Lunshof said, but we know were doing things that involve the same ethical issues that inspired the rules, such as when human life begins, when something has a moral status, and whether since this is brain tissue the thing is sentient.

After the lab meeting, Iyer dropped by her office. The 10-minute visit he expected lasted two-and-a-half hours. Lunshof not only asked him to explain every detail of every slide he had shown. Their conversation also ranged into Western and Eastern philosophy (Iyer is a Hindu), especially views on when life begins. They agreed to keep talking.

Lunshof gave Church a rundown of the discussion, began looking for scholarly papers that might shed light on the ethically-uncharted territory, and figured out what rules are applicable. She also took the helm of a working group on the ethics of embryo-like entities.

One result is a paper to be published in eLife, an online biology journal. In it, Lunshof, Aach, Iyer, and Church propose that research limits for these entities be based as directly as possible on the generation of morally concerning features. (The entities are called SHEEFs: Synthetic Human Entities with Embryo-like Features.) For instance: How human are the cerebral organoids? Do they feel pain? How could youtell?

Just because the thing cannot develop into a baby is not a valid reason to green-light the experiments, Lunshof said. She believes that if human cells are highly organized and display functional interactivity as a blood supply in a cerebral organoid would then one must at least consider the possibility that the SHEEF has moral status.

Lunshof also initiated a discussion of SHEEFs with Harvards stem-cell oversight committee, which led to a meeting last November at Harvard Law School. There, Church explained that it is possible to get blood vessels to infuse cerebral organoids, which allows us to go to larger and larger organoids. So far, he said, we can see beautiful structures very similar to advanced cerebral [tissue]. There is essentially no limit to the technology, so we need to focus on the ethics and the humanity as guides to how far to take the science.

Which means Lunshof is unlikely to run out of good questions.

Sharon Begley can be reached at sharon.begley@statnews.com Follow Sharon on Twitter @sxbegle

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In a lab pushing the boundaries of biology, an embedded ethicist keeps scientists in check - STAT

Anatomy

Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo & Justin Chambers Tell Us How They Really Feel About a Possible Meredith-Alex … – E! Online

Ever since Grey's Anatomy made Meredith a widow,a sentiment has begun to grow among the long-running ABC soap's fan base that maybe it's time to test the romantic waters between the good doc and her oldest friend Alex. Over the course of the last two seasons, there have been moments where the show seemed to toying with the idea itself. We've even advocated for the plot development on this very site.

Finally, the stars themselves, Ellen Pompeo and Justin Chambers, are revealing their thoughts on the prospect of their characters getting together. Spoiler alert: They aren't feeling the love.

"Justin is one of my favorite people on the planet," Pompeo told E! News direct from the Grey's Anatomy set. "We're really close, and it does feel weird. To potentially maybe have him as a love interest would be like kissing my brother. I used to say that about Patrick [Dempsey] all the time too because just we'd been together for so long."

From the sound of things, the actress just might beperfectly fine with Meredith not finding romance with anyone else ever again. "The love interest part is not my favorite piece of this, I'll be honest,"she added. "Kissing guys that aren't your husband is, you know, a little weird. I guess it wouldn't be if you didn't like your husband, but I happen to be very, very fond of mine."

Chambers echoed his old friend's thoughts on a possible MerLex union, but admitted that, withShonda Rhimes as his boss, he never rules anything out."I think anything is possible, but personally I find it to be weird," he told us. "I think that they're very much like siblings. They've been through so much together. Personally, I don't see it. But, hey, this is Grey's Anatomy. Anything is possible."

For more from the Grey's Anatomy set, check out the video above.

Do you ready for a MerLex romance or do you think it would be an unholy union? Let us know where you stand in the comments below!

Grey's Anatomy airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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Grey's Anatomy's Ellen Pompeo & Justin Chambers Tell Us How They Really Feel About a Possible Meredith-Alex ... - E! Online

Anatomy

Anatomy Of A Day In The Mavs’ Trade-Deadline Life – Scout

Trade Talk. Cap Gymnastics. A Surprise Phone Call. A Short-Handed Scrimmage. It's All Part Of 'The Anatomy Of A Day In The Mavs' Trade-Deadline Life.'

The first soon-to-be-public domino topples innocuously enough, with Dallas Mavericks rookie center AJ Hammons showing up for work in Frisco, expecting to be a starter for Wednesday nights D-League game between the Mavs affiliate the Texas Legends vs. the LA D-Fenders.

At 3:36, I receive a text.

Hammons is being recalled by the Mavs today.

And right about at this time, Legends coach Bob MacKinnon contacts Hammons.

Youre going downtown, MacKinnon tells the kid.

I ask a Mavs staffer if Hammons hurry-up drive south down the Tollway (a move made official at 3:49) had anything to do with the possibility of a trade-deadline-centered Dallas roster shuffle.

You could surmise that, yes, he tells me.

And then comes a Mavs practice. (It is suggested to me that the workout is largely a scrimmage, and that coach Rick Carlisle will supervise another scrimmage on Thursday as the team comes back from its All-Star Break and preps for a Friday game at Minnesota and a Saturday AAC meeting with Boogie Cousins Pelicans). And it is a Mavs practice that does not feature Andrew Bogut or Deron Williams.

We were just told a trade might happen, J.J. Barea reveals to the media collected downtown. So theyre not here.

Both sit out, protectively bubble-wrapped in order to be safely delivered to their new teams by the 2 p.m. Thursday deadline if the Mavs can procure from suitors just the right future-value bounty.

Says Carlisle: If it turns out they're not here, they're not here and this is what we got. And if there are trades, there's a chance there's going to be some players coming back that could help us. But we'll see. We'll know by 2 o'clock tomorrow, and we'll go from there.

That players coming back part is a significant revelation to those of you whove been following how a D-Will-to-Cleveland trade might have to work. More on that below

Assorted other vignettes, takes and dominos as part ofThe Anatomy Of A Day In The Mavs Trade-Deadline Life:

*Just 24 hours earlier, Dallas discusses with Utah the idea of trading Williams to the Jazz. Its not an unappealing idea to D-Will (who once played in Utah and owns a home there and would seemingly waive his trade-veto rights to return). Im told Utah is not enthralled with the idea of sacrificing whatever first-rounder (the Jazz have a cache of them) Dallas is asking for. But at least the conversations are on and inside the Mavs headquarters on Wednesday morning, the idea remains a topic of discussion.

*The same is true of the concept of a Bogut trade to Boston(details here), though a source continues to tell me that a bigger shoe needs to drop first for the Celtics before they turn to the idea of giving up a 2018-or-later pick for the center.

*Mavs GM Donnie Nelson is the point man on many of the conversations, including the in-house ones in which the staff discusses ideas to pursue the likes of Utahs Derrick Favors and Detroits Andre Drummond. Assistant Michael Finley is a key voice in the room.

*At some point after 10:37 a.m., the D-Will-to-Utah talks are supplemented by D-Will-to-Cleveland talks. This is happy news inside Dallas HQ; the Mavs believe this is the Cavs long-sought-after target. Maybe theyre right but in the early afternoon Im told Cleveland is also willing to ask Mario Chalmers to come off the couch to serve as the off-the-bench playmaker LeBron James desires.

*The ideal Deron trade brings back nothing but picks; theres no desire to let a Channing Frye or a Man Shumpert clog the Mavs summer salary cap. So there are complicated ways to pull that off. A three-way involving another team, and letting the Cavs player go somewhere other than Dallas. A complicated swap with the Cavs that involves not only Deron but Bogut, too. All these are considered by Mark Cuban and staff keeping in mind that because of Utahs cap situation (as compared to Clevelands) a D-Will trade to the Jazz requires no filler, no matching, no cap gymnastics.(See David Lord's incomparable insight into these "deeply involved'' trade talks here.)

*Take this as either a) a sign that Deron and/or Bogut deal(s) are going down or b) that the Mavs are really, really doing their just-in-case preparatory homework. But consider the Mavs roster post-trade. If Carlisles forecast is right and Dallas gets some players coming back, this isnt an issue.

Or

Two players go out and fewer than two players come back. Its so feasible that the Mavs staff decides it had better assemble a list of D-League prospects, a list of guys on the couch, a list of prospects playing in China who will soon be eligible to sign NBA deals.

How real am I being about this concept? Im giving you names. If the Mavs have roster vacancies, they will consider quickly sending out weekend feelers to D-Leaguer Jalen Jones (of Maine and formerly of Texas A&M), to Manny Harris and Pierre Jackson (of the Legends), to Ray McCallum (now on his second 10-day with the Hornets), to Briante Weber (the D-League star now on a 10-day with Golden State), maybe to the aforementioned Chalmers, and eventually, when his China service is done, to J.J. Hickson, the former Wizards big man.

*The organization is still struggling to wrap its collective head around the ideas of being non-competitive, of tanking, of organic tanking. Somebody on the staff mentions out-loud how Boogie and The Brow are almost certain to lead New Orleans to a charge for the No. 8 spot in the West playoffs, leaving Dallas in the lottery dust.

I dont know what Carlisles private reply to that is. I know his public answer.

Were in a dynamic business, he says to the Wednesday afternoon media. Theres plenty going on.

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Anatomy Of A Day In The Mavs' Trade-Deadline Life - Scout

Anatomy

‘Vagina Monologues’ fights stigma linked to female anatomy – The Ithacan

An older woman hesitantly shares her experiences of sexuality after recovering from cervical cancer. A lawyer-turned-prostitute intimately tells of her passion for other women. A young homeless woman recounts a memory of a traumatizing childhood rape. These are just a few of the many emotional and powerful monologues presented within playwright and activist Eve Enslers award-winning The Vagina Monologues.

The Vagina Monologues discusses the stigma around womens sexuality and spurs dialogue about women, violence against women and the push for equality. Through monologues compiled by Ensler, such as My Revolution Begins in the Body, My Short Skirt and My Vagina Was My Village, the play shares personal accounts of womens experiences and emotions on this topic. All proceeds from the play, presented by IC Players at two show times Feb. 19 in the Emerson Suites, benefited V-day, a global activist movement dedicated to increase awareness of violence against women. The performances drew in about 140 people for both shows, and IC Players raised about $815 for the organization.

After three years of acting in The Vagina Monologues, senior Jessica Braham, a theater arts management major at Ithaca College, directed the play. Braham said the play is especially relevant now because of the current political climate and that she strived to use her power to address these political issues.

I felt like I could bring my vision to life, and I could finally be the one to inspire other women to voice these stories, Braham said. Theres a lot of criticism about the show because people are asking, Why are we still doing this? Women have rights. But I felt like this year was the time. This is when we need it now more than ever.

Braham said a key theme in the play was to stress the importance of women supporting and empowering other women. She said that while directing the play, she especially encouraged the cast members to empower one another.

Women empowering other women is something that is so important and something that we dont really have a lot of, Braham said. This isnt the time to segregate ourselves and separate from the issues. This is when we all need to come together and rally and fight for what is right for our rights and equality.

True to the message of women supporting other women, sophomore Hannah Paquette, assistant director of the play, said she aimed to create a sense of community among the women whose stories they were telling in the play.

These dialogues and conversations and sometimes these thoughts dont even happen unless theres a community of women where those things can come out, Paquette said.

Another important part of the play, Paquette said, is that it changes each year. This year, the spotlight monologue, a piece written by Ensler and selectively added to the performance, was I Call You Body, a monologue demanding safe and violence-free workplaces. The spotlight monologues each year highlight specific issues that are stressed in the yearly campaign for One Billion Rising and Vday.org, two organizations established by Ensler to combat violence against women. The additions help keep The Vagina Monologues relevant, Paquette said, allowing for the play to be a living body of work.

Its a really important point of activism for me being able to do this show, especially in this time period, Paquette said. It [shows] defiance and resistance.

Erin Lockett, a freshman acting major and the narrator of the play, said the show is an important feminist piece because it addresses the stigma face-first, without any shyness.

I think that if not everyone, a lot of people are very uncomfortable talking about vaginas because of the stigma that surrounds it, she said. I think The Vagina Monologues brings up the stigma. It names it, and it addresses it, and it analyzes it.

Lockett said the play commands attention and respect because of its direct style of addressing touchy subjects.

I think thats just a way more powerful way to address [the stigma], she said.

Without powerful, artful statements such as this play, Braham said, none of the universal problems referenced would be resolved. Braham recommends that people who fear the stigma see the performance.

Nothing will ever get solved by shying away and not addressing the situation or the problem at hand, Braham said. So to someone who is not going to come because of the title Why not give it a shot? Have an open mind. Maybe youre uncomfortable, but isnt that the theater that matters and provokes conversation? I want people to leave, go have dialogue and take action about what they just saw.

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'Vagina Monologues' fights stigma linked to female anatomy - The Ithacan

Anatomy

Sandra Oh Returning To ‘Grey’s Anatomy’? She Reveals Whether She’d Ever Come Back – Hollywood Life

Greys Anatomy fans have been dying to find out if Sandra Oh will return to the series ever since her character, Dr. Cristina Yang, left Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital back in 2014. Now Sandra herself is speaking out!

At this point No, I dont think so,Sandra Oh, 45, said when she was asked about returning to Greys Anatomy during her recent appearance onAccess Hollywood Live. Though the actress was there to promote her new movieCatfight, along with her co-star Anne Heche, of course co-hosts Kit Hoover and Natalie Moralesjust had to ask if shed reprise her role as Dr. Cristina Yang! Hello, she was Meredith Greys (Ellen Pompeo) best friend for 10 wonderful seasons!

Sandra, aGolden Globe winner for her performance on the ABC drama,was also asked if she would come back justfor the series finale (when it happens), to which she said she has talked with showrunner Shonda Rhimesabout the idea. I just dont know. It would have to feel right, she said.

As an actor, as an artist, its a full life that one has, Sandra said of her career. And as I look back to that time, which is extremely important and deeply meaningful to me, and it means a lot to me that a whole generation, a new generation of fans are discovering the show. So it means a lot.

The Catfightactressdecided to leave the powerhouse series back in 2014, so Cristina was written out as going to work overseas. Ever since then we have definitely missed Merediths person and we know she has too! So we will keep holding out hope that one day Sandra might come back, if only for an episode!

HollywoodLifers, do you think that Sandra will ever come back toGreys Anatomy? Give us all your thoughts below!

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Sandra Oh Returning To 'Grey's Anatomy'? She Reveals Whether She'd Ever Come Back - Hollywood Life

Neuroscience

This Neuroscience Study Says Ads Are More Effective on Publishers’ Websites Than Social News Feeds – FishbowlDC (blog)

Publishers own websites couldbe mightier than the almighty news feed when it comes to impact for advertisers, according to newneuroscience research comparing social platforms and premium sites.

Neuro-Insight, a neuro-marketing company, examinedcontent from four major publishersCond Nast, Forbes, Time Inc., and The Atlanticand found that test subjects were 16 percentmore likely to find web postsrelevant or engaging than similar content in social feeds.Tounderstand how readersrelated to different types of content, Neuro-Insight connected 100 people with neuro-mapping technology and showed themvideos inaFacebook newsfeed or a publishers website.

Along with being more personally relevant, publishers websites might be more memorablethey had a 19 percent greater impact on the rational left side of the brain, and an 8 percent greater impact on the emotional right side of the brain, the study found. Memories of video ads were also more detailed on the websites, with 8 in 10performing better than in a social feed.

The results shouldbe welcome news for publishers, which continue to struggleto monetize contenton mobile and social platforms. Some estimates saymajor tech players like Google and Facebook get as much as 85 cents for every new digital dollar spent on advertising.

What weve always understood is that there is strong engagement, said Caryn Klein, Time Inc.s vp of research and insights. But how is that halo to an advertisers message? Thats always been a question. We know there is high engagement, but what were seeing here is that when you go into what the brain is doing, were proving here that there is a lot more resonance of the message from a memory standpoint.

Teads chief marketing officer Rebecca Mahony said the goal was to give publishers a better view of how effective their ads really are.

Time Inc. is increasingly betting on the future of video. The company saw a 150 percent growth in video starts from 2015 to 2016for a total of 4.6 billionaccording to its fourth-quarterearnings.

The study, commissioned by Teads, anonline video advertising firm, featured 15-second ads abouteverythingfrom tech and CPG to fashionand food. Teads chief marketing officer Rebecca Mahony said the goal was to givepublishers a better view of how effective their ads really are. She said in-depth, long-form storiesalso make a reader more invested, which in turn helpsthem recalladsbetter than when theyre passively scrolling.

Certain brands also perform better than others across platforms. For example, health food, coffee and hospitality brands advertising on publishers sites had a big impact onthe detail-oriented left-side of the brain. However, ecommerce and consumer electronics brands resonated withthe right side of the brain. An interesting caveat:hospitality brands and ads for TV programsfaredbest on Facebook.

Advertising can drive a skew, said Matt Engstrom, Teads director of content and insights. It either impacts the detailed left side of the brain more stronglyor the right side of the brain more strongly. And when that sort of imbalance aligns with the reaction of the content on the brain, that makes the advertising more likely to be impactful.

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This Neuroscience Study Says Ads Are More Effective on Publishers' Websites Than Social News Feeds - FishbowlDC (blog)

Neuroscience

The Neuroscience of Fearful Memories and Avoidance Behaviors … – Psychology Today (blog)

The Ji Lab at Baylor College of Medicine investigates how the neural circuits in the brain encode, consolidate, and retrieve memories using lab rats.

Source: Ji Lab/Baylor College of Medicine

Specific neurons in the hippocampus (called hippocampal place cells) remember when and where your brain experiences a broad range of sensory stimulation and emotions, including fear. Hippocampal place cells also drive subsequent fear-based avoidance behaviors, according to a new rodent study from the Ji Laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine.

The February 2017 study, Hippocampal Awake Replay in Fear Memory Retrieval, was published online ahead of print today inNature Neuroscience. This is the first time neuroscientists have identified specific patterns of electrical activity in the hippocampal place cells of lab rats associated with specific memories. In this case, the memory of afearful experience.

Hippocampal place cellsare activated anytime a human or animal moves within and between locations. These place cells keep track of everywhere your body goes and tag each location with a specific neural code that includes sensory perceptions based on stimuli that evokepleasure,pain, reward, etc.

All animals (including humans) seek pleasure and avoid pain. Therefore, it makes sense that when hippocampal place cells tag a specific location as being associated withphysicalor psychologicalpain, parts of the brain becomehardwired to avoid this location. From an evolutionary standpoint, learning to avoid life-threatening environments is key to any species' survival.

At the beginning of this new experiment, the researchers inserted tiny probes to monitor the electrical activity generated by neurons in the hippocampus. Then, they conditioned a fearful memory by exposing lab rats to mild foot shocks in a specific shock zone as the rats explored a troughlike track. Lastly, the researchers observed neural activity in hippocampal place cells as each lab rat was placed back on the track and began to explore.

The researchers found that specific place cells linked to the 'shock zone' were reactivated anytime a rat got close to the place where foot shocks had been administered. The anticipatory thought of getting a shock appeared to triggeravoidance behaviors that caused the rodents to bypass the shock zoneand avoid crossing the fearful path.

According to the abstract of this study, the fear reactivation of place cells occurred in ripple-associated awake replay of the exact location linked to a cell sequence that had been encoded along the path inthe shock zone.

These findingsreveal a specific hippocampal place-cell pattern underlying inhibitory avoidance behavior. Thisstudy also provides strong evidence for the involvement of awake replay in fear memory retrieval.

In recent years, a few different neuroscientific studies have reported that hippocampal place cells play a central role in storing location data and forming episodic memories. However, exactly how 'place cells' retrieve memories associated with a particular placeand subsequently drive avoidance behaviorshas remained a mystery until now.

In a statement, Daoyun Ji, associate professor of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine,described the recent findingsfrom his lab:

"Our laboratory rats cannot tell us what memory they are recalling at any particular time. To overcome that, we designed an experiment that would allow us to know what was going on in the animal's brain right before a certain event.

Interestingly, from the brain activity we can tell that the animal was 'mentally traveling' from its current location to the shock place. These patterns corresponding to the shock place re-emerged right at the moment when a specific memory is remembered.

We are also interested in determining how the spiking patterns of place neurons in the hippocampus can be used by other parts of the brain, such as those involved in making decisions."

This study from Daoyun Ji's Lab breaks new ground by discovering that milliseconds before a lab rat decides to avoid going back to a place where it previously had a fearful experience, the brain is recalling specific memories associated with the exact physical location where the fearful experience occurred.

Like most people, I have an innate fear of rats. Staring at the enlarged image of the rat below evokes a slight fear-based responseand is probably encoding my hippocampal place cells to the place I'm sitting now as I stare at this image while typing this blog post. Your hippocampal place cells are probably being activated, too. If this image makes you uneasy or sticks in your mind, itwill most likely be linked to when and where you are reading this by yourhippocampal place cells.

Source: Ji Lab/Baylor College of Medicine

Zooming in on this potentially menacing image of a rat from Ji'sLab barreling down a track towards the viewer triggers flashbacks in my mind's eye to the torture chamber "Room 101" from George Orwell's1984.

While being brainwashed by the Thought Police inRoom 101, WinstonSmith (the protagonist in1984),must confront his biggest fear: A wire cage that fits snuggly on a person's head with a trap door that houses two very large (and ravenous) rats eager todevour the cage wearer's face.

Hypothetically, if Winston Smith's hippocampal place cells could be measured in Ji's neuroscience laboratory, Room 101would evoke fearful memories and avoidance behaviors much like the lab rats who steered clear of the 'shock zone' in their habitrail.

The next goal of Ji and his colleagues is to investigate whether the hippocampal spiking patterns they identified are absolutely required to guide (or misguide) humanand animal behavior.

The researchersalso plan to explore what role spiking patterns in the hippocampus might play in diseases that involve memory loss, such as Alzheimer's disease. Stay tuned for more cutting-edge research on hippocampal place cells in the months and years ahead.

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The Neuroscience of Fearful Memories and Avoidance Behaviors ... - Psychology Today (blog)

Neuroscience

EssayThe Neuroscience of Self-directed Learning – Chief Learning Officer

Breaking down what makes top performers so great, and setting up practice and reflection to stimulate certain neural responses, can help you clone your best talent.

February 21, 2017

by William Seidman

The best talent is almost always deeply engaged and incredibly productive. Wouldnt it be great if learning leaders could clone those people? Well, they can.

There are two parts to being able to clone your people: the ability to reverse engineer the top performers to really understand what makes them extraordinary, and the ability to quickly and efficiently develop others to think and act like those top performers.

Self-discovery allows an organization to quickly and effectively reverse engineer top performers. Self-directed learning, based on advances in neuroscience, enables an organization to quickly develop everyone to be like the best.

We began with a question that can be quite difficult to answer: How do top performers actually become top performers? As with trying to reverse engineer top performers, there was neither good information nor robust methodologies on how to develop lesser performers into top performers.

The closest answer is that experts spend 10,000 hours working to become an expert, with no definition of what that work meant. Ten thousand hours of unfocused learning was hardly going to meet our requirements. Fortunately, starting about 2005, the emerging neuroscience of learning suggested a way to solve this problem.

Neuroscience showed the basic building block of all learning is the rewiring of neurons into new patterns. What causes neurons to rewire? The scientific saying is neurons that fire together wire together. Firing together means a sufficient number and depth of meaningful experiences around a defined set of attitudes and behaviors cause the brain to rewire or learn the new patterns. Once rewired, these patterns are the new unconscious competence.

But what experiences cause the brain to rewire and, most critically, how do you get non-top performers to want to become top performers enough to do the practice required to rewire their neurons? Lets answer the second question first. Here again the breakthrough came from neuroscience. The science shows that certain types of images and actions cause neural changes that drive our attitudes and behaviors. When someone feels they are making a contribution to a greater social good for family, teammates, the organization and/or society, their brain releases endorphins and dopamine called a dopamine squirt which make them feel great and more receptive to new ideas.

Similarly, if a person writes down their greater purpose, the act of writing suppresses portions of the brain associated with fear and resistance to change and stimulates portions of the brain associated with a sense of greater control, also making them more open to new ideas. Finally, if all of this is done with others in some sort of social group, other neurochemicals serotonin and oxytocin are released that cause people to want to promote collaboration and group success.

It is possible to create an effective methodology to rapidly develop non-top performers to become top performers. It would need to include:

Most of these ideas should sound familiar from the protocol for reverse engineering top performers. Top performers are driven by a compelling purpose to achieve a greater social good and work hard to achieve mastery by continuously practicing their skills. The key is to present images from the reverse engineering of the top performers to non-top performers in ways that stimulate the desired neural responses.

The process begins with the top performers description of their purpose. By presenting the top performers purpose to groups of non-top performers and asking them to identify, discuss and write ways they too can contribute to the great purpose, all of the above neural changes occur. The non-top performers want to become top performers because they too can be part of a greater purpose and it feels great. Further, because our brains are very efficient at processing images associated with a greater purpose, an initial powerful motivation can be stimulated in a few minutes and firmly entrenched in about an hour.

Moving to the need to practice, by asking the top performers how they learned to become top performers, learning leaders can identify their most valuable learning experiences. By modifying these high yield experiences so non-top performers can try them in their own environment, repeating this practical application multiple times in rapid succession and then sharing the learning with a social group, the time needed to become a top performer can be reduced to 40 hours or less.

These methodologies are so simple, fast and robust they can be provided using a protocol similar to that used for reverse engineering top performance. We call this protocol, neuroscience-based self-directed learning, and its prompts guide a non-top performer to:

As a result, anyone, anytime, residing anywhere in the world can quickly learn to think and act like the top performers. Essentially, you can clone your best people.

William Seidman is the CEO of Cerebyte Inc., a company focused on creating high-performing organizational cultures, and co-author of The Star Factor. Comment below or email editor@CLOmedia.com.

Tags: neuroscience, self-directed learning, top performers

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EssayThe Neuroscience of Self-directed Learning - Chief Learning Officer