Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Words Have A Weight: Language As A Source Of Inner Grounding And Flexibility In Abstract Concepts, Guy Dove, Laura Barca, Luca Tummolini, Anna M. Borghi

Faculty Scholarship

The role played by language in our cognitive lives is a topic at the centre of contemporary debates in cognitive (neuro)science. In this paper we illustrate and compare two theories that offer embodied explanations of this role: the WAT (Words As social Tools) and the LENS (Language is an Embodied Neuroenhancement and Scaffold) theories. WAT and LENS differ from other current proposals because they connect the impact of the neurologically realized language system on our cognition to the ways in which language shapes our interaction with the physical and social environment. Examining these theories together, their tenets and supporting evidence, …

Two Concepts Of Immortality: Reframing Public Debate On Stem-Cell Research, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Regenerative medicine seeks not only to cure disease, but also to arrest the aging process itself. So far, public attention to the new health care has focused on two of its methods: embryonic stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning. Since both processes manipulate embryos, they alarm those who believe life begins at conception. Such religious objections have dominated headlines on the topic, and were central to President George W. Bush's decision to restrict stem-cell research.

Although they are now politically potent, the present religious objections to regenerative medicine will soon become irrelevant. Scientists are fast developing new ways of culturing the …