Life Re Scaled

This edited volume explores new engagements with the life sciences in contemporary fiction, poetry, comics and performance. The gathered case studies investigate how recent creative work reframes the human within microscopic or macroscopic scales, from cellular biology to systems ecology, and engages with the ethical, philosophical, and political issues raised by the twenty-first century’s shifting views of life. The collection thus examines literature and performance as spaces that shape our contemporary biological imagination. Comprised of thirteen chapters by an international group of academics, Life, Re-Scaled: The Biological Imagination in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Performance engages with four main areas of biological study: ‘Invisible scales: cells, microbes and mycelium’, ‘Neuro-medical imaging and diagnosis’, ‘Pandemic imaginaries’, and ‘Ecological scales’. The authors examine these concepts in emerging forms such as plant theatre, climate change art, ecofiction and pandemic fiction, including the work of Jeff Vandermeer, Jon McGregor, Jeff Lemire, and Extinction Rebellion’s Red Rebel Brigade performances. This valuable resource moves beyond the biological paradigms that were central to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to outline the specificity of a contemporary imagination. Life, Re-Scaled is crucial reading for academics, scholars, and authors alike, as it proposes an unprecedented overview of the relationship between literature, performance and the life sciences in the twenty-first century.

This edited volume explores new engagements with the life sciences in contemporary fiction, poetry, comics and performance. The gathered case studies investigate how recent creative work reframes the human within microscopic or macroscopic scales, from cellular biology to systems ecology, and engages with the ethical, philosophical, and political issues raised by the twenty-first century's shifting views of life. The collection thus examines literature and performance as spaces that shape our contemporary biological imagination. Comprised of thirteen chapters by an international group of academics, Life, Re-Scaled: The Biological Imagination in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Performance engages with four main areas of biological study: 'Invisible scales: cells, microbes and mycelium', 'Neuro-medical imaging and diagnosis', 'Pandemic imaginaries', and 'Ecological scales'. The authors examine these concepts in emerging forms such as plant theatre, climate change art, ecofiction and pandemic fiction, including the work of Jeff Vandermeer, Jon McGregor, Jeff Lemire, and Extinction Rebellion's Red Rebel Brigade performances. This valuable resource moves beyond the biological paradigms that were central to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to outline the specificity of a contemporary imagination. Life, Re-Scaled is crucial reading for academics, scholars, and authors alike, as it proposes an unprecedented overview of the relationship between literature, performance and the life sciences in the twenty-first century.

"This is science writing as wonder and as inspiration." —The Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses. Fascinated by aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science: West found that despite the riotous diversity in mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal’s circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient—and lives 25% longer. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism’s body. West’s work has been game-changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work’s applicability. Cities, too, are constellations of networks and laws of scalability relate with eerie precision to them. Recently, West has applied his revolutionary work to the business world. This investigation has led to powerful insights into why some companies thrive while others fail. The implications of these discoveries are far-reaching, and are just beginning to be explored. Scale is a thrilling scientific adventure story about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in simple but profound ways. Through the brilliant mind of Geoffrey West, we can envision how cities, companies and biological life alike are dancing to the same simple, powerful tune.

Transparent Minds explores the intersection between neuroscience and science fiction stories. Paul Matthews expertly analyses the narratives of humans and nonhumans from Mary Shelley to Kazuo Ishiguro across 200 years of the genre. In doing so he gives lucid insight into the meaning of existence and self-awareness. Rigorously researched and highly accessible, Matthews argues that psycho-emotional science fiction writers both imitate and inform alien and post-human consciousnesses through exploratory narratives and metaphor. Drawing from a diverse range of scholars and critics, Matthews explores topics such as psychonarration and neuroaesthetics, to create a thoughtful and cogent argument. By synthesising concepts from philosophy, neuroscience, and literary theory, Matthews posits the potential for science fiction to bridge the gap in understanding between AI and human minds. Given the recent advancements in AI technology, Matthews’ timely discussion enters the speculative realm of sentient technology and postcyborg ethics. The work constitutes a major contribution to cross-disciplinary perspectives on alien and posthuman psychology, that engages with future states of existence in both ourselves and the machines we create. Transparent Minds will be of interest to innovators, authors, and science fiction enthusiasts alike.

Advances in Organ Transplantation Research and Application / 2012 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Organ Transplantation. The editors have built Advances in Organ Transplantation Research and Application / 2012 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Organ Transplantation in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Advances in Organ Transplantation Research and Application / 2012 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Individual quality of life has been widely used as a frame of reference guiding service provision in social and health services, as well as a critical objective or outcome of these services. Yet, the topic of quality of life in the context of child and youth care remains a relatively uncharted territory. This dissertation is based on a practice-oriented project that focuses on bridging the gap between research and practice on the topic of quality of life of adolescents in youth care. This work concentrates on the development, validation, and application of a new self-report tool, grounded in youngsters’ experiences and perceptions, to methodically and systematically assess the quality of life of adolescents in youth care from their own perspectives: the Quality of Life in Youth Services Scale (QOLYSS). The QOLYSS aims to help understand how youngsters perceive, evaluate, and make sense of varying discrete aspects and circumstances of their lives. This line of work offers valuable insights to develop person-centered planning and implement individualized support, tailored to youngsters’ characteristics, perceptions of life, wishes, and expectations. It further helps unveil critical opportunities and barriers regarding a life of quality on the different layers of everyday life of youngsters. The work presented here provides a concrete tool and a number of cross-cutting implications for research, practice and policy when aiming to build quality of life-enhancing environments for youngsters in youth care that help them (re-)claim ownership of their lives and care pathways.