In this paper I will give a phenomenological account of embodied presence through computer game avatars, based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of bodily intentionality, bodily space and bodily extensions (2002 [1962]. The core idea is that when we play, directly controllable avatars like Mario or Lara Croft, as well as racing cars or other kinds of controllable vehicles, function as prosthe...

The challenge of distance in designing civil protest: the case of Resurrection City in the Washington Mall and the Occupy Movement in Zuccotti Park Tali Hatuka To cite this article: Tali Hatuka (2015): The challenge of distance in designing civil protest: the case of Resurrection City in the Washington Mall and the Occupy Movement in Zuccotti Park, Planning Perspectives, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2...

Biological molecules, like organisms themselves, are subject to genetic drift and may even become "extinct". Molecules that are no longer extant in living systems are of high interest for several reasons including insight into how existing life forms evolved and the possibility that they may have new and useful properties no longer available in currently functioning molecules. Predicting the se...

I will discuss a new class of forcing axioms, the Resurrection Axioms (RA), and the Weak Resurrection Axioms (wRA). While Cohen’s method of forcing has been designed to change truths about the set-theoretic universe you live in, the point of Resurrection is that some truths that have been changed by forcing can in fact be resurrected, i.e. forced to hold again. In this talk, I will illustrate h...

Desiccation-tolerance (DT) evolved as the key solution to survival on land by the early algal ancestors of terrestrial plants. This 'first' DT involved utilizing rapidly mobilisable repair mechanisms and is still found today in mosses, such as Tortula ruralis, and ferns, such as Mohria caffrorum. The first seed plants lost vegetative DT while investing their seeds with tolerance mechanisms impr...

The resurrection of ancestral proteins provides direct insight into how natural selection has shaped proteins found in nature. By tracing substitutions along a gene phylogeny, ancestral proteins can be reconstructed in silico and subsequently synthesized in vitro. This elegant strategy reveals the complex mechanisms responsible for the evolution of protein functions and structures. However, to ...