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Tonight, I will transform from Virginia Hughes into Sarah Palin. Though the costume will probably be one of the most popular in the NYC bars, it looks like the real Palin’s appeal is dulling a bit.
Mutations in the two genes that cause the disease tuberous sclerosis complex, or TSC, interfere with the normal formation of axons, the long and thin strands that conduct electrical signals between brain cells, researchers contend in a report in Genes and Development.
The paper also shows that in mouse models of TSC, the cancer drug rapamycin can normalize axon formation, providing further evidence for its potential as a treatment for TSC and autism.
The weakening economy and the increasing popularity of online news means hard times for traditional media….a Wednesday linkfest:
Yesterday, Time Inc. announced that it plans to cut 6 percent of its work force—more than 600 positions. Gannett Co.—the world’s largest newspaper publisher and owner of USA Today—said it would lay off 600 to 1,000 employees by December. And the LA Times announced it would cut 200 people from its newsroom.
This came right on the heels of news that the Christian Science Monitor (a nonprofit that’s been around for almost 100 years) was killing its print edition. Starting in April, it will only be available online. “Everyone who grew up with print, and everyone who worked in print like me, you feel a little sad,” the Monitor’s editor told the Washington Post.
So why is this good for me, a recently full-time freelancer?
In 2004, Arthur Agatston (of South Beach Diet fame) overhauled the lunch program of the Osceola County School District, in Florida.
With costs eaten by Agatston’s foundation, white bread and french fries were swapped for whole wheat bread and sweet potato fries. Sugar out; protein in. The kids were also enrolled in a clinical study to track their progress over a few years.
Now the data’s in and—no surprise here—compared to controls who did not eat from the reformed menu, the Agatston kids’ body-mass indices (a common measure of obesity) dropped. A real surprise: their scores on state math tests rose!
The program has been implemented in 81 schools in seven states. Unfortunately, foundation representatives say that our sick economy has squelched all hope of its future funding. Hopefully the local districts will take a look at these positive results and continue to fund it themselves.
(Side note: This is a pet topic for yours truly. Agatston began the program just a few months before I investigated the sad state of the lunch program in Providence public schools—for my very first piece of published (!) journalism.)
On Palin’s tone in this clip, I have no words. (Fodder for Friday’s costume, though!) This is clearly the type of thing that makes all of the Nobel Laureates endorse Obama over McCain.
Props to Maddow (who, btw, is apparently America’s favorite new TV personality) for pointing out that fruit fly research has tons of medical applications—including finding autism genes.
(Hat tip: Meagan)
Last Halloween, Yale PhD student Santosh Anagol conducted a clever social experiment on the 200+ trick-or-treaters who visited his New Haven home. Anagol presented each child with two bowls, one covered and one uncovered, containing blue and red markers.
Each child first chose a bowl, and then guessed what color marker Anagol would pull (blindly) out of that bowl. If they were right, they’d get a big candy bar instead of a small one.
In the uncovered bowl, the child could estimate, visually, the proportion of red and blue markers and make an educated guess. But with the covered bowl, of course, the odds were hidden.
So which kids would go for covered bowl, and thus risk their chance of winning big candy bar? Those with the best costumes, apparently.
Dear ABC,
I was happy to see that you’ve printed “Ten Myths About Autism” on the Health section of your website this morning, especially myth #2 (“There is an autism epidemic”) and myth #3 (“Autism can be cured”).
These are, of course, ideas that were disproven by the medical community many years ago. Still, my first instinct is to say “better late than never” and give you a nice pat on the back for finally disseminating the truth to your online readers.
But it’s just too hard for me to forget when your network, via the Oprah Winfrey show (you know, the one with a daily audience of 7.4 million Americans?), allowed pseudo-celebrity Jenny McCarthy to put forth the very myths that you so aptly dispelled in today’s article.
[Update: Since publishing this post I've discovered that the Oprah Winfrey Show is now a syndicated program, not under the production umbrella of ABC. Still, it's disconcerting that a viewer watching Oprah on ABC would find starkly different information on ABC.com...]
Let’s take a look at exactly what Jenny said…
This week’s Nature has an interesting feature about the fuzzy definitions of some scientific terms, including “paradigm shift”, “stem cell” and even “significant.” Because I’ve been writing a lot recently about the genetic underpinnings of autism and schizophrenia, I was most interested in what they had to say about the word “epigenetic.”
When I was in elementary school, one of my friends, Casey, was without question the best female athlete in our class. But she was also the daughter of our gym teacher. I always felt that her father, in admirable efforts not to favor her, actually went too far in the other direction, and didn’t give her enough credit, enough public praise, for her superior performance.
I thought of Casey today when I saw this story of Robert Grandt, a librarian at the Brooklyn Technical High School school, who was fined $500 by the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board for displaying his daughter’s new book in the school library. (He also signed a three-page statement acknowledging his terrible wrongdoings.)
This is bureaucratic officiousness at its worst. And here’s why.
If you’re a Cute Overload addict (not that I would know anything about that…), then you must must check out the latest creation of those crazy Bleiman brothers of Zooillogix: ZooBorns! It’s a website devoted to newborn baby animals from zoos and aquariums. This photo says it all…
