33
POPSEinstein, Newton displayed autistic traits "Psychiatry tends to focus almost exclusively on the negative side of different forms of mental illness," Fitzgerald said in statement. "I want to show that psychiatric disorders can also have positive dimensions."
32
POPSThinking the way animals do
Temple Grandin Ph.D. is an assistant professor of animal behaviour at Colorado State Uni. She suffers from a form of autism, and describes the way she thinks as thinking in pictures. This has helped her understand the way Animals think, with direct association, rather than a logical process. A significant statement which can apply to most people, is the fact that originally as far as she was aware everybody thought the same way. Until she asked people and found this was not the case. She describes a radio station person who said she had no pictures, in her mind, but thought in terms of emotions or words. I'm sure I can understand my dogs. They seem to think in a manner that is simple, and straightforward, it can just be a matter of associating cues with behavior, and remembering Pavlov. I think in Pictures and sounds. There is music I can 'hear' in my mind that not only has the same 'quality' as the original, but there is a remarkable capacity to edit. Perhaps something like Auti
21
POPSThe tick of the male biological clock? from the article: "He believes the risks for children of older fathers will eventually be seen to be as noteworthy as the risks facing older mothers. “It’s going to be more and more of an issue to society,” he notes." One of the most important differences that affect the male/female barrier is the biological clock tick and tack. We all remember Charlie Chaplin as an exemplar of late parenthood. And here we begin to observe that it ain't so exactly. it is still not the same as with females in many aspects, one of them in this context is the fact that for females it is a yes or no question of fertility at some point. Nevertheless it does potentially carry a crack of more understanding , maybe, to the other gender? not to mention the possible technological horizon of reproduction being departed from its crude specific and local biological origin. Fascinating....
20
POPSRobot Playmates for children with autism An interesting application. The consistency of the robot, without its need for rewards, attention (and everything else that humans demand :)), may make it the best therapist in such cases; trustful attentive and always available; an ideal companion is it not ;-).
18
POPSGluten, the hidden poison Gluen is increasingly added to food for no obvious reason, yet it is a dangerous poison to many people, and in added quantities probably to many who otherwise would be tolerant. You will find it added to many foods to improve its texture with no regard to its harmful effects.
18
POPSResearchers decode thought “In one of our early studies, we showed people words representing tools and words representing buildings,” Mitchell said. “We found that we could train our model so that it could successfully distinguish new tool words from new building words.” Having developed a model able to categorize objects correctly approximately 90 percent of the time, the team sought to determine the effect that viewing an object as a picture, as opposed to viewing an object as a word, has on a person’s brain activation patterns. The team therefore trained their model on fMRI data collected from subjects looking at pictures, and then tested the model on fMRI data collected as subjects read corresponding words. “The accuracy was almost the same,” Mitchell said. “The fact that it doesn’t matter whether we use a word or a picture means that we are really capturing the neural activity associated with the meaning of an item, and not just the .”
16
POPSThe World's Smartest Man Meet Daniel Tammet - an autistic savant who can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations, speaks seven languages, but he has trouble telling left from right.
15
POPSHuman-frog hybrids reveal autism's secrets To see if abnormalities in neurotransmitter signalling also underlie autism, Miledi's team collected brain samples from six deceased autistic patients, aged eight to 39. They fused brain-cell membranes, which house neurotransmitter receptors, together with Xenopus egg membranes. As a control, they did the same thing with brain cells from patients with no history of mental disorder. Miledi's team then doused the frog eggs in neurotransmitter chemicals, and measured the voltage generated within each egg. The neurotransmitter chemicals tell brain cells to pump charged molecules in and out the membrane, creating a voltage across the membrane. Since Xenopus eggs do not respond to the neurotransmitters, the human proteins are completely responsible for any electric current generated. Four of six autistic brains responded to neurotransmitters chemicals less vigorously than the controls.
15
POPSCan a sniff of oxytocin improve the social skills of autistic people? Elissar Andari gave oxytocin in the form of a nose spray to 13 autistic people and 13 typical ones of similar ages and genders. Each volunteer came into the lab twice and was given either oxytocin or a saline spray and neither they nor the scientists knew which was which until the experiment was over.
15
POPSJohn Travolta reportedly scared to leave Church of Scientology According to the report, Travolta has cancelled all work commitments since Jett's death. He reportedly resents going along with Scientology's prescribed treatment for Jett's condition. The church does not recognise autism as genuine, but instead believes it to be merely psychosomatic. The church recommends treatment with vitamins and a detox program, not prescription medicines. It is also reported that the church's response to the teenager's death has been to conduct "intensive sessions" with so-called ethics officers, whose job is to question Travolta and other family members to determine if their "negative influences" caused the tragedy.
15
POPSA Wiring Diagram of the Brain Max Planck Institute for Medical Research scientists developed a new technique to make more fine-scaled wiring maps, using electron microscopy. Starting with a small block of brain tissue, the researchers bounce electrons off the top of the block to generate a cross-sectional picture of the nerve fibers in that slice. They then take a very thin--30-nanometer--slice off the top of the block and repeat the process.
15
POPSPalin and the fruit fly or just plain ignorance
One might have thought that Sarah Palin would take a more active interest in one aspect of scientific research. Palin's youngest son has Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. Although a geneticist by training, I am certainly no expert on the pathogenesis of this condition, nor the significance of Drosophila research into Down's syndrome. So, I typed "drosophila trisomy 21" into PubMed, the scholarly biomedical equivalent of Google. There were 109 results, the most recent published just the day before Palin's gaffe. The concluding sentence of that study — about the genetic cues that steer nerve fibres around during the growth of the fruit fly — suggests that the paper will "have implications for the pathogenesis of Down's syndrome". These two are drops in the ocean of fruit fly research that have clinical relevance. Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, autism, diabetes, ageing research, cancers of all types
13
POPSBeautiful gesture :) the last story like this I read about involved another Texan who bought a woman's house at auction and then immediately gave it back to her. Stories like these really make yer day!
Most Pops
see Most Pops
21
Clips
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update