Autism - superpowers?

I've always wondered about autistic types who are geniuses with numbers, music pitch, incredible attention to details, superhuman memory - why can't we use this to our advantage somehow?? Well, this idea is far from new and researchers have found some interesting revelations.

So lackluster are we 'normal' types in certain ways that apparently people without autism are called "neurotypicals." What's sad is that this article doesn't go into ways in which we can use this.

SciAm's Blindsight needs explaining

Here's a real teaser from Scientific American. They've got a video and article of a blind guy who can navigate through a cluttered space, sidestepping objects and not crashing.

They don't tell you anything about this so-called 'blindsight,' except how blind the guy is. You have to subscribe/register to read more.

So I go on wikipedia and it doesn't have anything useful either about how this is possible, and after much googling, I finally find the explanation. Cheap trick, SciAm. He's not really blind. This isn't really special to blindness in general. It only applies to people who are not "blind" because their eyes do not function. Rather, they suffer from cortical blindness - they sensory information but don't process it correctly, usually due to damage in some part of the brain.

This was clever marketing on SciAm - something people at journalistic organizations always tell you, but I thought in the name of passing on knowledge this was kind of cheap, no? And wouldn't they figure that generally people will try to see if the answer's somewhere for free online elsewhere but leave SciAm with kind of a bad taste in their mouths?

Fat Pride Folk to be angry

Yikes. A gene that makes people fat may also make people bad at problem-solving.

The fat pride community isn't going to like this one.

But how great would it be to have gene therapy solve this? Make people thinner AND smarter? The Chinese must be on to this already.

Tea Party Smarties

Well this is a little weird. Turns out tea party backers are wealthier and more educated than average. Maybe the smart ones make the not so smart ones do the physical demonstrating for them? Guess that seems clever.

Health Bill and Race

This new effort to consider characteristics like ethnicity to maximize the health bill is a pretty novel idea.

But since there is no race gene, would that complicate matters? Or will it be more like certain races are more likely to be overweight, because of income discrepancies? ...If that's the case it might make more sense to target that variable instead.

No more Botax, but Tan Tax

So much for botax. I really liked the idea but I guess more people use tanning beds than Botox, and the cosmetic surgery industry has more lobbying power than the tanning industry, so we've got the tan tax now.

Of course now the tanning salons are up in arms about the 10% tax effective in July, which is to raise $2.7 billion over the next decade (compare to Botax which was 5% to raise $6 billion).

But unlike arguing that clients are average wage-earning Janes as the botox group did and that the measure would be sexist (86% of Botox takers are women), people are saying it's racist(against pale-skinned types), unfair (tax the travel industry too?), and targets mom-and-pop stores more (I'll give them that).

But ridiculously, some are saying that tanning is not all that bad for you (from the Indoor Tanning Association) and the tax interferes with what some people ocnsider a way to keep them healthy with Vitamin D.

First of all, 10% on a tanning session is $1 to $2. I don't know if that's much obstruction. Second, scientists have consistenly been calling out the dangers of tanning beds-that they're as poisonous as arsenic, they're so dangerous that there should be a minimum age of 18 requirement, and oh right they cause cancer to a scary high degree. So actually this tax is better than Botox. Making yourself look better doesn't add to the healthcare system burden, but giving yourself cancer does. Not to mention the number one reason why you get wrinkles is because of UV rays, not aging.

All this really shows it like climatologists, tannings salons need some better PR skills too.

Snow Brands Magic Fat-Fighting Yogurt

Never mind feeling betrayed about yogurt using calcium as a reason for why it makes you lose weight. It might actually do the trick now so they can drop those snake oil tactics.

According to a recent study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, one type of bacteria - LG2055 was found to be the magic bug.

One of the largest dairy companies in Japan (besides us food schizo Americans, they always find the most interesting ways to trim the fat) called Snow Brand Milk Products had 87 people drink 100 grams of fermented milk twice a day, with no other change in diet. After 12 weeks, they had lost an average of 1 kg, 4.6% of bad fat (which surround internal organs) and 3.3% of fat-fat. Hips slimmed 1.7 cm, while waist 1.5.

Now before you rush to get this stuff, the company also caused the worst case of food poisoningin Japan in 2000, where more than 14,000 people got sick from old milk and failed to recall quickly. Then in 2002, a (now-dissolved immediately post-scandal) subsidiary called Snow Brands Foods labeled Australian beef as Japanese to receive government subsidies and five execs were arrested on fraud charges.

But EJCN is a respected journal, so hopefully there's nothing to fear.

Anti-Health Bill Folk

Yikes. Some ammo for Democrats: tea party folk protesting the "socialist" bill with interesting literary skills.

Autism 0, Vaccine 2

So last time in the Vaccine v Autism court battles, the court found that mercury preservative plus MMR vaccine does not equal autism.

Just on March 12, the same court also declared that there was no proof that the children's autism was caused by the preservative alone.

So just as we thought we were getting closer to resolving this (first the retraction, then the first ruling, now this ruling...) apparently vaccine-autism believers are now saying that it's just that children are receiving so many vaccines, it causes autism.

Well. I don't know about that. If the vaccine doesn't cause autism, why would more together be evil? Likening vaccines to collateralized financial derivatives seems a bit desperate. But hey, I'm no toxicologist. So if anyone's an expert about vaccines, I'd love to know.

Human Guinea Pigs

Newscientist has a very interesting article today on metabolic syndrome. Apparently your body would rather you be obese than have excess fat build up in your bloodstream, by depositing fat and sugar somewhere safer. In other words, getting fat is a defense against unhealthy eating.

More interestingly, this was tied to another study which injected volunteers' bloodstreams with the amount of fat found in a large beef burger.

Well naturally, it got me wondering. Why would anyone volunteer to do this??

Always a favorite site, McSweeney's has an interesting interview with a human guinea pig ($8,000 a study, 98 percent are men...I think that might say something).

Sleep and Obesity Again and Again

A study was published this month in the scientific journal Sleep on how you're at greater risk of being fat if you're sleep deprived.

According to researchers at North Carolina's Wake Forest University, if you sleep less than 5 hours, you (people under 40, that is) gained 1.8 kg or almost 4 lbs more than if you slept 6 or 7 hours.

On the other hand, sleep more than 8 hours and you gain 0.8 kg or 1.76 lbs more.

Two things I don't get:

1. Considering you burn more calories while you're awake, shouldn't you get fatter sleeping more? That is..if we're not spending that time eating/drinking Red Bulls.

2. These sorts of fat/sleep studies have been done so many times (here's one done six years ago by Columbia University in the same journal and another one five years ago in JAMA)..why is this still news?

H1N1 fallout

This is why we need an improved health communication system, besides the sad display of unnecessary paranoia last year concerning H1N1. Whatever our new healthcare system is, this communication problem has to be addressed.

So at some point even after H1N1 vaccine paranoia instigators panicked everyone out of getting vaccinated, everyone clamored to get vaccinated first, got scared there wasn't enough to go around, and now there's too much of it, with the Dutch government trying to sell vaccines back to manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. And why the Dutch ministry ordered 34 million doses-enough to give two shots to every person in the Netherlands-is beyond me.

Fertility transplant...T + 2 years

For the first time, a woman who had her only ovary removed and frozen, then transplanted back again, successfully conceived naturally and gave birth. Oh, this all happened in Denmark and was published in 2008, but for some reason we are all noticing it now. Anyone know why?

Obama takes on obesity

Obesity has been quite the ubiquitous, serious issue talked about for some time. And our government's realized that posting calories and banning trans fats (in NYC at least) might not be enough to keep us Americans from eating ourselves to death.

So here is a more unique government program created in some time: LetsMove is the new initiative, to be led by Michelle Obama, to promote healthy diets for children.

The program is a partnership between the US Departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Health, and Human Services, which will put in $400 million a year to make sure children eat the right kinds and right amount of food with more well-placed grocery stores and placement of healthy foods. How? Through "innovative financing" and grants.

Maybe they should just get rid of agricultural subsidies and save us $12 billion annually on higher food prices from backwards Great Depression-era protectionism.

Stem cell research gets a leg up

Here's some good news for the $1.5 billion vitamin industry, especially for vitamin C, which makes up for the most of that market share.

According to a study published in Cell Stem Cell, a ton of researchers supported by grants and foundations in China, vitamin C is not useless! Apparently vitamin C can greatly in stem cell development.

Ever since scientists figured out how to turn human adult cells into stem cells in 2007, therefore bypassing that ethical issue, research still hasn't gone the way researchers hoped because it the transformation was frustratingly inefficient- only getting 0.01 percent of of cells to change into stem cells.

Well these researchers discovered vitamin C can speed up that process over 100 times, making transformation and thus research much more viable, and also increase chances of survival for the stem cell.

Besides that very interesting development, maybe even more intriguing is that this research was supported by 13 grants from China, with one of them, EFBIC RED, being related to China. One of my friends who works in biotech has been complaining about the dangerous shortage of grants in the US, despite this administration's friendlier attitude toward scientific research. So China has been drawing scientific talent instead.

But scientific research is one of those things that builds on other's research, and it doesn't really matter where that research came from except when it comes to patents. Maybe Obama knows this and is willing to take the backseat for now (since we are battling greater troubles). But either way we should really step it up soon or risk losing to China in more ways than Americans would like.