scientifically minded

Anti-Quackery from Autism Hub

For those who wander onto this site looking for information about autism science, research, and quack-busting, here's a few blogs from the group over at Autism Hub.

Autism Diva Autism Diva has been up on the blogroll for a bit, but a little spotlighting never hurt anyone.  Also, you can thank the Autism Diva site for the wonderful picture at left.

Interverbal: Reviews of Autism Statements and Research "A critical look at science in the autism world."

Natural Variation - Autism Blog. "Dispels junk science in the autism field, scrutinizes questionable treatments, and exposes stereotypes and demeaning characterizations. This blog is part of the growing autism acceptance/neurodiversity movement."

The Hub also has what I think is the largest collection of blogs written by spectrum individuals or family members.  Check it out!

Nature on Nick

I just noticed that nature.com has an interview up with transhumanist poster child Nick Bostrom, mostly about the previously noted TransVision 2006 conference.  Much of what Bostrom says in the interview is pretty mundane:

There's a lot of research in prosthetics and implants, and brain-computer interfaces. Some of this research has great promise for people with specific disabilities: cochlear implants have helped many deaf people. But I don't think healthy people are going to be attracted by mechanical or electronic enhancements in the near future.

True to form, there's also plenty that might feel like nails on a chalkboard to non-transhumanists - or to anyone who isn't interested in pharmacological couples' interventions:

In the context of marriage, an interesting possibility is the use of pharmaceuticals to regulate the pair-bonding mechanism. There are a small number of hormones, such as vasopressin and oxytocin, that might help us form bonds with others. It could be possible to prevent the levels of these chemicals from trailing off, and to infuse romance into fading marriages — like a technological form of counselling.

You can check out the full interview here at Nature. 

Reference: Kerri Smith. "The Modern Make-over."   Nature online, Aug 22 2006.
Picture: from article

Take a pill, lose a memory?

Adam Kolber over at the Neuroethics and Law Blog just posted an updated version of his new article on memory-dampening drugs: "Therapeutic Forgetting: The Legal and Ethical Implications of Memory Dampening" (forthcoming in the Vanderbilt Law Review). 

You can find the article here at the Social Science Research Network, which is a great open-access site for interesting law and social sciences articles.

Picture: David Suave, www.limitless.org

Temple Grandin on NPR

I'm a bit late finding this, but those with autism interests might want to check out this interview with Temple Grandin on NPR from earlier this month.  I first read Ms. Grandin's autobiography Thinking in Pictures five or six years ago and was astounded by it.  The book sparked an interest in autism that eventually led to my research work and my fascination with neuroscience and neuropsychology -- thank you, Temple Grandin!

Arguably the most famous living individual with autism, Temple Grandin boasts a highly successful career in the cattle industry and a prodigious collection of autobiographical works (which you can buy at discount here on Amazon).  Almost certainly the most public figure with autism, Ms. Grandin also has decades of practice communicating with people about what it's like to live as an autistic individual in the "neurotypical" world. 

If you've heard Grandin speak before, you might be surprised to hear her voice in this interview -- her typical monotonic "robot" voice has softened a bit over the years, as I'm sure she's aware.  She's grown expert in expressing her experience in a way that people without autism will understand, in part because over the course of a lifetime she's put a lot of effort into understanding how her way of being in the world diverges from the "neurotypical."  Grandin's a remarkable woman - take a read.

Check out the interview here - and don't miss her Beatles cover!

Reference: Temple Grandin.  Seeing in Beautiful, Precise Pictures.  Morning Edition, NPR, August 14 2006.
 
Picture: www.npr.org

so close...

After a near month of problems with Dell customer support, my replacement laptop will (finally) arrive tomorrow.  Monday, Scientifically Minded will be back in full force.

Thanks for your patience with the dry season,
Caitlin

TransVision 2006 broadcast in Second Life, Real Life

This is awfully late notice, but if you happen to be in Helsinki, Finland this Thursday, you might be interested in attending the World Transhumanist Association conference, "TransVision 2006: Emerging Technologies of Human Enhancement."  Among the conference program listings: "The Future of the Human Machine," "Popular Attitudes to Enhanced Identities," "Is Life Extension an Enhancement?," and "Virtue Engineering: Applications of Neurotechnology to Improve Moral Behavior."   

Of course, even if you aren't in Helsinki, you can still attend remotely -- as either your Joe Schmoe self or as your blue-haired, three-armed Second Life alterego, Crynopticon:

TransVision 06 will have a full-fledged Virtual Conference for those who are unable to attend it personally. This includes a live video stream as well as static video files from the conference, an IRC channel and a Second Life environment for discussing the event and sending the speakers questions in real time, and a regularly updated conference blog.

I'll be checking out the live feeds on this if I get a chance.  In the bioethics and technology world, these are the guys pushing the envelope on human enhancement and human-machine interaction - often against the strenuous return push of bioconservatices and even middle-ground bioethicists.  It's always interesting to see what comes out of these conferences.  For anyone in need of a primer, Wikipedia has a nice explanation of transhumanism here.   

Picture: www.transhumanism.org

NYT says: please vaccinate!

One more autism-related editoral for today.  Wednesday's New York Times ran an editorial flatly begging parents to continue vaccinating their children against measles.  Once almost completely eliminated in the USA, measles is again on the rise - for the most part as the result of falling vaccination levels in children.  From the editorial:

[An] outbreak in Indiana last year, which was detailed in a recent report in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided evidence of what can happen to a triumph of public health when a community lets its guard down. A 17-year-old unvaccinated girl who visited an orphanage in Romania on a church mission picked up the virus there.

When the girl returned, she attended a gathering of some 500 church members that included many other unvaccinated children. Most had been schooled at home and thus avoided compulsory shots. Their families had access to the vaccine but declined the opportunity because of reports that it might cause autism or other problems. Their fears overrode assurances by health authorities that the vaccine is extremely safe and has no link to autism.

By the time the outbreak had run its course, 34 people had become ill. Three were hospitalized, including one with life-threatening complications. No doubt the toll would have been considerably higher had not most of the community been protected by vaccinations. The vaccine isn’t foolproof — two of the Indiana victims had been vaccinated — but it protects the vast majority of recipients.

You can find the full editoral here, and past Scientifically Minded coverage of the autism-MMR controversy here, here, and here.

Reference: Editorial, New York Times. "The Measles Vaccine Follies." Aug 9 2006.

Another call to arms over Autism screening

Chuck Colson over at Townhall.com has posted this editorial piece on the potential use of PGD to screen out embryos with autism (see left for a brief explanation of PGD).  Scientifically Minded covered a bit of this debate here a few weeks ago.  From the editorial:

Simone Aspis of the British Council of Disabled People drew the what-should-be obvious inference: “Screening for autism would create a society where only perfection is valued.” In the brave new world of the researchers, it is reasonable to fear “that anyone who is different in any way will not be accepted.”

Here in the states, bioethicist Ben Mitchell said that “if unborn children are being eliminated for a genetic disposition to autism, no one is safe . . . Today autism, tomorrow intelligence below 70 I.Q., the next day male pattern baldness. When will this madness stop?”

As in all things autism, the reader commentary section on this article is pretty intense.  Scroll down here to check it out.

Picture: theage.com