Results tagged “autism” from 60 Second Science

Lots of us have trouble concentrating on specific tasks for a focused period of time; I know whenever I'm performing community service (it happens a lot), any stray bird or shiny object distracts me enough to get me punished by my chain gang.

Annalee Newitz at sci-fi blog io9 posits that in the near future, temporary autism could serve as a solution: Basically, people take a pill to induce autism when they want to shut out the outside world and focus obsessively on work, and then take another pill to bring them out of their autistic state when they're ready to stop being savants. She cites work undertaken by German scientists in inducing autism in rats and reversal of autistic symptoms in mice done by researchers at MIT as inspiration for her predictions.

Even wilder, she suggests people may pursue "recreational autism" to "take a break from having messy emotions about other people decide to unplug and enter a state where human relationships are no more important than inanimate objects."

Continue reading 'Today's future craze: Inducing autism to enhance concentration' >

New research published in the Archives of General Psychiatry-- one of the most exhaustive studies yet-- should put a nail in the coffin of the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. Cleverly sub-titled Mercury in Retrograde, the study looked at all the diagnoses of autism in the state of California reported to the Department of Developmental Services. It is especially informative because prior analyses of earlier data in that system had suggested some correlation.

Continue reading 'Mercury in retrograde? Autism authors can only hope' >

Heather Kuzmich may not have connected with her fellow contestants, but she sure had something special going on with the camera. The 21-year-old model with Asperger's made it to the final five in the reality show "America's Next Top Model," hosted by the fierce Tyra Banks.

Continue reading 'America's Next Top Model has Asperger's' >

Although the debate over the causes of autism is still vexed, arguments over the nature of the disorder itself rage, too. In the November 1 issue of Frontiers In Neuroscience [hat tip to Frontal Cortex for blogging it on 10/25], Henry Markram, Tania Rinaldi and Kamila Markram propose a new unifying theory. They call it “The Intense World Syndrome” and the basic idea is that the core problem in autism is not difficulty recognizing other people’s thoughts and motivations (the “theory of mind” theory), but a hyper-responsive brain that encodes most sensory input as overwhelming.

Continue reading 'Intense, man... new theory of autism' >