Autism is an overwhelmingly male diagnosis – it has been described as the “extreme male brain”. Boys with the diagnosis outnumber girls by between 10 and 15 to one…

But in the developing story of autism – interest in which has increased hugely in the last decade – girls have been neglected. That omission will be remedied this week with the first conference on autistic spectrum disorders in women and girls. One aim will be to examine whether the condition has been underdiagnosed in females – and what links there may be with eating disorders.

According to Janet Treasure, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, around a fifth of girls diagnosed with anorexia have autistic spectrum features and 20 to 30 per cent may have exhibited rigidity and perfectionism in childhood. Anorexia has been called the female Asperger’s (the mild version of autism).

A one year old baby boy, who can be known only as Baby RB for legal reasons, was born with a rare genetic condition called congenital myasthenic syndrome and has been in hospital since birth.

Now, the hospital wants to withdraw Baby RB’s life support, because they claim that his quality of life is so low that it would not be in his best interests to try to save him. So his parents are going to the High Court- with his mother reported to be supporting the hospital’s bid. The parents are ‘amicably separated’ but both are reported to have spent long periods of time at their son’s bedside.

The father’s lawyers argue that Baby RB’s brain is not affected. He can see, hear and interact, and enjoys listening to music and being read to. They are submitting footage to the court, which they say show’s Baby RB playing with his toys. Christopher Cuddihee, a solicitor acting for the father, told The Sunday Telegraph: “This is a tragic case. The father feels very strongly that Baby RB has a quality of life that demands the trust should continue to provide life-sustaining treatment. “The father clearly adores his son and hopes to demonstrate to the court that the trust’s application should be rejected.”

Now for my reactions to this case. I just can’t believe that the hospital would even consider withdrawing the life support, especially when you consider that people with Baby RB’s condition ‘can expect to live a relatively normal life with medication,’ according to BBC News. Yes, Baby RB appears to be severely affected by his condition, but the most important thing to remember is that this is not his fault. He did not ask to be born with his condition, and I certainly don’t think he deserves to die as a result of it.

As a disabled person, I know several people who are severely affected by disability. They cannot walk and don’t have verbal communication, but they are all extremely intelligent. Thanks to the support of their families, they have all led good lives, of which, I am sure, they would change very little. That’s why I have only good wishes for the baby, and I agree with and support his father’s efforts to keep him alive.

However, I understand and accept that this is a subject on which you may not agree with my opinion. So I’m asking you to share yours with us. Should Baby RB be allowed to live a life of the best possible quality for as long as possible, or should he die too soon, simply because a hospital is not prepared to provide him with the support he requires?

So are these differences significant and, more to the point, are they significant enough so that when they are brought together, there might be tangible benefits for people who are mixed-race? The answer from some scientists who still do what could be called “racial science” appears to be yes on both counts. Dr Mark Shriver, who studies human origins at Penn State University, is interested in ancestry, variations in skin and hair colour, facial features and height….

Shriver’s work has uncovered something else that is very interesting. He finds that mixed-race people are more symmetrical than the rest of us, and being more symmetrical translates into being more attractive, having less infection, being less stressed, and having greater genetic diversity. Professor Bill Amos at Cambridge University has also been studying the genetic basis of human disease. He finds that in humans, an individual’s level of genetic diversity can predict with astonishing accuracy how likely they are to survive parasites and infectious disease. In a recent study in Kenya, he found that low levels of diversity were strongly associated with death before the age of five.

It’s always useful to know more about the science of anything. And such work provides a powerful counter to those who oppose mixed-race marriages because the children will be ‘wrong’, as the children will be genetically stronger. As Dr. Prasad puts it:

When someone like me chooses a partner of another race, some family member is guaranteed to ask the same question as that Louisiana Justice of the Peace: “But what will the children be?”

Yet I am also uncomfortable with the talk about mixed-race children being more attractive. Different people find different people attractive. Some people have more admirers than others, and that is fine. But to talk about attractiveness in terms of race (even mixed-race) is worrying. It might be the case that on average mixed-race people are considered more attractive by more people, but it is such a generalisation as to be pointless. Any discussion that seeks to grade races on the basis of looks is dangerous.

“Shisha is an Arabic water-pipe in which fruit-scented tobacco is burnt using coal, passed through an ornate water vessel and inhaled through a hose.

The Centre for Tobacco Control Research said it was difficult to know exactly how much carbon monoxide one cigarette produced, due to the differences in smokers’ inhalations.

But measuring carbon monoxide in exhaled breath showed a normal non-smoker’s level to be three parts CO per million parts of air (ppm) (3% of blood not working properly), a light smoker to have 10-20% of blood not working properly, and a heavy smoker 30-40%.”

I suppose it will give the anti-smoking people something to do. Designing new posters, calling for film scenes with shisha to be rated 18+, and walking around the streets badgering people about their habits.

“Up until this year, the world was making remarkable progress in whittling down this disease. Since the year 2000, seven of the worst-afflicted countries in sub-Saharan Africa have slashed malaria-deaths by 50 percent. It has a great knock0on effect too: for every £1 spent on malaria prevention, Africa gains £12 in economic growth, because people can work instead of lying sick and dying. It was a sign that aid, matched by good African government, can produce inspirational results.

But then something began to change – at first imperceptibly – in the forgotten forests of Western Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge held their last stand-off. The drug that is most effective at treating malaria is called artemisinin: it shocks the parasite out of your system and saves your life. But in South-East Asia, horrified doctors have discovered that the malaria parasite is becoming resistant to it. In a Darwinian arms race, it has begun to evolve a way to beat the treatment. It is taking twice as long to work – and soon it will have defeated the medicine altogether.”

“GIVE Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life…

The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.

Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war.”

This doesn’t seem particularly problematic to me. We already have camps with religious themes, while the children are just there to have fun and marshmallows, so won’t really care what they are being told. However, it will give more ammunition to those who accuse Richard Dawkins (and others) of turning atheism into a religion.

In a recent blog entry I alluded to the prospect of utilizing science diplomacy to help promote world peace. Following President Barack Obama’s ground-breaking speech in Cairo, it now seems that dormant rhetoric will soon be put into imminent action.

Intentions to support scientific initiatives in the Islamic world as part of Obama’s vision for promoting peaceful relations between the United States and countries with a Muslim majority were revealed, as highlighted in David Bruggeman’s recent blog entry on Science Diplomacy and the Cairo Address.

It seemed too good to be true a couple of months ago when Dr. Vaughan Turekian, Chief International Officer for AAAS and Director for the Center for Science Diplomacy, foretold in his talk at Harvard how a new era of science diplomacy might be afoot.

Turekian had defined science diplomacy as:

the use of international science cooperation with the goal of building or establishing relationships between and among societies.

Just prior to that, The Times reported that Dr Harold Varmus, Noble Laureate and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology had asserted that American diplomacy had previously undervalued the role of medicine and science in fostering friendly relations with developing nations. Varmus argued that US investment in fighting tropical infections and chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes in poor countries would transform international perceptions of the US.

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year, no one was sure how much of what she promised would really transpire when she claimed that the new vanguard of foreign policy rests in the deployment of diplomacy as encapsulated in the phrase she helped to coin: ’smart power’.

Smart power is a balance of hard military power with the soft power of diplomacy, development, cultural exchanges, education and science. One of the most promising of the smart power tools is science diplomacy, the practice of supporting and promoting scientific exchanges, cooperation and research between the United States and other nations, sometimes nations that have no other diplomatic relations with the United States.

A U.S. delegation was recently sent to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, where the implementation of science diplomacy has successfully proved to yield agreements to Seek Collaboration in Water, Energy, Agriculture and other Fields.

But what is most unique is Obama’s shrewd tactic to reference historical contributions made by other civilizations in order to give the present full context. This approach is both courageous and eye opening:

it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.

Obama has now given a new edge to science diplomacy – combining it with a sort of ‘heritage diplomacy’, he knows he can take things much further. Since then, John Esposito amongst others has also observed that by focusing on our interdependence, shared values and common interests, Obama has generated a new mindset and paradigm for U.S.-Muslim World relations. In the mean time, administration officials are working to elucidate the fuzzy spots in Obama’s science diplomacy as summarised in a recent State Department factsheet ‘A NEW BEGINNING: THE U.S. AND MUSLIM COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD‘.

So what next? Obama’s speech was a watershed moment in history that raised expectations and has left us all in anticipation. We have yet to see his all pledges for action fully materialise but as Obama’s incisive words continue to reverberate, the future looks brighter.

———————–
This was first published on Prometheus, a blog run from the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research in the University of Colorado, USA.

“The heart of this is an argument that scientifically the concept of large races- based on geographical units and imagined cultural communities- make about as much sense as the sun circling the earth does, and it is based on the same kind of data- not scientific proof or experiment but the supposition that an apparant distinction (skin colour in this case) is a real one. What goes on above the skin, as Stephen Jones argues, doesn’t tell you much about what goes on below.”

If the amendment is passed, tissue samples for creating human/animal embroys can be taken from people who are not considered mentally capable of making their own decisions. Now, obviously there are some areas (such as financial ones), in which it is right for carers/relatives to have a degree of control, as that might be the only practical situation. I cannot, however, see any rationale for this. As Sarah points out:

Leading learning disability charities said they knew little about this amendment to the Bill, which has, not surprisingly, received very little publicity… if this amendment to the Bill is passed on Wednesday, it will not only sweep away 25 years of progress in medical ethics. It will also sweep away too many years of hard work by Disability Rights campaigners to convince the mainstream world that we are human, too, and that they should do Nothing About Us, Without Us.

I think that Murray is one of those rare thinkers who put forward these opinions because he was genuinely searching for the truth. For instance Obama argues against welfare reform which Murray also propagated, but which according to a lot of serious people has played a big role in getting black people in the inner cities out of poverty. The fact it hasn’t been accompanied with health care reform is another matter.

Also in Murray’s favour is the fact that he was one of the few right-wing thinkers/pundits who saw the brilliance# in Obama’s post Rev. Wright speech on Race.

My review of John McWhorter’s book, ‘Losing the Race’ is also relevant. Anyways, the speech is after the jump.

NPR
October 28, 1994
SHOW: All Things Considered (NPR 4:30 pm ET)

Charles Murray’s Political Expediency Denounced
BYLINE: BARACK OBAMA
SECTION: News; Domestic
LENGTH: 635 words

HIGHLIGHT: Commentator Barack Obama finds that Charles Murray, author of the controversial “The Bell Curve,” demonstrates not scientific expertise but spurious political motivation in his conclusions about race and IQ.

BARACK OBAMA, Commentator: Charles Murray is inviting American down a dangerous path.

NOAH ADAMS, Host: Civil rights lawyer, Barack Obama.

Mr. OBAMA: The idea that inferior genes account for the problems of the poor in general, and blacks in particular, isn’t new, of course. Racial supremacists have been using IQ tests to support their theories since the turn of the century. The arguments against such dubious science aren’t new either. Scientists have repeatedly told us that genes don’t vary much from one race to another, and psychologists have pointed out the role that language and other cultural barriers can play in depressing minority test scores, and no one disputes that children whose mothers smoke crack when they’re pregnant are going to have developmental problems.

Now, it shouldn’t take a genius to figure out that with early intervention such problems can be prevented. But Mr. Murray isn’t interested in prevention. He’s interested in pushing a very particular policy agenda, specifically, the elimination of affirmative action and welfare programs aimed at the poor. With one finger out to the political wind, Mr. Murray has apparently decided that white America is ready for a return to good old-fashioned racism so long as it’s artfully packaged and can admit for exceptions like Colin Powell. It’s easy to see the basis for Mr. Murray’s calculations. After watching their income stagnate or decline over the past decade, the majority of Americans are in an ugly mood and deeply resent any advantages, realor perceived, that minorities may enjoy.

I happen to think Mr. Murray’s wrong, not just in his estimation of black people, but in his estimation of the broader American public. But I do think Mr. Murray’s right about the growing distance between the races. The violence and despair of the inner city are real. So’s the problem of street crime. The longer we allow these problems to fester, the easier it becomes for white America to see all blacks as menacing and for black America to see all whites as racist. To close that gap, we’re going to have to do more than denounce Mr. Murray’s book. We’re going to have to take concrete and deliberate action. For blacks, that means taking greater responsibility for the state of our own communities. Too many of us use white racism as an excuse for self-defeating behavior. Too many of our young people think education is a white thing and that the values of hard work and discipline andself-respect are somehow outdated.

That being said, it’s time for all of us, and now I’m talking about the larger American community, to acknowledge that we’ve never even come close to providing equal opportunity to the majority of black children. Real opportunity would mean quality prenatal care for all women and well-funded and innovative public schools for all children. Real opportunity would mean a job at a living wage for everyone who was willing to work, jobs that can return some structure and dignity to people’s lives and give inner-city children something more than a basketball rim to shoot for. In the short run, such ladders of opportunity are going to cost more, not less, than either welfare or affirmative action. But, in the long run, our investment should payoff handsomely. That we fail to make this investment is just plain stupid. It’s not the result of an intellectual deficit. It’s theresult of a moral deficit.

ADAMS: Barack Obama is a civil rights lawyer and writer. He lives in Chicago.

Today is the big day people!!! If the scientists in Switzerland at CERN get anything right, we won’t get sucked by a massive black hole. It’s a funny video though… that’s something I suppose.

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself.

Tabloidy headlines aside, the scientists say that nothing big can theoretically be destroyed. But who belives in scientists eh? Certainly not Sarah Palin and she may be the American Vice President soon.
Look out for a flurry of similar headlines in tomorrow’s papers. Let’s hope they know what they’re doing. A good BBC piece on the whole experiment is here.

Physics World has reported that physics in China is booming. Chinese scientists now publish more papers than the UK and Germany. In fact, at the current rate, by 2012 it will be churning out more physics articles than the entire number of science articles published by US researchers.

Werner Marx, an information scientist from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said, “Usually scientific development in nations does not show such a strong acceleration as we have seen in China, so it will be interesting to see how it responds and develops in the future.”

Well, it won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the impact of that strong acceleration will be. By the way, Angela is a friend and a new blogger, writing mostly about science. Go check out her blog.

With nuclear, not a day goes by without a jaw-dropping news item. The industry news is chock full of ‘NO WAY!’ moments. Much of it is darkly, surreally comedic. If you were to write a sitcom that involved some of the nuclear incidents I’ve blogged in the last few weeks, the show would bomb as too far-fetched.

The nuclear power plant that is actively contributing to global warming. The Japanese nuclear recycling plant which will release a collective dose of radiation in the next 40 years equivalent to half of that released during the Chernobyl disaster. The Canadian nuclear plant where they lost a piece of the reactor radioactive enough to give you a year’s worth of radiation exposure in a few minutes.

The American nuclear waste storage facility with the $32 billion cost overrun. The French rivers that had ‘only’ 18,000 litres of uranium solution poured into them this month. The 100 workers at the same plant who were ’slightly’ contaminated this month. The other French nuclear leak this month, from a pipe that had been faulty for ’several years’.

And yet, there are still people who live in the 1950s utopian fantasy that nuclear energy will solve all our problems including global warming. Jesus have mercy on their souls (or something). Why all this money keeps getting spent on nuclear energy rather than on renewable sources continues to mystify me. Anyway – good to see Greenpeace trying to find ways to challenge the myths around nuclear power.

There are two problems with this campaign.

The first is that one wonders whether £10 million of our money has been well spent on telling people to make sure that they actually know what they are drinking. Most people tend to realise when they have had a few, because alcohol has a physical and mental effect on you. People are not obliged to drink a particular amount, so there can be no complaint about glass sizes.

The second reason, and the more pertinent one, is that the information given out by the campaign (at least on the glossy television advertisements), is wrong. We are told that a pint of beer is three units, and that a bottle of wine is ten units. A few are, but most are not. The way to calculate the number of units in a drink is to take the strength percentage and multiply it by the volume of the glass (in millimetres), then divide by a thousand.

To take wine as an example, the strength is usually anywhere from 9.5% to 14.5%. So a 9.5% bottle at 750ml would yield 7.125 units, while a 14.5% bottle at 750ml would yield 10.875 units. For beer, the average pint (at 568ml) usually has a strength of 3.6% to 6.0%. At 3.6% a pint would contain 2.0448 units, while at 6.0% a pint would contain 3.408 units. Therefore there are significant differences in the number of units in a range of drinks one would find in most pubs.

The government’s campaign is at best wrong and at worst counterproductive, as people will believe they know the alcohol content of their drinks without even bothering to check the percentage of the alcohol. All at a cost of ten million pounds. Nor are the recommended limits for men and women based on anything other than guesswork. A woman drinking one pint of Stella two times a week is classed as a binge drinker under these guidelines. Many Britons drink too much, but that is nothing to do with glass sizes, or not knowing the number of units; it is because they want to.

Gordon Brown recently brought the subject of transplants back into the news by supporting a similar system to the Spanish, who have the highest organ transplant rate in the world. The system is effectively an ‘opt-out’ arrangement and deceased patients with no specific instructions are ‘presumed’ to have given consent for their organs to be used.

The argument for:

More and more patients are dying on transplant waiting lists. Many of these people are young, with congenital conditions like cystic fibrosis, primary liver cancer or autoimmune kidney disease meaning they need new hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys. Less people are dying in road traffic accidents due to improved road safety, but this results in a decreasing source of healthy organs.

No replacement therapy can compare with a transplant. A patient might be tied to a dialysis machine for several hours three times a week, on a cocktail of drugs for anaemia and bone disease and unable to live a normal life. A new kidney is life-changing, just like a new heart is better than any artificial device we have manufactured. One dead body can change several lives.

We are developing the ability to transplant more and more parts of the body, corneas, pancreatic components (for diabetics), skin, hands, eyelashes and faces. Around 8,000 people in the UK are currently awaiting organ transplant and the number grows by 8% a year and it’s not improving. 1000 are estimated to die each year on organ waiting lists.

Three quarters of the public say they would be willing for their organs to be used, yet only a quarter register for this. At present approximately 40% of relatives refuse consent for their deceased loved one’s organs to be used. There is no clear reason why the next of kin should automatically have say over someone’s organs, yet we currently listen to them.

Once someone is dead, they are dead. Eastern cultures such as Parsis and some Tibetan Buddhists have traditionally allowed their dead to be consumed by vultures. Hindus cremate. However, black and ethnic minority donors are pitifully low in number. Renal transplants cost the NHS less than dialysis after a few years.

Recycling is fashionable.

The argument against:

Can you really assume consent for anything? Herein lies the ethical stumbling block, what are the rights of the dead? As many people define death in different ways, feelings differ markedly about whether a dead body is ’sacred’ or not. Dominic Lawson today made a (in my opinion, somewhat flawed) analogy to necrophilia in the Indy. He said how could we support presumed consent for organ donation when we are revulsed by the idea of someone having sex with a corpse? Surely consent could be assumed in both situations or neither.

Spain’s enviable record of transplant rates has not been directly linked to their consent law. They have an admirable and highly developed transplant network, with more 24 hour-harvest teams and way more road deaths than the UK. If we suddenly increase the number of transplants occurring (the patients are often highly dependent post-operatively), the NHS probably would not be able to cope without more units being opened and existing ones being expanded.

The definition of ‘legally dead’ or ‘brain dead’ is debatable.

The government has announced that more hospitals will have dedicated transplant co-ordinators, whose job description includes persuading families a soon-to-expire relative can save someone’s life. In Spain they have been credited with halving the refusal rate.

What do you think?

Disclosure: I am currently a transplant doc.

“The plans, part of Gordon Brown’s first programme as PM, are said to be aimed at cutting carbon emissions and getting the best energy mix for the UK.

It would be for the private sector to initiate, fund, construct and operate new nuclear plants and cover costs of decommissioning and waste management.”

What do people think about this? Is this our only option if we want to cut down on oil and gas, or is it too dangerous?

“The primary challenge facing our species is the reproduction of our species itself.

The world’s population is now 6.7 billion, roughly double what it was when I was born. If I live to be in my mid-eighties, then it will have trebled in my lifetime.

The UN last year revised its forecasts upwards, predicting that there will be 9.2 billion people by 2050, and I simply cannot understand why no one discusses this impending calamity, and why no world statesmen have the guts to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves.

How the hell can we witter on about tackling global warming, and reducing consumption, when we are continuing to add so relentlessly to the number of consumers? The answer is politics, and political cowardice.”

Now I am not trying to say that Boris Johnson should be considered progressive. Rather, what should the progressive line on overpopulation be? Are condoms and education enough? Do we have a right, or a responsibility, to dictate to the developing world (where most of the population growth is occurring) about how many children they should have? What are the alternatives?

The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.”. He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. [Link]

Yikes. The Science Museum has cancelled his forthcoming sell-out speech. I can’t disagree with their decision, they explained they do not shy away from controversy but in this regard he had “gone beyond the point of acceptable debate”. Let’s take a closer look.

Watson, who has previously supported a woman’s right to abort if a test was invented to show the baby would be gay, bases his argument on apparently sound science, but draws a faulty conclusion.

He argues:

“there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”

Fine. But the timescale between humans leaving Africa and the present is not long at all in evolutionary terms.

Significant evolutionary differences exist between human populations, but higher functions have been hard to analyse, primarily due to cultural differences. There is convincing evidence to suggest Australian aboriginals have developed different areas of the brain to those on the Eurasian-African landmass. No such evidence exists for Africans.

Even if one accepts there has been ample time for differences in intelligence to develop, how does he draw the conclusion black people are stupid? At present saying black people are thicker than others is based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence and flawed IQ tests or A-level results, which are completely meaningless as they bear no relation to genes. [Edit - they bear some relation to genes, but one that cannot be accurately ascertained]

Americans have been keen to prove Watson’s assertion for some years. Many IQ tests have shown a consistent 20 point shortfall comparing ‘blacks’ to ‘whites’. These were exposed as pointless as socioeconomic status has a huge bearing on scores in an IQ test (a bad test in itself) and the samples were not matched.

Watson appears to suggest evolutionary differences like intelligence could arise far quicker than conventionally accepted, but he might be conflating data drift with a genuine significant statistical change. IQ test results have gone up over time, within the same population.

However, what would we do if our genetic analysis grows more advanced, as I’m sure it will, and we CAN analyse differences between all races? Will the smarter races say “hey it’s a bit of fun” whilst the dumber ones complain? One thing IS for sure, racist views (which is what Watson’s are) will be scientifically challenged with greater genetic knowledge, as the concept of a ‘pure’ race will be eroded entirely.