Interesting Links for 10-05-2014

[andrewducker]

• Spanish, Japanese centenarians reveal genetic key to longevity
  (tags: genetics longevity )
• Adults with autism virtually learn how to get the job
  (tags: autism work jobs training )
• Russia hangs adults-only rating on The Sims 4 (for pro-homosexuality content)
  (tags: LGBT Russia games sims )
• One of the 6 Biggest Ecological Disasters in the last 4.5 Billion Years is Happening Right Now
  (tags: environment )
• I'm definitely more likely to vote for a politician who has signed this
  (tags: internet rights freedom politics europe )
• Mitochondrial deficits in children with autism confirmed
  (tags: autism mitochondria )
• Community Is Cancelled. Be Happy Anyway.
  (tags: community tv )

Comments

[redbird]

The autism link is interesting, but the abstract says that the study group was ten children with severe autism (and a matched ten-child control group). It doesn't say that all ten of those children have mitochondrial deficits: the results are given as an average over the group. (One of the bloggers I follow covers a lot of vaccine-and-autism nonsense claims, and dubious "treatments" for autism: I'm hoping they'll look at it. I sent them a pointer, but of course that doesn't oblige them to anything, and they may not even look at the blog email on weekends.)

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, this is very much a preliminary study with interesting findings - not something conclusive that is about to change the world. It's a trigger for more research in that area, rather than anything more.

[andrewducker]

Looking at the abstract though, the differences are rather severe:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/5/e1405