Science & Society

Queen's University researchers writing in the Journal of Preventative Medicine say there is a strong association between adolescent computer and Internet and multiple-risk behaviors (MRB), including illicit drug use, drunkenness and unprotected sex. The researchers found that high computer use was associated with approximately 50 percent increased engagement with a cluster of six MRB, including smoking, drunkenness, non-use of seatbelts, cannabis and illicit drug use, and unprotected sex. High television use was also associated with a modestly increased engagement in these MRB. One…

Note: edited 4/26 On April 14, I wrote an article about the improper demonstration of a full-body restraint system being used in a Florida public school on disabled children. I followed up this article with a series of emails to Gillen Industries, who manufactures the restraint device to the school principal and to the Associate Superintendent of Exceptional Student Education for Orange County Public Schools, and to the bureau chief for Exceptional Education  &  Student Services.  Last year Florida passed a law regarding restraint and seclusion of…

Having examined PBS's Autism Now in an earlier posting and noting its overall negativity, I'd like to turn to a documentary on autism that I can recommend: Todd Drezner's Loving Lampposts. Released March 29 on DVD is a new documentary called Loving Lampposts. The director, Todd Drezner, has  recently written three posts at Huffington Post, "Learning to Embrace Autism," "Reconsidering the Nature of Autism," and "Autism: The Most Popular Disability" to create awareness of his documentary. This film is well-crafted and for folks familiar with the autism community, many of the more…

The PBS series on autism, Autism Now, has aired all of its segments now. The extended transcripts of interviews are available online, as well.The series started with the sour note of a family convinced it was the vaccines, with the focus on the sacrifices that families make for autistic children (people shouldn’t be parents if they aren’t ready to put children first; parenting isn’t supposed to be a contest about who could be the biggest martyr). The focus is on Robert MacNeil’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson, who is on the spectrum. Alison MacNeil believes her son’s autism was caused by…

Based on last week's indictment of vaccine-autism researcher Dr. Poul Thorsen for money laundering and mail fraud, the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD), a Maryland-based non-profit organization, is calling for further investigation.  Thorsen was already cited for academic misconduct by Aarhus University in Denmark and was charged with embezzling a $1 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). For several years, Thorsen was involved in studies vindicating the use of Thimerosal as a preservative in several vaccines. 'Involved' is the term that seems to be confusing…

Whether your reading posts at science20, watching talks at TED, reading any of the self help books on the bestseller lists, watching Oprah, talking with your neighbors, or just turning on the news, be you a scientist or layman, zealot to atheist, of any particular walk of life, (at least in western society,) you have, by now, heard of the "new Enlightenment." It might not have been called such, it might be an "awakening" or a "quest for authenticity," a "seeing," an "understanding," perhaps something else. The point is, everyone is figuring out how full of shit we all are, as are our designs…

When European politicians picked a target date for greenhouse gas emissions in the Kyoto accord, American environmentalists applauded despite the motivation - economic harm for the US with little to Europe, since Germany simply had to scuttle Soviet-era factories they acquired in the re-merger with East Germany and France switched to more nuclear power in order to try and meet their CO2 targets. Anyone unemployed. losing a house or watching their 401K stagnate now sees why claims about creating a 'green' economic engine that could be created quickly were regarded with derision in some corners…

In a recent email, my mother commented how I should help dissuade my younger sister from debating religious ethics on Facebook with our cousin.  I didn't seek out the conversation, but we can vividly imagine the sorts of debates between an atheist and a Catholic.   Instead of trying to limit my sister's free flow of ideas, I have instead reflected on both atheism itself, as well as the public presentation of one's ideology. The impetus for actually writing down my ideas to a potentially broader public, however, originated from reading a quote from Phil Fernandes's book The…

For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.  It is, without a doubt, a truism, that we see the world through our own eyes, and that we cannot but help doing so. We try to put ourselves in other's shoes, but it is ourselves we put into those shoes, imagining it from our own perspective. We can't help it. And this is not a failure of autism, but of human nature in general.Everything we take in is filtered through our life experiences, our preconceptions, our expectations, and it means that we often make…

Written with Kathleen Leopold and originally posted at Autism Blogs Directory (and edited for a wider audience)Kim:  This video of an assistant principal explaining and demonstrating a full body restraint for disabled students is a video that everyone needs to see, especially those involved in disability rights and the needs of autistic and disabled students. If we in the autism community want a place for consensus, a place where we can agree action needs to happen (although you would have thought a sustained cacophony or chorus, your pick, would have occurred over the Judge Rotenberg…