untangling autism

Autism is in the news this week after the top-flight medical journal, The Lancet, retracted a pivotal research paper linking autism to vaccine preservative thimerosal. That study has been unsupported by subsequent research and epidemiology, and recently the study’s lead author was discovered to have had financial incentives for his findings. That leaves open the question of what is causing the huge rise in autism diagnoses, which now apply to 1 in 100 children in the US. Crunching the numbers, new research is finding hot spots of autism, suggesting environmental or social factors may be involved.

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does summer make you SAD?

does summer make you SAD?

Most people understand SAD as a depression response to the short, dark days of winter. And indeed, that is the most common form.

But summer SAD is also truly a thing: hot days, unrelenting brightness that makes you think you have to be cheery and energetic, wildfire smoke in certain parts of the country — all of these contribute to seasonal depression in the summer.

Here’s one simple way to beat it.