From Murder to Miscegenation: Mark Twain’s Nevada Newspaper Hoaxes

Mark Twain’s 21 months as a reporter for the Virginia City, Nevada Territorial-Enterprise (1862-64) were marked by a series of hoaxes that tested even Nevada frontier journalism’s loose standards for accuracy. Close study of these hoaxes in their progression reveals Twain at work on multiple narrative frames, twinned voices, and meta-plots — the stuff of his later fiction

Genomics and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Purpose: To understand the current state of the evidence regarding translation of genetics and genomics into nursing care of children with (ASD)

Sex differences in the timing of identification among children and adults with autism spectrum disorders

To examine differences by sex in the timing of identification of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), survey data were collected in the Netherlands from 2,275 males and females with autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome and PDD-NOS. Among participants <18 years of age, females with Asperger's syndrome were identified later than males. Among participants ≥18 years of age, females with autistic disorder were identified later than males. In more recent years, girls with Asperger's syndrome are diagnosed later than boys, confirming earlier findings. In adults, the delayed timing of diagnosis in females with autistic disorder may be related to changing practices in diagnosis over time. Strategies for changing clinician behaviour to improve recognition of ASD in females are needed. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Time to care: why the humanities and the social sciences belong in the science of health

Health is more than the absence of disease. It is also more than a biological phenomenon. It is inherently social, psychological, cultural, and historical. Social and personal resources are both key components and key determinants of health, as it has been recognised by major health actors for decades [1–3]. However, open questions remain as to how to build systems that reflect the complexity of health, healthy lives, disease, and sickness, and in a context that is increasingly technologized. Although we find in the literature an increasing understanding of the complexity of health [4–7], the implementation of this knowledge lags behind. Biological approaches to health and disease, as a matter of fact, dominate the development of curative and preventive interventions. We argue that an urgent change of approach is necessary. Methods and concepts from the humanities and social science must be embedded in the concepts and methods of the health sciences and of public health, if we are to promote sustainable interventions capable of engaging with the recognized complexity of health, healthy lives, disease, and sickness. This resonates with the vision expressed by UK Health Secretary and by many policy documents [8,9] from the last decades. Yet, given the difficulties associated with interdisciplinary research, integrated strategies to understand and to intervene on the complexity of health and that engage with biological, social, psychological and behavioural factors are still needed. Our vision is one of radical interdisciplinarity, integrating aspects of biological, psychological, social, and humanities approaches across areas of urgent health need. These areas include, but is not confined to, chronic conditions such as the obesity epidemic, cancer, mental health. Radical interdisciplinarity entails the practical, methodological, and conceptual integration of approaches to health, as they are developed in the health and social sciences, and in the humanities. It is the combination of cognitive resources from individuals belonging to different disciplines, who accept and respect the division of labour and the resulting epistemic dependence to tackle phenomena that would not be adequately conceptualised within any of the involved discipline alone [10]. In what follows, we describe our current understanding of these three aspects, and describe how radical interdisciplinarity would change them.Not funde

The perinatal androgen to estrogen ratio and autistic-like traits in the general population: a longitudinal pregnancy cohort study

BACKGROUND: Prenatal androgen exposure has been hypothesized to be linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While previous studies have found a link between testosterone levels in amniotic fluid and autistic-like traits, a similar relationship has not been found for testosterone in umbilical cord blood. However, it may be the net biological activity of multiple androgens and estrogens that influences postnatal effects of prenatal sex steroids. Accordingly, composite levels of androgens (A) and estrogens (E) were investigated, along with their ratio, in relation to autistic-like traits in young adulthood. METHODS: Sex steroid data in umbilical cord blood were available from 860 individuals at delivery. Samples were analyzed for androgens (testosterone, androstenedione, and dehydroepiandrosterone) and estrogens (estrone, estradiol, estriol, and estetrol). Levels of bioavailable testosterone, estradiol, and estrone were measured and used to calculate A and E composites and the A to E ratio. Participants were approached in early adulthood to complete the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) as a self-report measure of autistic-like traits, with 183 males (M = 20.10 years, SD = 0.65 years) and 189 females (M =19.92 years, SD = 0.68 years) providing data. RESULTS: Males exhibited significantly higher androgen composites and A to E composite ratios than females. Males also scored significantly higher on the details/patterns subscale of the AQ. Subsequent categorical and continuous analyses, which accounted for covariates, revealed no substantial relationships between the A/E composites or the A to E ratio and the AQ total or subscale scores. CONCLUSIONS: The current study found no link between the A/E composites or the A to E ratio in cord blood and autistic-like traits in the population as measured by the AQ. These outcomes do not exclude the possibility that these sex steroid variables may predict other neurodevelopmental traits in early development. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11689-015-9114-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

The Study to Explore Early Development (SEED): A Multisite Epidemiologic Study of Autism by the Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology (CADDRE) Network

The Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), a multisite investigation addressing knowledge gaps in autism phenotype and etiology, aims to: (1) characterize the autism behavioral phenotype and associated developmental, medical, and behavioral conditions and (2) investigate genetic and environmental risks with emphasis on immunologic, hormonal, gastrointestinal, and sociodemographic characteristics. SEED uses a case–control design with population-based ascertainment of children aged 2–5 years with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children in two control groups—one from the general population and one with non-ASD developmental problems. Data from parent-completed questionnaires, interviews, clinical evaluations, biospecimen sampling, and medical record abstraction focus on the prenatal and early postnatal periods. SEED is a valuable resource for testing hypotheses regarding ASD characteristics and causes