Thursday, February 20, 2003

Breakthroughs in genetic research on autism.

Exciting news for those who suffer from autism, or have close family or friends likewise affected. It seems that Duke University Medical Center researchers have developed a new statistical genetic "fishing net" to harvest the elusive and highly controversial autism gene. According to a report from Duke MedNews, the researchers believe the success of the approach might be more broadly applied to studying genetic risk factors for other complex genetic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

In this case, the gene, which encodes part of a brain neurotransmitter docking station called the gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Receptor beta3-subunit (GABRB3), has been implicated in autism previously, but never positively linked to the disease. Their findings will be published in the March 2003 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

"Many research groups have been actively looking for genetic risk factors that can lead to autism, but without much success," said Margaret Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Human Genetics and lead investigator of the study.

Autism is the common term that encompasses an overlapping group of complex developmental disorders that are diagnosed in about one in 1,000 children under the age of 3. Each autistic child has a unique set of characteristics that affect his or her behavior, communication skills and ability to interact with others. It is the very diverse, complex nature of autism that has made it so difficult to locate distinct genetic risk factors, said Pericak-Vance.

After several genetic studies turned up only a few vague genetic clues, the research team decided a new approach was needed. Pericak-Vance hypothesized that grouping patients with similar traits together statistically might enhance the scientists' ability to distinguish relevant genetic risk factors. To provide guidance, the scientists turned to Michael Cuccaro, Ph.D., a clinical child psychologist at Duke with extensive experience diagnosing and treating autism. Cuccaro noticed that some but not all autistic children exhibit repetitive compulsions and extreme difficulty with changes to their daily routine. This character trait -- defined by Cuccaro as "insistence on sameness" or "IS" -- helped the research team identify a subset of autism family data to study in more detail.

Researchers, led by Yujun Shao, Ph.D., a genetic epidemiologist at Duke, reorganized data collected from families in which more than one child is affected by autism and grouped together all the families that reported their autistic child had difficulty with change.

Cuccaro's theory that autistic children could be subdivided into at least two groups gave the team of scientists from Duke and the University of South Carolina an opportunity to test a new statistical method, called "ordered subset analysis," developed by Elizabeth Hauser, Ph.D., assistant research professor of medicine at Duke. This new genetic fishing net allows scientists to sift through complex genetic data and extract genetic risk factors that affect only some of the total group.

In this case, when the researchers applied the new test only to those families whose children scored high in the IS category, they discovered a strong link to the GABRB3 gene on chromosome 15q, where no such link had appeared before.

"This is the first successful application of ordered subset analysis to help us pinpoint a genetic risk factor that would be missed by looking at the larger group." said Pericak-Vance. The researchers emphasize that this discovery is only the first step in understanding how the GABRB3 gene, or others genes in the same region of chromosome 15 might be involved in autism. Another clue may be gained from previous research that has shown the same area on chromosome 15 is just as responsible for Angelman Syndrome and Prader-Willi Syndrome -- two genetic disorders in which a subset of affected children also exhibit repetitive behavior. Additional research will be necessary to understand how defects in the GABRB3 gene might contribute to autistic disorder, and how other genes or environmental factors also play a role.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

What does the war mean for the Romanian street?

Romanian anti-war demonstrators put empty papers in a box reading 'Strong evidence' in front of a banner reading 'No - Not in my name' in central Bucharest on February 15, 2003 during a protest against a possible U.S.-led war on Iraq. This demonstration in Romania is part of massive rallies planned throughout different time zones worldwide, with the peace movement expected to spread to more than 600 towns and cities stretching from Tasmania in the south to Iceland in the north.

So what has the Romanian government and business community been doing to raise the ire of its citizens? For starters, the Romanian government decided to deploy 278 troops chiefly anti-chemical and anti-biological warfare units to near Iraq and opened the country's skies to US fighter jets in the event of a military campaign to disarm Iraq.

War brings business opportunities for post-communist states, long-accustomed to heavy industry. Many Romanian women have recently been hired to make quality inspections on Romanian manufactured gas masks in a factory in Buzau, 100 kilometers northeast of Bucharest. The company, Romcarbon, which was involved in the construction in 1988 of a factory producing protective equipment against gas and chemicals in Iraq is hoping that the current threat of war in the Gulf region will lead to a boost in its sales to military and civilian customers.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Make No Vows by Grace Fallows Norton.

For the man who explained "mutual aid" to me-- because there is more to lie than meets the eye, and more to passion than summed by the sigh.

I MADE a vow once, one only.
I was young and I was lonely.
When I grew strong I said: “This vow
Is too narrow for me now.
Who am I to be bound by old oaths?
I will change them as I change my clothes!”

But that ancient outworn vow
Was like fetters upon me now.
It was hard to break, hard to break;
Hard to shake from me, hard to shake.

I broke it by day, but it closed upon me at night.
He is not free who is free only in the sun-light.
He is not free who bears fetters in his dreams,
Nor he who laughs only by dark dream-fed streams.

Oh, it costs much bright coin of strength to live!
Watch, then, where all your strength you give!
For I, who would be so wild and wondrous now,
Must give, give, to break a burdening bitter vow.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

America's "frat-boy-style" foreign policy.

Let there be no doubt in anyone's mind-- I am going to lambast the Bush administration's foul-play otherwise known as the liberation of Afghanistan. Nation-building has never been the forte of American international strategy. Given the short, 4-year attention span of politicians, most promises of reconstruction and aid have revealed themselves to be of the frat boy variety-- triumphantly spoken and quickly forgotten.

According to Shahabuddin Tarakhel reporting from Kabul, "Afghanistan’s Hindus and Sikhs, the country’s only significant non-Muslim minorities, say they continue to face prejudice and problems educating their children over a year after the collapse of the Islamic fundamentalist Taleban regime". Rahimullah Samander and Danish Karokhel reveal the problems faced by returning Ismailis:

Afghanistan's Ismaili community, which suffered mass killings under the Taleban regime, is now facing persecution under the country's new transitional democratic government.

The Ismailis, who broke from the mainstream Shi'a Muslims in the 8th century and have over the years settled in several countries and in pockets of Afghanistan, particularly the Kayan valley north-west of Kabul, have long been regarded with suspicion by other groups in this conservative Muslim country because of their unorthodox religious views and practices.

Unlike other Muslims, Ismailis, who worship in secret, do not believe that a past religious leader will return to the world at a later date. Instead, they have followed an unbroken line of leaders up to the present Karim Aga Khan, who is active in international humanitarian efforts.

In addition to the insecurity ethnic relations which continue to plague Afghanistan, thousands of Afghan women are suffering from mental illness resulting from the last 20 years of violent conflict in the area. Unfortunately, these women, unlike our dear, "stressed" American soccer-moms, will not find salvation in a little Prozac or Xanax or Johnny Walker Black Label. Apparently, opium use is on the rise among Afghani females.

The economic scene does not look much better. Difficulties in adjusting to the newly-issued currency has created a flood of forged banknotes, raising new concerns about the economic stability most productive to the institutionalization of multiethnic, pluralist democracy. And with the media's attention to the war on Iraq, Bush's promises will be worth less than the sum of his speech-writer's salary. Next promise from our frat-boys-cum-statesmen? "Democracy and liberation for the Iraqi people!" I've got five lives on it.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

A case of premature repatriation.

Around 1.7 million refugees - four times the planned total - came home from Pakistan and Iran in 2002. Writing from Kabul, Colin McIntyre suggests that last year's UN-organized mass repatriation of almost 2 million Afghan refugees was "premature and has caused serious disruption to the country’s reconstruction process".

McIntyre's conclusions draw from a study conducted by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) entitled, "Taking Refugees for a Ride?". In this study, the AREU claims the programme was driven by internal and external political pressures rather than the best interests of the displaced persons themselves. But the United Nations High Council for Refugess, UNHCR, has defended the repatriation programme. Quick fact check-- did the UNHCR ever argue in favor of repatriating the Kosovar and Albanian Muslims who made their way into Macedonia in the past six years?

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

The Radical on Roma rights.

The Radical pens a good sum of the situation facing Bosnian Roma. He notes that a 1991 census counted approximately 8,800 self-declared Roms in Bosnia-Herzegovina, although an article from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting suggests that the actual number may be 10 times as high.

According to the Roma activist, Alexandra Raykova, 60% of Bosnian Roma are illiterate, 90% lack health insurance and several do not even have citizenship. In addition, many Roma children cannot even attend school because other parents refuse to allow them to sit in the same classrooms as their children. There can be no doubt that the Roma are furthered encumbered by their statelessness. In fact, many Roma are not even mentioned on census counts for European countries.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

A worker's syndicate strike in Romania, as photographed by Silviu Ghetie.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Loneliness by Rainer Maria Rilke, as translated by Robert Bly.

Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.

It rains down on us in those twittering
hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
and when two bodies who have found nothing,
dissapointed and depressed, roll over;
and when two people who despise eachother
have to sleep together in one bed-

that is when loneliness recieves the rivers...

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

How effective are US ground troops since RMA?

The battle of Shah-i-Kot, fought in March 2002, was widely spun as a vindication of the effectiveness of US troops on the ground. Not so, says Michael Griffin: it showed them as an overwieldy and unprepared force when confronted by their Pashtun and Al Qa'ida enemy, veterans of countless mountain skirmishes. Other sources have led me to believe that RMA makes ground forces much less important to the current high-tech warfare.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Why are classes still getting bigger?

The Manhattan Institute's Education Research Office has shown that a 48% increase in the teacher workforce, adjusting for enrollment increases, has not led to a reduction in class sizes. A new article by Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster, writing for The National Review, attempts to explain how this counterintuitive development has occurred.

"GIVE BACK MY BOOK AND TAKE MY KISS INSTEAD.
WAS IT MY ENEMY OR MY FRIEND I HEARD,
"WHAT A BIG BOOK FOR SUCH A LITTLE HEAD!"
-Edna Saint Vincent Millay

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