Conway Twitty/Sam Moore - Rainy Night In Georgia

Very soothing song. One of my favorites.

Discovery Health Channel on Autism

Last night when I got home from iaido practice I turned on the TV, hoping for a bit of mindless down spooling of the old brain engine.

As I was flipping through the channels I came to Discovery Health and they were showing the above show. I found it to be very interesting; it was obviously geared to a lay audience and the story line based upon a family in Southern California who has a very young child who has been diagnosed with autism.

Good description of the day to day struggles that the family has with coping with their child. The scene later shifted to the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute where a number of studies are being conducted. I was interested in two that they were working on that were featured:

Autism Phenome Project: From the FAQ section of the UCD MIND webpage:

What is the APP?
APP stands for the Autism Phenome Project. We now believe that autism may not have one single biological cause, but rather several different biological causes. We suspect that within autism there are subgroups with different biologics underlying their autism. We believe that identifying these different subgroups will help us sort out the causations of autism and develop better interventions and treatments.

What is a phenome?
A phenome is a “type”. When we study different autism phenomes we are studying different types of autism.

How is this study different from other studies?
A critical and unique feature of the APP is that all children will have a comprehensive evaluation ranging from genes to immune function to brain scans to behavior. We will then be able to assess and compare all of this information to develop meaningful subtypes. We will be studying the course of these different kinds of autism over a period of five years, allowing us to learn the key characteristics of each type and how each develops over time.

As a subset of the phenome project there was some discussion of the possibility of an auto-immune component having an effect on the brain modeling that occurs in the peri-natal and developing brain leading to a perturbation of brain anatomy. To that end they were studying MRIs (not fMRI) of kids so affected. What they did find were frontal lobe lesions where the brain was larger in this area than others. However, the finding was not universal but only found in about 10% of the children studied.

I think Ms. Teryl is on the right track with her hypothesis that perturbations of peptidase inhibitors may somehow be involved. The problem with a problem manifest in large part by language difficulties, is that there is not an animal model.

Query? Is the gene for A1AT deficiency anywhere near the locus for neuroserpine? Need more time to do some critical thinking about this.

UPDATE: Well, I didn't have to look far for my question above, the answer is no. Neuroserpine gene data with associated articles here. Gene data for A1AT is here. Now have to do even more critical thinking.

Song for the Day -Oklahoma!

I grew up with the 1950s version but Hugh Jackman is awesome in this role.

Song for the Day -Smoke on the Water Japanese version

OK, this just cracked me up.

Song of the Day - Diana Krall - Look Of Love

Heard this over lunch today. Diana Krall is a wonder chanteuse who gets everything out of the song that it has to offer. Plus this ballad has always been one of my favorites.

SCA stuff

This weekend was very busy and not related to my day job. Friday morning T and I got up and went out to the ranch. Spring is finally nearly here and it's time to get the garden going. We were not happy with the way it turned out last year, probably because we didn't have the right infrastructure in place to support a GOOD garden. This year is better. We have plans and have been laying in supplies for drip irrigation. The main problem we are going to have to deal with is weeds.

Here are some of the ones that have been plaguing us

• Kochia
• Creeping spurge
• In fact, a lot of them are here.

So the question is how to get rid of them in an environmentally friendly way. That will have to be solved.

But I came across a most interesting article though:

Williams, GM et al., Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and it's active ingredient glycophosphatee for humans. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol, 31: 117-65 (2000)

Conclusion: Under present and expected conditions of use, Roundup herbicide does not post a health risk to humans.

As to SCA stuff, one of the Golden Scarves, then Lord Justin Biddle was going to be promoted to Defender of the White Scarf. Guillaume and I drove to SLC Saturday morning and arrived about noon. I was chivvied into entering the Loch Salaan rapier championship tournament. I ended up finishing 3rd of 18 entrants. Not a bad showing but I must learn to fence left handed - I wonder if you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I'm checking out some of the points that Teryl made on my post below and will comment on them in the next couple of days.

Song for the Day: Kendo-Music Video Clip

OK, the music is cool and the video is too. However, having said that the tsuka of one of the guy on the left is way too long for him.