2012 – Page 30 – GOLLYGEE!

09.23.2012

gender bias

Gender bias in science is more than just imagined. It’s real. From Scientific American:

But in a groundbreaking study published in PNAS last week by Corinne Moss-Racusin and colleagues, that is exactly what was done. On Wednesday, Sean Carrollblogged about and brought to light the research from Yale that had scientists presented with application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position and who intended to go on to graduate school. Half the scientists were given the application with a male name attached, and half were given the exact same application with a female name attached. Results found that the “female” applicants were rated significantly lower than the “males” in competence, hireability, and whether the scientist would be willing to mentor the student.The scientists also offered lower starting salaries to the “female” applicants: $26,507.94 compared to $30,238.10.

Today was the 22nd First Annual awarding of the Ig Nobel Prizes. The awards are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. The awarding committee says the prizes are awarded to “honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.” Wikipedia however says the prizes are awarded to trivial achievements in scientific research. Here are a few of today’s honorees:

1. ANATOMY PRIZE: Frans de Waal [The Netherlands and USA] and Jennifer Pokorny [USA] for discovering that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually from seeing photographs of their rear ends.
REFERENCE: “Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception” Frans B.M. de Waal and Jennifer J. Pokorny, Advanced Science Letters, vol. 1, 99–103, 2008.

2. NEUROSCIENCE PRIZE: Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford [USA], for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere — even in a dead salmon.
REFERENCE: “Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction,” Craig M. Bennett, Abigail A. Baird, Michael B. Miller, and George L. Wolford, 2009.
REFERENCE: “Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Multiple Comparisons Correction,” Craig M. Bennett, Abigail A. Baird, Michael B. Miller, and George L. Wolford, Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results, vol. 1, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1-5.

3. CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Johan Pettersson [SWEDEN and RWANDA]. for solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslöv, Sweden, people’s hair turned green.

4. FLUID DYNAMICS PRIZE: Rouslan Krechetnikov [USA, RUSSIA, CANADA] and Hans Mayer [USA] for studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks while carrying a cup of coffee.
REFERENCE: “Walking With Coffee: Why Does It Spill?” Hans C. Mayer and Rouslan Krechetnikov, Physical Review E, vol. 85, 2012.

Check out the full list of winners here.

09.20.2012

arbaclofen and autism

Arbaclofen shows promise as a treatment for Fragile X syndrome and autism.

An experimental drug called arbaclofen has helped improve outcomes in patients with Fragile X syndrome. Fragile X syndrome causes cognitive and social dysfunctions that are similar to autism. Researchers are hoping this treatment may have broader applicability, though that remains to be seen. From NPR:

An experimental drug that helps people who have Fragile X syndrome is raising hopes of a treatment for autism.

The drug, called arbaclofen, made people with Fragile X less likely to avoid social interactions, according to a study in Science Translational Medicine. Researchers suspect it might do the same for people with autism.

Arbaclofen appears to work by tamping down overactive brain signals that can make it hard to navigate social interactions.

There’s a good chance it will help people with autism unrelated to Fragile X because they have similar problems with social interactions, says Mark Bear, a researcher at MIT and a co-founder of Seaside Therapeutics, which makes arbaclofen.

“It would be, I think, unrealistic to expect that this drug would be uniformly beneficial to all people that have an autism diagnosis,” Bear says. “But I think we can still be quite optimistic that it can be beneficial to a subset of those patients.”

GOLLYGEE!

Year: 2012 (page 30 of 55)

gender bias

ig nobel prizes

arbaclofen and autism