Finding an indicative difference in a tiny, yet random sample appears to have accomplished more than the guy yelling "small sample size" - and, which I find ironic - "waste!" here. They managed to add a tiny bit of contrast to a picture that's totally blank, and provide 15 pixels of data, please explain how that's supposed to be worthless?
By the same logic, if I manage to cure an extremely rare type of cancer under certain circumstances when it's detected early on, I get fired for having too little success? I mean, what? Seriously?
By all means, prove them wrong, but stop the yelling. That's even more worthless than any form of pioneering research.
Also, this technology is brand new. I mean, brand new. Single-cell RNA seq is only a few years old; single-nuclear is even newer. There are significant problems with analyzing this data, mostly related to the necessity to correct statistically between samples to remove batch effects before you can cross-compare. This is very, very hard and in general we are bad at it. I would say we can't really do it yet, and so experiments purporting to show differences between patients are likely to be the result of statistical artifacts, and not actual biological differences.
One complicating factor with a lot of these studies is how "autism symptoms" and the like are measured. Specifically, they measure something like "how much distress is the autistic individual under compared to how much they can handle". High level of distress leads to meltdowns, inability to handle outside behavioral demands, etc, and shows up as higher autism symptom load.
So this study is, IMO, much less about "gut problems cause autism", and I highly doubt that these individuals get any less autistic. A fairer characterization is "autistic people with gastrointestinal distress are less able to deal with things in general, and fixing the GI distress allows them to handle social demands better".
Unrelated : In this article double f, like in "affected" are rendered with the second f bigger than the first (both on firefox and chromium). I looked inside the css editor and the font seems to be ("Libre Baskerville", Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif).
I guess this is probably to improve readability but it doesn't do this for other pairs of repeated letters.
It kind of sent me into a rabbit hole as I thought font were defined for a single letter only. I did a quick search and I couldn't find the rules which defined fonts. Is there some pattern matching for sequence of characters ? More importantly, when trying a new font how do we know that there aren't special cases like this ugly "ff" ?
Searching for "fonts ligatures" will give you more reading material.
>I guess this is probably to improve readability but it doesn't do this for other pairs of repeated letters.
Ligatures are mostly a style thing from the days of handwriting that got brought forward into print.
>Is there some pattern matching for sequence of characters ?
Yes, combinations are pre-defined in the font and picked up the renderer. In this particular case, LibreBaskerville defines a combination of two f's to render the first f in a slightly smaller size.
Dr Exley of Keele University has been studying the role of aluminum in autism.
> Levels of mercury, lead, and aluminum in the hair of autistic children are higher than controls. Environmental exposure to these toxic heavy metals, at key times in development, may play a causal role in autism.
"Assessment of Hair Aluminum, Lead, and Mercury in a Sample of Autistic Egyptian Children: Environmental Risk Factors of Heavy Metals in Autism"
Since always? It’s a developmental disorder, and a disease is “a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.”
Pretty much every medical body would list it under its classification of illnesses.
The DSM-III, published in 1980, established autism as its own separate diagnosis and described it as a “pervasive developmental disorder” distinct from schizophrenia.
I don't know whether autism should be considered a disease or something else, but having a disease doesn't make a person bad or less valuable.
How about we work on understanding and acknowledging that having a disease or mental illness or physical disfigurement or disability is ok, no matter what it is?
Maybe I am reading too much into this question. I am sorry if I am. It's a pretty sore subject for me. I'm not trying to offend anyone.
[+] [-] greenflag|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mar77i|6 years ago|reply
By the same logic, if I manage to cure an extremely rare type of cancer under certain circumstances when it's detected early on, I get fired for having too little success? I mean, what? Seriously?
By all means, prove them wrong, but stop the yelling. That's even more worthless than any form of pioneering research.
[+] [-] astazangasta|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|6 years ago|reply
University of Arizona experimental study on 18 children:
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...
A very successful treatment of one child:
https://youtu.be/KRXl_N0OtX4?t=1477
[+] [-] ThrustVectoring|6 years ago|reply
So this study is, IMO, much less about "gut problems cause autism", and I highly doubt that these individuals get any less autistic. A fairer characterization is "autistic people with gastrointestinal distress are less able to deal with things in general, and fixing the GI distress allows them to handle social demands better".
[+] [-] gnoppa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway848483|6 years ago|reply
I guess this is probably to improve readability but it doesn't do this for other pairs of repeated letters.
It kind of sent me into a rabbit hole as I thought font were defined for a single letter only. I did a quick search and I couldn't find the rules which defined fonts. Is there some pattern matching for sequence of characters ? More importantly, when trying a new font how do we know that there aren't special cases like this ugly "ff" ?
[+] [-] Arnavion|6 years ago|reply
Searching for "fonts ligatures" will give you more reading material.
>I guess this is probably to improve readability but it doesn't do this for other pairs of repeated letters.
Ligatures are mostly a style thing from the days of handwriting that got brought forward into print.
>Is there some pattern matching for sequence of characters ?
Yes, combinations are pre-defined in the font and picked up the renderer. In this particular case, LibreBaskerville defines a combination of two f's to render the first f in a slightly smaller size.
[+] [-] spraak|6 years ago|reply
> Levels of mercury, lead, and aluminum in the hair of autistic children are higher than controls. Environmental exposure to these toxic heavy metals, at key times in development, may play a causal role in autism.
"Assessment of Hair Aluminum, Lead, and Mercury in a Sample of Autistic Egyptian Children: Environmental Risk Factors of Heavy Metals in Autism"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4609793/
[+] [-] dazfuller|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogma1138|6 years ago|reply
Pretty much every medical body would list it under its classification of illnesses.
e.g. NHS: https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/brain-ne...
[+] [-] daegloe|6 years ago|reply
What most seem to agree on is that “Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a group of complex neurodevelopment disorders [1].”
Is a disorder a disease? While the terms are often used interchangeably by us laymen, the DSM-5 distinguishes the two [2].
[0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/abcs-child-psychiatr...
[1] https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Educat...
[2] http://www2.hawaii.edu/~heiby/overheads_classification.html
[+] [-] pasiaj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] checkyoursudo|6 years ago|reply
How about we work on understanding and acknowledging that having a disease or mental illness or physical disfigurement or disability is ok, no matter what it is?
Maybe I am reading too much into this question. I am sorry if I am. It's a pretty sore subject for me. I'm not trying to offend anyone.
[+] [-] snrji|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atian|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hairyhulk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jennie478|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] spraak|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nsnick|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justforyou|6 years ago|reply