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edyong | April 28, 2009The autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), including autism and its milder cousin Asperger syndrome, affect about 1 in 150 American children. There's a lot of evidence that these conditions have a strong genetic basis. For example, identical twins who share the same DNA are much more likely to both develop similar autistic disorders than non-identical twins, who only share half their DNA.
But the hunt for mutations that predispose people to autism has been long and fraught. By looking at families with a history of ASDs, geneticists have catalogued hundreds of genetic variants that are linked to…
esiegel | May 2, 2008Clearly, neither the man nor the bull below is headed for anything good in their attempt to walk on water,
and for that matter, neither is this poor, bristling cat,
but what about this reptile?
Unbelievably, this lizard actually can walk on water! And without using any surface tension tricks like insects do, either. No, whereas a human puts his foot into the water and sinks, this lizard has a very low mass and a very large surface area on his feet, allowing him to "run" on water as long as he moves quickly enough. For this lizard, that's about 10 miles-per-hour. As opposed to a human, who…