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Treating toddlers for autism brings big benefits
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60 SECONDS
in October, which said the firm must rethink the “fundamental engineering standards” of the reactor housing. The US plans to build 14 AP1000s; China four. For its nuclear programme, the UK is considering the AP1000 and the European pressurised water reactor (EPR), developed by Areva and EDF. The EPR is the front runner, but its design was also criticised by the HSE. Kevin Allars of the HSE adds that neither reactor is unsafe and that the criticisms are a normal part of the regulatory process. The nuclear companies say they are addressing the problems.
New HIV advice
GOOD news on the HIV front. The World Health Organization now advises giving antiretroviral therapy (ART) to people with HIV earlier in the infection cycle, which should slow progression of the disease in individuals and also “People who are treated early survive for longer put a brake on its spread. and are less likely to The WHO previously advised pass on the virus” starting ART only when levels of the CD4 immune cells attacked The WHO also changed advice by HIV dip below 200 per cubic to breastfeeding women with HIV. millimetre of blood, which is typically when symptoms appear. It now recommends ART for them due to evidence that this helps stop But recent studies have shown transmission of HIV to the infant. that people survive for longer if
Collider smashes energy record
MAXIMILIEN BRICE/CERN GENEVA
2028 GMT, 29 November 2009. That’s when the Large Hadron Collider became the highest-energy particle accelerator ever. Researchers at CERN accelerated a beam of protons in the LHC to energies of 1.05 teraelectronvolts (TeV), breaking the previous record of 0.98 TeV held by the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. “Everything is going much faster than even the most optimistic of us dreamed,” says Steve Myers, director for research and technology. Within hours of snatching the title, both the LHC’s beams, one travelling clockwise and the other counterclockwise, were accelerated to still higher energies of 1.18 TeV. The beams will have collided, although
treated earlier, and that they are less likely to pass on the virus. Now the WHO has adopted the higher CD4 threshold of 350 cells. This will have its biggest impact in poorer countries served by the WHO’s HIV treatment programme.
Treat autism early
TODDLERS with symptoms of autism can show dramatic improvement if they are given early, intensive therapy. The finding, from the first randomised controlled trial in such young children, should settle the question of whether early screening and treatment of autism are worthwhile. Sally Rogers, a psychologist at the Mind Institute of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues randomly assigned autistic toddlers aged 18 to 30 months to receive either conventional care or an intensive programme of behavioural therapy known as the Early Start Denver Model. This emphasises fun, child-directed activities rather than the repetitive exercises used in conventional autism therapies. After two years, the 24 children in the ESDM programme achieved higher scores in IQ tests and in several measures of language use and social interaction than the children given conventional care. Psychologists who had not encountered the children before the treatment considered that seven of them no longer met the diagnostic criteria for autism, as compared with just one of the 21 given conventional care (Pediatrics, –Beam comes true– DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009.0958).
no data was collected as the detectors weren’t switched on. CERN plans to run the LHC at 1.18 TeV until 17 December in order to get the first set of data from the detectors, says Myers. Then it will shut down for a two-week break. Engineers are also testing the “beam dump” mechanism, an emergency break for a beam that can no longer be controlled by the LHC’s superconducting magnets. In such a situation, each beam would be steered into a tunnel where it would crash into a 7-metre-long block of composite graphite lined with stainless steel and concrete. Each block is designed to absorb 7 TeV – the expected energy per beam when the LHC is running at full tilt.
Smallest flower You’d have to be a very light-fingered thief to steal this orchid. Discovered hidden in the roots of a larger plant in Cerro Candelaria nature reserve in the eastern Andes, Ecuador, Platystele is the world’s smallest orchid. The flower is 2.1 millimetres wide and has transparent petals a mere one cell thick.
Black hole at work A supermassive black hole has been spied forging its future home. The black hole is spewing out a stream of energetic particles and gas that is forming stars in a neighbouring galaxy. The two will eventually merge. The finding hints that such black holes are born before their host galaxies (Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol 507, p 1359)
How Jane Austen died Jane Austen has long been thought to have died of Addison’s disease, which disrupts the adrenal gland. But Katherine White of the Addison’s Disease Self-Help Group in the UK disagrees. Addison’s causes confusion, but Austen wrote that she had a “clear head” and dictated comic verse before she died. Instead, she died of tuberculosis, says White (BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/jmh.2009.001453).
Sweet panda music If you’re a giant panda looking to get jiggy it helps to say so. Female pandas make different noises when fertile, researchers have shown in playback experiments. Males were twice as likely to approach and loiter near a speaker playing fertile rather than “pre-fertile” chirps (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1431).
Contagious loner You may feel you have none, but you can still pass loneliness on to your friends – and their friends, say Nicholas Kristakis of Harvard University and colleagues. They used surveys of Massachusetts residents to trace loneliness in social networks.
5 December 2009 | NewScientist | 7
60 SECONDS
in October, which said the firm must rethink the “fundamental engineering standards” of the reactor housing. The US plans to build 14 AP1000s; China four. For its nuclear programme, the UK is considering the AP1000 and the European pressurised water reactor (EPR), developed by Areva and EDF. The EPR is the front runner, but its design was also criticised by the HSE. Kevin Allars of the HSE adds that neither reactor is unsafe and that the criticisms are a normal part of the regulatory process. The nuclear companies say they are addressing the problems.
New HIV advice
GOOD news on the HIV front. The World Health Organization now advises giving antiretroviral therapy (ART) to people with HIV earlier in the infection cycle, which should slow progression of the disease in individuals and also “People who are treated early survive for longer put a brake on its spread. and are less likely to The WHO previously advised pass on the virus” starting ART only when levels of the CD4 immune cells attacked The WHO also changed advice by HIV dip below 200 per cubic to breastfeeding women with HIV. millimetre of blood, which is typically when symptoms appear. It now recommends ART for them due to evidence that this helps stop But recent studies have shown transmission of HIV to the infant. that people survive for longer if
Collider smashes energy record
MAXIMILIEN BRICE/CERN GENEVA
2028 GMT, 29 November 2009. That’s when the Large Hadron Collider became the highest-energy particle accelerator ever. Researchers at CERN accelerated a beam of protons in the LHC to energies of 1.05 teraelectronvolts (TeV), breaking the previous record of 0.98 TeV held by the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. “Everything is going much faster than even the most optimistic of us dreamed,” says Steve Myers, director for research and technology. Within hours of snatching the title, both the LHC’s beams, one travelling clockwise and the other counterclockwise, were accelerated to still higher energies of 1.18 TeV. The beams will have collided, although
treated earlier, and that they are less likely to pass on the virus. Now the WHO has adopted the higher CD4 threshold of 350 cells. This will have its biggest impact in poorer countries served by the WHO’s HIV treatment programme.
Treat autism early
TODDLERS with symptoms of autism can show dramatic improvement if they are given early, intensive therapy. The finding, from the first randomised controlled trial in such young children, should settle the question of whether early screening and treatment of autism are worthwhile. Sally Rogers, a psychologist at the Mind Institute of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues randomly assigned autistic toddlers aged 18 to 30 months to receive either conventional care or an intensive programme of behavioural therapy known as the Early Start Denver Model. This emphasises fun, child-directed activities rather than the repetitive exercises used in conventional autism therapies. After two years, the 24 children in the ESDM programme achieved higher scores in IQ tests and in several measures of language use and social interaction than the children given conventional care. Psychologists who had not encountered the children before the treatment considered that seven of them no longer met the diagnostic criteria for autism, as compared with just one of the 21 given conventional care (Pediatrics, –Beam comes true– DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009.0958).
no data was collected as the detectors weren’t switched on. CERN plans to run the LHC at 1.18 TeV until 17 December in order to get the first set of data from the detectors, says Myers. Then it will shut down for a two-week break. Engineers are also testing the “beam dump” mechanism, an emergency break for a beam that can no longer be controlled by the LHC’s superconducting magnets. In such a situation, each beam would be steered into a tunnel where it would crash into a 7-metre-long block of composite graphite lined with stainless steel and concrete. Each block is designed to absorb 7 TeV – the expected energy per beam when the LHC is running at full tilt.
Smallest flower You’d have to be a very light-fingered thief to steal this orchid. Discovered hidden in the roots of a larger plant in Cerro Candelaria nature reserve in the eastern Andes, Ecuador, Platystele is the world’s smallest orchid. The flower is 2.1 millimetres wide and has transparent petals a mere one cell thick.
Black hole at work A supermassive black hole has been spied forging its future home. The black hole is spewing out a stream of energetic particles and gas that is forming stars in a neighbouring galaxy. The two will eventually merge. The finding hints that such black holes are born before their host galaxies (Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol 507, p 1359)
How Jane Austen died Jane Austen has long been thought to have died of Addison’s disease, which disrupts the adrenal gland. But Katherine White of the Addison’s Disease Self-Help Group in the UK disagrees. Addison’s causes confusion, but Austen wrote that she had a “clear head” and dictated comic verse before she died. Instead, she died of tuberculosis, says White (BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/jmh.2009.001453).
Sweet panda music If you’re a giant panda looking to get jiggy it helps to say so. Female pandas make different noises when fertile, researchers have shown in playback experiments. Males were twice as likely to approach and loiter near a speaker playing fertile rather than “pre-fertile” chirps (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1431).
Contagious loner You may feel you have none, but you can still pass loneliness on to your friends – and their friends, say Nicholas Kristakis of Harvard University and colleagues. They used surveys of Massachusetts residents to trace loneliness in social networks.
5 December 2009 | NewScientist | 7