Remember I was on the Radio?

The Class Wargames people uploaded the MP3 files of the interview they did with me on September 2.

http://www.roddickinson.net/gow/resources/radio/September_2nd_2009.mp3
or more broadly
http://www.classwargames.net/pages/radio.html

I think I sound awful. Nasal voice, stilted delivery, I am obviously working off a script I wrote and go on for far too long. Dull, dull, dull. Obviously, I haven't feard form these folks since.

I obviously have no future in radio!

Elsewhere, they review two other games of mine, thankfully without my presence:
http://www.roddickinson.net/gow/resources/radio/August_26th_2009.mp3 (Red Guard)
http://www.classwargames.net/radio/july_15th_2009.mp3 (Freikorps)

Autism-Schizophrenia genetic link

This is interesting....

Autism and schizophrenia linked to faults in same genes: Study

By Randy Shore, For Canwest News Service
December 3, 2009 8:12

METRO VANCOUVER – Simon Fraser University researchers have found that autism and schizophrenia are both caused by faults in the same set of genes, raising hopes that an effective test or treatment for one may be adapted for use on the other.

The finding is a radical departure from conventional medical thinking about the two disorders as separate and distinct illnesses, according to evolutionary biologist Bernard Crespi, but it opens the door to new avenues of research into the cause and potential cure for each.
( Read more... )

I have always been of the tendency that both were genetically caused, at least enough for a predisposition. I agree it would be nice if some form of therapy could be discovered for either, or both. However, I don't know if I like the metaphor of "dialing human evolution up and down", but then again, I'm not supposed to be able to comprehend figurative language in the first place.

CBC wrote it up a little differently:

Mutations link autism, schizophrenia: study

Last Updated: Thursday, December 3, 2009 | 11:44 AM PT
CBC News

Autism and schizophrenia may be genetic opposites, an evolutionary biologist in British Columbia says.

Bernard Crespi of Simon Fraser University and his colleagues analyzed data on all known genetic variants linked to both conditions.

Crespi thinks that autism and schizophrenia are diametric opposites in how they affect gene activity in specific regions of the brain.

The researchers looked at four regions in the human genome where mutations known as copy number variants can arise — stretches of DNA that contain accidental duplications or deletions. Instead of the usual two copies, one or three copies may be found.

The investigators found deletion mutations in people with autism and duplications in people with schizophrenia, the team reported in this week's online issue of the Proceedings of the of the National Academy of Sciences.

Crespi said the immediate importance of the finding is that if autism and schizophrenia are proven to be opposites, then researchers working on a therapy for one illness may be able to consider new directions for the other.

"The conceptual framework of one disorder will illuminate the study of the other," he told CBC News.

This could be true for both drugs and cognitive behaviour or talk therapy, since drugs working on receptors in the brain could be dialled down for one condition and made to work more for the other.

The findings fit with data from studies of head and brain sizes that show autism is commonly associated with developmentally enhanced brain growth while people with schizophrenia tend to show reduced brain growth.

The copy number variants are very rare events. When they do occur, the odds of getting autism or schizophrenia increase dramatically, Crespi said.