Why Are Autism Rates Steadily Rising?

Why Are Autism Rates Steadily Rising?

Stefania Sterling with her son Charlie, who was diagnosed at age 3 with autism.

(Courtesy)


Keep Reading Keep Reading
Caren Chesler
Caren Chesler is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, Salon, and Popular Mechanics. She has a blog called The Dancing Egg, about having a baby at 47 through IVF.
Could Biologically Enhancing Our Morality Save Our Species?

A human head pictured with a red heart in the place of a brain.

(© blacksalmon/Fotolia)


Keep Reading Keep Reading
Julian Savulescu
Professor Julian Savulescu has held the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford since 2002. He has degrees in medicine, neuroscience and bioethics. He directs the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics within the Faculty of Philosophy, and co-directs the interdisciplinary Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities in collaboration with Public Health, Psychiatry and History. In 2017, he joined the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, spending four months per year as Visiting Professorial Fellow in Biomedical Ethics where he is working to establish a program in biomedical ethics, and Melbourne University as Distinguished International Visiting Professor in Law. He is Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bucharest in 2014. (Photo credit: Murray Bransgrove)
Deep Brain Stimulation for Mental Illnesses Raises Ethical Concerns

Deep brain stimulation: This neurosurgical treatment involves the implantation of electrodes in the cerebral lobes of the brain, linked through the scalp (top) to wires (down right) leading to a battery implanted below the skin. This sends electrical impulses to specific areas of the brain. DBS was developed for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, but is being investigated for use in other conditions.

(© PASIEKA/Getty Images)


Keep Reading Keep Reading
David Levine
David Levine is co-chairman of Science Writers in New York (SWINY) and is a member of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) and the Association of Healthcare Journalists. He was director of media relations for the American Cancer Society and senior director of communications at the NYC Health and Hospitals Corp. He has written for Scientific American, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Nature Medicine, the Smithsonian, More and Good Housekeeping, and was a contributing editor at Physician's Weekly for 10 years. He has a BA and MA from Johns Hopkins University.