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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Software, biotech firms and others who develop new ways to do business will be watching closely on Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case that could determine if such innovations can win patent protection.

The case itself involves a small Pittsburgh company called WeatherWise, founded by Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw, to sell services based on hedging methods that allow users to make fixed energy payments even if usage or energy prices vary.

But when they tried to patent the hedging method, the U.S. patent office rejected it in 2000. The patent board upheld the rejection in 2006.

The battle continued up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which in 1998 had broadened the definition of what was patentable to anything except laws of nature and abstract ideas.

But, after hearing the Bilski case, the court, which specializes in patent appeals, sought to set limits. It ruled that the hedging method could not be patented because it was not tied to a machine and did not result in a transformation.

The Federal Circuit decision threw doubt on tens of thousands of business method patents, like software patents and medical diagnostic patents. One of the best-known examples of a business method patent is Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) one-click process to buy goods on the Internet.

“I did some math this morning and the market cap of the companies that filed (friend of the court) briefs is $1.2 trillion,” said Marc Pernick, a patent attorney with law firm Morrison Foerster.

Some, like software and biotechnology companies, want the definition of what can be patented to be as broad as possible because they license out those processes. Others, like some financial institutions, want business method patents to be restricted to avoid getting sued.

RULING EXPECTED IN 2010

The Supreme Court justices are scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on Monday, beginning at 1 p.m. EST. A decision is expected by the end of June.

Patent experts agree that, however the court rules, it will not simply affirm the Federal Circuit decision.

“The track record is that when the Supreme Court takes a case from the Federal Circuit that they see something they want to change,” said Pavan Agarwal, a patent attorney with law firm Foley and Lardner.

When the court has ruled on patent cases recently, it has tended to rule unanimously or nearly unanimously.

The high court ruled unanimously in 2008 in Quanta v. LG Electronics that patent rights were exhausted once a product was sold. A company could not sue a downstream purchaser for infringement.

In 2007, in KSR v. Teleflex, the court unanimously made it easier to show that an innovation was an obvious improvement on existing technology and, thus, should not have been patented.

In MedImmune v. Genentech, the court ruled in 2007 that a patent licensee need not stop paying royalties or otherwise breach a licensing agreement before challenging the validity of a patent. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.

A 2006 Supreme Court ruling, eBay v. MercExchange, made it harder to win an injunction in the case of infringement.

WeatherWise co-founder Rand Warsaw estimated losses to his small company, because it could not patent the hedging method, at about $5 million a year.

“This lack of patent protection has given rise to competitors and given rise to companies who have taken our intellectual property. For other small companies this could have been a death blow,” he said.

Warsaw said the future of biotech medical processes could depend on what the Supreme Court decided.

“Processes are cheap to replicate,” he said, arguing that it could hypothetically cost $1 billion to develop a biotech medical process to prevent a birth defect but just $1 million to set up a competitor who stole the idea.

“If I were a big biotech company or Harvard Medical School, somebody who does fundamental research, (I’d say) ‘Why am I putting hundreds of millions of dollars into something that I’m going to lose?’” said Warsaw.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Got tiny milk?

[Individual OreoOreo-cake and stand from Williams Sonoma via The Daily What and Bem Legaus]

NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Defense contractor Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) has agreed to sell its TASC consulting unit to two buyout firms, General Atlantic and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., for $1.65 billion, the companies said on Sunday.

The deal is the latest in a spate of buyouts, as the financing markets improve. On Thursday, the biggest leveraged buyout of the year was signed, when private equity firm TPG and the Canada Pension Plan struck a $4 billion deal to buy IMS Health Inc (RX.N).

Northrop hired investment banks to sell the unit, which advises government military agencies, a few months ago, drawing interest from a number of private equity firms.

Sources told Reuters in September that a sale, originally expected to fetch about $2 billion, would more likely be around $1.5 billion.

The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter.

Financing commitments for the acquisition are comprised of senior secured credit facilities and senior subordinated notes, the companies said in a press release.

The credit facilities will be provided by Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), RBC Capital Markets and CPPIB Credit Investments.

KKR’s Capital Markets unit arranged the senior subordinated notes with Highbridge Mezzanine Partners as the lead investor.

Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and RBC Capital Markets advised General Atlantic and KKR.

By Megan Davies

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When someone says “portable,” what do you think? I think “fits in a bag or pocket,” but some people would go the “portable” generator route and say “is not physically fixed in position.” That seems to be the “portable” that the creators of the SNEGENES had in mind when they said their device was so. Now, I don’t want to detract from the obvious glory of what has been created here: a (technically) handheld device that will play cartridges from NES, SNES, and Genesis — but really, that thing is about as portable as my bathtub.

Note that in the video above, everything is flipped left-right. While this would make for an interesting twist on some of your old favorites (imagine running left in Sonic), it is in fact just a video issue (shot in Photo Booth, I believe).

Now, as we’ve seen with the handheld Genesis I reviewed just a few weeks ago, you an easily put a Genesis and some games on a chip and it’ll work great. But if I’m not mistaken, the actual hardware and PCBs of all three systems (clones, but still) are integrated into the construction of this grotesque gaming Cerberus. Again, this somewhat affects its portability.

Yet, that said… why do I want one so bad?

[via Technabob and Gizmodo]

A core feature of the health overhaul proposal unveiled by House Republicans – and of GOP plans for years – would allow individual health insurance policies to be sold across state lines. Currently, consumers can buy policies only from insurers licensed by the states where they live.

Congressional Republicans have proposed the idea in the past and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., embraced it as part of his presidential campaign last year. Advocates say it would give the more than 17 million Americans who buy individual coverage a greater choice of plans and the possibility of lower prices.

The measure does not apply to the 159 million non-elderly Americans who obtain insurance through their employers. Some insurers support the GOP approach, as does the National Federation of Independent Business, which says it would help the self-employed and also hopes lawmakers would give small employers the opportunity to buy workers’ insurance this way.

But critics — including consumer watchdog groups and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners — say the provision would erode many state government consumer protections, leave policyholders with inadequate coverage and could actually lead to higher premiums for some people.

The Republican health plan was rejected by the House Saturday evening, 176-258. Just one Republican, Rep. Timothy Johnson, R-Ill., joined the Democrats to vote against the legislation. Nonetheless, advocates are expected to push for a similar provision when, and if, the full Senate takes up its health bill.

Here is a short primer on the issue.

Q. What currently restricts insurers from selling policies outside of their home states?

States have primary regulatory authority over insurance. As a result, insurers are allowed to sell policies only in states where they are licensed to do business. Most insurers obtain licenses in multiple states. States have different laws regulating benefits, consumer protections and financial and solvency requirements.

Q. What do advocates say are the main advantages to allowing insurers to sell across state lines?

The individual health insurance market is dominated in many states by just a handful of companies, so this provision would allow consumers to shop broadly for cheaper policies, supporters say. “You want to have greater competition in the insurance market and this does that,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and top health advisor to McCain during his presidential campaign.

The Republican bill says consumers may be able to buy “less expensive” policies in other states because of variations in laws and regulations. While some states may require insurers to pay for a particular treatment of autism, for example, others don’t. Insurers bristle at many of these mandates, saying they drive up costs, but studies generally show their impact on rates is limited.

“This is absolutely a way to get around some of those state mandated benefit laws that are counterproductive and drive up insurance costs,” said Merrill Matthews Jr., executive director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, which represents companies selling individual health insurance.

Q. Why is there skepticism about the Republican measure?

“It always sounds appealing to offer more choice,” said Kenneth Thorpe, an Emory University health policy expert and a Health and Human Services official in the Clinton administration. “But if you do look at it more closely, it does raise issues of regulation.”

Regulation is important, critics of the GOP proposal say. In addition to requiring coverage of certain problems and treatments, some states require insurers to sell policies to all applicants and price them uniformly within the same geographic area regardless of individuals’ health status.

If insurers can sell beyond state lines, the concern is that consumers would be attracted to the least comprehensive policies because they’d be cheapest. “You get what you pay for in these policies (and) consumers won’t realize it until they are sick and it’s too late,” said Jerry Flanagan, health care policy analyst for Consumer Watchdog, a California consumer health group.

The states with the most comprehensive policies often mandate that coverage – for example, one state could require that insurers cover diabetic testing supplies, another might not. Critics say that – at best – selling insurance across state lines might not save much money, and point to a 2005 CBO report that says: “if only those benefit mandates imposed by the states with the lowest-cost mandates were in effect in all states, the price of individual health insurance would be reduced by about 5 percent, on average.”

There are also fears that consumers dealing with out-of-state companies would have difficulties resolving disputes. While the bill would require, in large type, consumer disclosure statements spelling out, among things, that the policy is “not subject to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes” required in the buyer’s home state, “You should carefully review the policy and determine what health care services the policy covers and what benefits it provides, including any exclusions, limitations, or conditions for such services or benefits.”

Critics say insurers selling across state lines would market policies to younger, healthier individuals. Older and sicker individuals would face ever-rising rates – or face being turned down – because their insurers would have fewer healthy people to spread risk. And, since health costs vary geographically, insurance purchased in one state might not cover as much of the cost of care in a more expensive state. 

Q. Do the Democratic bills allow some form of insurance selling across state lines?

Yes, but with much tighter restrictions than are in the Republicans’ plan. The House Democrats’ bill would allow states to form compacts enabling consumers to buy policies from insurers licensed in any of the states governed by the agreement. A consumer’s home state would retain authority to handle disputes. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which represents state regulators, would have primary authority to develop rules, but if it failed to do so, the job would fall to the HHS Secretary.

The Senate Finance Committee bill would enable insurers to create nationwide plans. Insurers would have to be licensed in each state where they sell these plans, but would have the authority to offer only those benefits mandated by the majority of states. Thus, benefits required by relatively few states would not have to be in the plans. States, however, could decline to make such plans available to their residents.

 

 

Watching this video, it doesn’t seem very much more than a demo for a rather anonymous-looking little touchscreen device, a PMP prototype maybe. Then you find out that the whole thing is running an 8-bit processor with 4KB of RAM. Touchscreen tricks like scrolling momentum are implemented perfectly well, and there appears to be little or no lag. Pac-Man runs at 60fps, which is more than I can say for the version on my G1.

The touchscreen is salvaged from an off-brand PMP, and the CPU is a 12Mhz Atmega644 — not something I’m familiar with, but I trust the author when he says it’s about 3% of the speed of an iPhone. And it’ll render a polyhedron (though I doubt it can texture it).

The question this brings up for me is why aren’t all interfaces so snappy at this point? I understand there’s more going on under the hood in a smartphone than in a demo application like this thing, but seriously, I’m going to have lag when I hit the home button on a CPU faster than the one I had in my PC a few years ago? Make it better.

[via MAKE]

Developer Visual Impact found some good use for the DSi’s camera and integrated it into their new game, System Flaw. The feature basically adds the g…

Japanese company announces Dragon Ball headphones
Toyjector: Cute mini projector to be released in Japan
Choken Bako: Cute Japanese piggy bank
Video: Strange Japanese hamburger vending machine
The Electrobite makes it fun and exciting to be handicapped

Electronic Arts’ MMA may not be getting anything from the UFC, but EA Sports managed to sign Strikeforce into their stable as a premier league, bri…

After yesterday, when the House of Representatives cleared its version of sweeping health overhaul legislation, the Sunday talk shows were full of GOP and Democratic leaders talking about the impact of that vote as well as what might happen in the Senate.

Reuters: “After a landmark win in the U.S. House of Representatives, President Barack Obama’s push for healthcare reform faces a difficult path in the Senate amid divisions in his own Democratic Party on how to proceed.” In the Senate, there’s no margin for error. Democrats control 60 votes, but some either oppose or are hesitant about Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to include a public insurance option in the version of legislation he sends to the Senate floor. “Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, renewed his promise on Sunday to help Republicans block a final vote” if the bill contains the public plan supported by Senate liberals. “‘If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,’ Lieberman said on Fox News Sunday.”

The newly passed House version of sweeping health reform legislation triggered criticism from the right. “‘The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,’ Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on CBS’s Face the Nation, calling it ‘a bill written by liberals for liberals.’” The Reuters’ report notes that yesterday’s House vote was a key win for President Obama, “who staked much of his political capital on the healthcare battle.” A loss would have could have ended the effort, limited his ability to advance the rest of his agenda and left Democrats vulnerable in next year’s congressional elections. But “Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008 and a leader of conservative grass-roots opposition to Obama’s agenda, promised retribution in those elections.” She wrote on her Facebook page that the next moves are in the Senate. “Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It’s their choice,” she wrote. “We will make our voices heard” (Whitesides, 11/8). 

CBS News: During his appearance on Face the Nation, Graham — terming the House bill a “non-starter in the Senate” — also said “that if it were to come down to it, he would join his independent colleague Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., in filibustering a bill including the so-called public option should it come to the Senate floor. … I just think the construct out of the House and what exists in the Senate is not going to pass, and I hope and pray it doesn’t because it would be a disaster for the economy and health care.” Graham believed a public option would “destroy” private health care, saying that insurance companies could not compete against the lower premiums of a government-backed plan. “It will be a death blow to private choice,” he said.

Meanwhile, also on Face the Nation, Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I., said he believed the Senate is going to pass health care reform. “I believe we must do this because it’s essential to not just the quality of life here but our economic success in the future.” (Levi, 11/8).

The Associated Press: Republican officials took to the airwaves to warn that Democrats will pay a political price as a result of the majority’s health care win. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the number 3 House GOP leader, highlighted the Republican wins in last week’s Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races as an indicator of how yesterday’s House vote showed that Democrats are out of step with the American public. “‘On a narrow partisan vote, the Democrats put their liberal, big government agenda ahead of the American people,’ Pence said. ‘If Democrats keep ignoring the American people, their party’s going to be history in about a year.’” But Democrats argued that the outcome of those governors’ races reflected state rather than national concerns. Democrats “say victories in House races in New York and California are evidence that voters support their efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care system. …’The message was clear. It’s time to begin to fix what has been a broken health care system for millions of Americans,’ said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.” But Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele “said the House bill allows the government to take over the health care even though Americans don’t want the government in charge. ‘The Democratic Party had better pay attention to what the people out here are saying,’ Steele said.” But Democratic Party Chair and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine “dismissed Republican talk of a backlash from the health care bill. ‘They’ve been trying to block this all year,’ Kaine said. ‘They’ve said that they want to beat health care reform as a way to break the president.’” Pence and Van Hollen made their comments while appearing on Fox News Sunday. Steele and Kaine spoke on ABC’s This Week (Daniel, 11/8).

Meanwhile, in a separate story, The Associated Press reports on White House reaction the day after the key House vote. In a brief Rose Garden statement, President Barack Obama said Sunday “it’s now up to the Senate to take the baton from the House and pass a bill aimed at overhauling the nation’s health care system.” The Senate has not yet scheduled action on its version of health overhaul legislation, “and Republicans are pledging to stop the Democratic measure from passing Congress (11/8).

Fans of Assassin’s Creed are gonna get a double whammy this month. Not only will November see the launch of Assassin’s Creed II for the PS3, Xbox 360,…

Once again it’s Nurse Practitioner’s week. Please take some time and visit your favorite NP and let them know just how much you appreciate their hard work and time taking care of you and yours. Also, stop by and leave a nice comment on your favorite NP’s blogsite. They’ll love it!

News outlets are still digesting the House of Representatives’ passage of a landmark health care overhaul and also looking ahead to the Senate, where an effort to meld two health reform bills is stalled.

The New York Times: “Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.  After a daylong clash with Republicans over what has been a Democratic goal for decades, lawmakers voted 220 to 215 to approve a plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Democrats said the legislation would provide overdue relief to Americans struggling to buy or hold on to health insurance. ‘This is our moment to revolutionize health care in this country,’ said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and one of the chief architects of the bill” (Hulse and Pear, 11/8). 

The Associated Press: The “vote late Saturday cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress. A triumphant Speaker Nancy Pelosi compared the legislation to the passage of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare 30 years later. Obama, who went to Capitol Hill earlier on Saturday to lobby wavering Democrats, said in a statement after the vote, ‘I look forward to signing it into law by the end of the year.’”

“The bill drew the votes of 219 Democrats and Rep. Joseph Cao, a first-term Republican who holds an overwhelmingly Democratic seat in New Orleans. Opposed were 176 Republicans and 39 Democrats.” (Werner, 11/8).

MSNBC: “It was about a 13-hour day in the House, but throughout the day, Democrats sounded confident. The president stopped by to meet with the Democratic caucus in the morning, but Majority Whip Jim Clyburn acknowledged that Obama didn’t affect the vote. Obama likely wouldn’t have been there if the votes weren’t there — and the bill wouldn’t have come up for a vote.” MSNBC offered some thoughts on what happened between Friday, “when Democrats seemed just short” of the needed vote tally, and Saturday night. “Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi behind closed doors, solved the abortion issue with pro-life Catholic Democrats.” Between 20 to 30 votes depended on this agreement. “Pelosi got the endorsement of the Catholic Bishops, and she allowed — and said she suggested — that an amendment explicitly banning federal funding in the House bill, would be voted on. The amendment was introduced and pushed by Democrat Bart Stupak from Michigan. The amendment passed 240-196, and the Democrats kept the more liberal members, who threatened to vote against, in line” (Montanaro, 11/8).

San Francisco Chronicle: “Pelosi spent months in tense negotiations to knit together the wide ideological spectrum of her caucus, from Bay Area liberals who insisted on a public option to moderate Democrats from GOP-leaning districts wary of rising deficits. Moderates succeeded in watering down the public option by untethering it from Medicare, and won a 240-194 vote on an amendment to expand a ban on public funds being used for abortion. Liberals accepted the amendment rather than bring down the entire bill” (Lochhead, 11/8). 

MedPage Today: “Once the vote count hit 218, Democrats cheered loudly. Applause continued as the final votes trickled in during the few minutes that remained of the 15 allotted for the vote. When the clock ran down, the chamber erupted in elated applause, the hugging, kissing, and cheering abating only for the few minutes it took for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to declare ‘The bill is passed!’” 

“The $1.1 trillion bill would expand insurance coverage to an additional 38 million people over the next decade by requiring that almost all citizens have insurance and providing subsidies to those who can’t afford it. The measure also contains a public option that would allow doctors and hospitals to negotiate with the government over reimbursement rates for treating patients enrolled in the public plan. The unusual Saturday session was characterized by hours of theatrically partisan debate, and crowds of spectators waited hours in line to get five-minute glimpses of the floor proceedings” (Walker, 11/8).

The Wall Street Journal writes: “With the House health bill passed, Congress moves a step closer to making the biggest changes to the health system in more than four decades,” and then details what the bill would mean for various groups, including the uninsured (“the biggest winners”), the insured (“the upside is less tangible”), Medicare enrollees as well as large and small employers (Adamy, 11/7).

The Washington Post has an interactive chart of each of the members’ vote, with detail about their districts (including the percentage of uninsured) and campaign contributions. (Yourish, O’Neil and Stanton, 11/8).

NPR: “Democrats have little time to savor the narrow passage of their historic heath care overhaul in the House of Representatives as attention turns to the deeply divided U.S. Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s challenge is to corral enough votes to bring a companion bill to the floor of his chamber before a White House-imposed Christmas deadline” (Halloran, 11/8).

Politico: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is facing dissent in the Democratic ranks over his health-care strategy – leaving him struggling to meet a Christmas deadline and fielding White House pressure to get the bill done. Even before Saturday’s House vote, senators had begun to question why Reid suddenly embraced a public health insurance option – one that he didn’t yet have the 60 votes to pass.”

“And Senate moderates are clearly growing nervous about the process ahead — the difficulties of merging a still non-existent Senate bill with a more liberal bill from the House, one that has received the blessing of President Barack Obama. In a private meeting last week with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), half a dozen moderate Democrats aired a long list of concerns about the differences between the two approaches: the $1.2 trillion price tag on the House bill, its reliance on a ‘millionaires tax’ to fund the overhaul and the lack of common ground between the House and Senate on other taxes, among other issues” (Budoff Brown and Raju, 11/8).

The official launch of Modern Warfare 2 is only a couple of snoozes away, but apparently, it just can’t wait. Another game has its street date broke…

Well, the numbers for week 1 are in, and they look good for Microsoft and Windows 7. Microsoft’s latest OS venture has outpaced Vista in first week sales by, get ready for it, 234%. Not bad in a down economy for sure. The new OS has also outpaced Vista in terms of revenue: Seven has generated 83% more revenue for Redmond than the big “V” in its first week. We’ve got 7 on our fleet of machines, but how many of you out there have upgraded? What are your thoughts thus far? So far, we like!

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News in Brief

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence has released guidance on mental wellbeing at work. The document has a wide audience including members of the public (where applicable in the UK) and complements previous NICE guidance in the workplace. The quick reference guide contains 5 recommendations relating to strategic/coordinated approaches to mental wellbeing, assessment of opportunities for wellbeing of employees, flexible working, the role of line managers and supporting micro, small and medium-sized businesses. This has been widely reported with a number of articles looking at how these recommendations might impact on health services themselves (see here, here and here). This comes at the same time as a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) which produced findings from a survey of 2000 employees which included results relating to mental health (covered here). The researchers in an american study covered here found that of 472 million prescriptions for psychotropic medications prescribed between August 2006 and July 2007, only 1/4 were prescribed by psychiatrists. Virtualised desktops save time in booting up the computer and in this article a proprietary system using virtualised desktops was suggested to save clinicians 30 minutes on average each day

Research in Dementia

There is coverage here of a 20-year longitudinal study published in Neurology which identified associations with the development of mild cognitive impairment and it will be interesting to see how these findings inform further research in this area. This article looks at another study published in Neurology this time on Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and finding that 42% of subjects had a family history on the basis of a related outcome measure  (see here for further information). There is coverage of the recent Society of Neuroscience conference in Chicago over at the Alzforum and this featured a number of presentations on Alzheimer’s Disease.

Research in Pervasive Development Disorders

A neuroimaging  study (n=88) compared people with Asperger Syndrome and Autism with controls and found a significant difference between the Asperger and Autism groups in terms of structural MRI findings with the latter group having increased grey matter volume in the frontal and temporal lobes (Toal et al, 2009). However it will be interesting to see this data be included in a meta-analysis with other similar studies as well as to see the findings of larger replication studies. This study is timely given the recent discussion about dropping the diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (see below).

Research in Psychosis

There is a discussion here of some of the recent genetic evidence of similarities between Schizophrenia and Autism in terms of analysis of copy number variants. The possible role of a form of interneuron known as the gliaform cell in psychosis is discussed in this article.

Publications on Affective Disorders

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence has released guidance on the treatment of depression in people with chronic health problems – the quick reference guide is here. A small case series which looked at deep brain stimulation for severe depression provided some evidence of efficacy although given the sample size, it will be interesting to see the outcome of a relevant systematic review or meta-analysis which incorporates this data.

DSM-V

There was discussion recently of the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome being dropped from the next edition of the DSM and this will mean an expansion of the autism diagnostic category. This was originally discussed in a New York Times article (which requires (free) registration). The article features an interview with Dr Catherine Lord, who is one of 13 members of the working group on autism and neurodevelopmental disorders. The group are considering a number of amendments to the autism diagnosis including the addition of comorbidity that have been associated with the condition including disorders of attention and anxiety. However the suggestion regarding Asperger syndrome has not yet been ratified by the group. There have been a number of responses in the media. This article contains interviews with a doctor who runs a clinic, a parent of a child with Asperger’s syndrome and the president of a non-profit organisation for raising awareness of the condition. There is some information on the DSM-V process here.

Psychiatry 2.0

There is further discussion of the DSM-V Asperger syndrome diagnosis on the left-brain, right-brain blog and at the time of writing there are 87 comments, testimony to the interest this discussion is creating. Dr Grohol also covers this over at Psychcentral. At the ISCI healthcare blog there is an article looking at some of the ways in which twitter is being used in healthcare. MindHacks has another news roundup in ‘Spike Activity‘ and included is a link to an interview with Terry Pratchett about Alzheimer’s Disease. The ‘Heal My PTSD‘ blog contains a round-up of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) news including the use of a virtual reality environment for re-experiencing trauma as part of a therapeutic intervention. This BBC article looks at some of the ways web 2.0 technology is being used by the research community. Patients in the USA are beginning to carry their healthcare information around with them in iPhone apps as reported in this article. The Science in the Open blog has an article looking at how an open collobarative framework might change science (Science 2.0) with the possibility of the science being separated into data acquisition, data analysis and dissemination of results. An article here looks at recent research which counters the argument that use of the internet has casued people to become more isolated. They cite research which suggests that people are not more isolated than in 1985 and elsewhere that people who use the web regularly are more likely to participate in social activities such as meeting up with friends . See here for more information.

Miscellaneous Research

A study of babbling in babies (covered here) found evidence that after only an hour’s exposure to a new language, the baby’s babbling with the speaker of that new language differed from that with speakers of the native language.

References

Toal F, Daly EM, Page L, Deeley Q, Hallahan B, Bloemen O, Cutter WJ, Brammer MJ, Curran S, Robertson D, Murphy C, Murphy KC, Murphy DG.Psychol Med. 2009 Nov 6:1-11. [Epub ahead of print]. Clinical and anatomical heterogeneity in autistic spectrum disorder: a structural MRI study.

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You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

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If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]

Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.