From "Why Autism May Be a Treatable Metabolic Signaling Disorder" by Rhianna-lily Smith What’s been missing is a single model that can pull these threads together. Without that, findings about stress chemistry, immune activity, mitochondrial changes or shifts in the gut can feel scattered. Earlier work by author Dr. Robert Naviaux, a professor of medicine, pediatrics and pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, suggested that a built-in stress response, called the cell danger response (CDR), might help connect them.

In thinking about some neurodivergence stuff with people getting missed autism or ADHD diagnoses, it got me wondering about maybe there's a factor no one paid attention to the impacts. It wasn't until 1978 that the United States stopped putting lead in paint. That kind of paint would crack and chip. Kids who ingested it could get Flint water crisis levels of lead in their bloodstream.

It makes me curious how people pick the names for their child. The choice and even the process are deeply personal. It tells quite a bit about how they think. How did you pick really important names? I'd kind of like to use if for job interviews... except, I'd bet Human Resources and Legal would find it inappropriate. Too personal. Maybe the question could be about naming their personal computer like how I named one Helios.

"Parasocial" is the Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2025, defined as: involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence I was somewhat familiar. I didn't clock a big uptick in the usage in the typical discourse.

Fleur was at a STEM station learning about the Hydrologic Cycle: How water evaporates, collects into clouds, falls, collects on the ground, and evaporates again. One of the university volunteers manning the station asked about how evaporation works. In giving a hint to Fleur, I said, "I think they are looking for something in the book we read last night in the section on Thermodynamics."

Third Places... refers to places where people spend time between home (‘first’ place) and work (‘second’ place). They are locations where we exchange ideas, have a good time, and build relationships. “Third places” as community builders from the Brookings Institution. It was coined by Ray Oldenburg. Before I became a parent, I had some third places: home bar for dart team…

Daily writing prompt What was your favorite subject in school? View all responses Overall, science. Specifically these: Chemistry : I loved learning about atomic structure, how elements interacted, and acids/bases. Just thinking about how our universe works because of elements self-organizing still astounds me. Physics : I loved learning about forces, work, and energy. Again, how our universe works because of clumps of matter doing things and impacting others around it still astounds me.

Hallucinating AI platforms are spitting out nonexistent landmarks and it's putting tourists in dangerous situations.

Astronomers detected a gigantic wave pattern in a large portion of the Milky Way galaxy by analyzing data from young stars.

I hated homework as a kid. It seemed so pointless. Needlessly repetitive and rote when I understood the concept. Or, I didn't understand it at all, so I just stared at the page. I was also feral. In 2nd through 4th grade, I walked across the street from school to the public library or more rarely a mile-plus home. Either way, for over an hour and sometimes two, I was left to my own devices.

Our galaxy isn’t being dragged into a supercluster. It’s being dragged into a super-supercluster.

I know the places our three felines hide. They know the travel patterns of Fleur and use them appropriately. She gets home from school at about x hour, minutes before that time, the two younger cats disappear into their current favorite spots. If they hear a child friend come in the entrance, they disappear into them as well. Will I ever tell Fleur where they are?

I find them nearly meaningless. Football loves rankings. A college team will get ranked #1 before they play a game. Before critical players have performed. Before injuries happen. Fans will crow about this meaningless metric. Well, until a lower ranked team beats theirs. Worse, they are often based on voting. So, a coach or sportswriter puts in votes for who should get what, and from that a team rank is tabulated.

An interesting study out of Harvard found lithium depletion explains the issues around Alzheimer's. It's measured as real in people but the treatment of giving lithium orotate they only gave to mice, so it's too soon to say the same works for humans. It's just another interesting possibility. The scientists found that lithium loss in the human brain is one of the earliest changes leading to Alzheimer’s, while in mice, similar lithium depletion accelerated brain pathology and memory decline.

On the way to camp this morning... Fleur stopped singing along to say: You know because you are playing this, it's going to be in my head all day, right? Me: Yup, that's why I am playing a good one! She moaned in frustration. Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com I know. I am the WORST. People seeking to create popular songs are trying to make something that will stick in the heads of listeners and make them come back for more. There's science about how to make that happen. The things that make a song catchy also make them likely to show up as an earworm.

Fleur embodies a Good Samaritan. She doesn't like to see others in pain. She will seek to aid anyone who appears hurt. It doesn't matter if it is a friend or a stranger. I hope to help foster and maintain this for her. Photo by FRANK MERIu00d1O on Pexels.com But, given the current national climate, that seems... difficult. The national leaders are very much about creating hardships for people, but most especially through xenophobic policies.

Your Undivided Attention · Episode

Having mixed-race parentage and not really fitting in, sometimes people accused me of trying to pass. I do wonder how much having a fair-skinned teacher mother helped me with teachers who otherwise would have written me off. It's known there are stressors for those having a minority race. This article that passing seems to have helped those who were passing I found to be wild.

A few people think I behave like a professor or a teacher. When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, people asked if I’d thought about that career. I love to talk about various facts, explain …