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Volume 479 Issue 7371, 3 November 2011

This issue of Nature puts a spotlight on autism spectrum disorder and tries to sort fact from fiction in this often contentious field. Topics covered include the mysterious increase in the incidence of diagnosed autism; some of the myths that have accumulated around the condition; and the notion that, for some fields of endeavour (science is often mentioned), autism can be advantageous. Cover credit: Daren Newman.

Editorial

  • Efforts to elucidate how genes and the environment shape the development of autism, although making progress, still fall far short of their goal.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

  • Momentum builds for ozone treaty to take on greenhouse gases.

    Editorial
  • What will scientists do if they fail to find the Higgs boson?

    Editorial
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World View

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Research Highlights

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News

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Correction

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News Feature

  • Shifting diagnoses and heightened awareness explain only part of the apparent rise in autism. Scientists are struggling to explain the rest.

    • Karen Weintraub
    News Feature
  • Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen thinks scientists and engineers could be more likely to have a child with autism. Some researchers say the proof isn't there.

    • Lizzie Buchen
    News Feature
  • Convinced by the evidence that vaccines do not cause autism, Alison Singer started a research foundation that pledges to put science first.

    • Meredith Wadman
    News Feature
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Comment

  • Recent data — and personal experience — suggest that autism can be an advantage in some spheres, including science, says Laurent Mottron.

    • Laurent Mottron
    Comment
  • Experts must agree a set of acceptable ways to assess and present forensic evidence, says Norman Fenton.

    • Norman Fenton
    Comment
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Books & Arts

  • Gillian Beer chronicles the passage of time in its many manifestations through Lewis Carroll's enduring classics.

    • Gillian Beer
    Books & Arts
  • Science writer Margaret Wertheim's latest book focuses on 'outsider physicists' — fringe theorists who probe the cosmos in their own way. On its publication, to be accompanied by a December exhibition at the newly opened Institute For Figuring gallery in Los Angeles, Wertheim explains her fascination with those who explore beyond the textbooks.

    • Jascha Hoffman
    Books & Arts
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Correspondence

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Obituary

  • The exacting visionary who put the personal into computing.

    • Tim O'Reilly
    Obituary
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News & Views Forum

  • The collapse of the Maya civilization is often attributed to drought, but is the explanation really as simple as that? On the basis of evidence from their respective fields, an archaeologist and a palaeoclimatologist call for a more nuanced assessment.

    • James Aimers
    • David Hodell
    News & Views Forum
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News & Views

  • Grid cells confer a spatial impression of an animal's environment on the brain. Their firing patterns in a cave-dwelling bat reopen old questions about how they do this, and pose some compelling new ones. See Letter p.103

    • Laura Lee Colgin
    News & Views
  • Diamond-based quantum computers could potentially operate at room temperature with optical interfacing, but their construction is challenging. Silicon carbide, used widely in electronics, may provide a solution. See Letter p.84

    • Andrew Dzurak
    News & Views
  • Caspase-1 is one of the main culprits behind sepsis, a form of systemic inflammation. The related enzyme caspase-11 is also involved, but the relative roles of the two proteins have been confusing, until now. See Letter p.117

    • Douglas R. Green
    News & Views
  • A recent surge in the intensity of tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea has brought unprecedented damage and loss of life. Anthropogenic air pollution might be increasing the destructiveness of these storms. See Letter p.94

    • Ryan L. Sriver
    News & Views
  • Little is known about mammalian evolution in South America during the age of the dinosaurs. The discovery of 100-million-year-old skulls confirms that mammalian faunas were endemic in southern continents at this time. See Letter p.98

    • Christian de Muizon
    News & Views
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Review Article

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Article

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Letter

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Feature

  • Researchers hoping to have an impact in the clinic are searching for diagnostic tools for neurodegenerative disease.

    • Alla Katsnelson
    Feature
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Column

  • Ecologist Gaston Small uses social media to talk about his work. Others, he says, must join him.

    • Gaston Small
    Column
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Career Brief

  • Reciprocal initiative will ease mobility between Europe and China for researchers.

    Career Brief
  • UK leads the world in articles produced per unit of research spending.

    Career Brief
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Futures

  • The waiting game.

    • Deborah Walker
    Futures
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