Autism is back in the news as a result of Michael Savage's controversial statements on his radio show last week...

Quoted: Children's advocacy groups are demanding that Michael Savage apologize for denigrating autism as the " illness du jour" on his radio program last Wednesday. Savage also attributed the high prevalence of autism and related disorders to faulty diagnoses: "In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out." How do doctors spot the disorder?

Really interesting Green Lantern. It seems obvious, but I never realized how processed soy milk is. Still, it has a slight environmental edge over cow's milk.

Quoted: You've already weighed in on the question of whether veganism or vegetarianism is better for the environment. But I want more specifics: Which is better for the environment, soy milk or cow's milk?

An important article from Slate about the strings that are attached to IMF loans and the corner into which they back a lot of small countries & their economies.

Quoted: Question: The International Monetary Fund often attaches strict conditions to its loans, hoping to help the economies of the recipient countries grow and become stable. For example, in order to tamp down inflation, countries have been required to limit expenditures for education, social services, and health.

The source of the salmonella is still unknown, and officials are saying that consumers should now avoid hot peppers...

Quoted: The U.S. government has declared it’s OK to eat tomatoes again, lifting its salmonella warning amid signs that the outbreak may finally be slowing.

I think this article does a good job of pointing out that the benefits of yoga still far outweigh the risks, and that it's a very individual activity that requires listening to your own body rather than trying to "compete" with other students.

Quoted: Sloppy teaching and growing numbers of overly competitive students are giving yoga lovers serious and scary injuries: slipped disks, torn tendons, even strokes.

Eek, scary that a simple illness could affect one's sense of smell and taste so drastically! Must be hard...

Quoted: There was nothing remarkable about the cold I caught. But a few weeks after I was otherwise back to feeling normal, my sense of smell and taste hadn't returned. I went to my doctor, and he said I had a sinus infection, prescribed antibiotics, and told me not to worry. That was three years ago.

I never realized HPV could cause cancer in men. But I think vaccinating men for HPV will be treated a lot like birth control by legislators - in other words, it's a "woman problem."

Quoted: The virus that causes cervical cancer also leads to throat cancer in males. Now researchers are looking into whether the vaccine should be given to boys, both to prevent the spread of HPV, and to prevent the rarer, but no less deadly, cancers that can occur in men from the virus.

Fascinating! These distinctions rely so much on state laws and statutes...

Quoted: As people across the country fête their fathers this weekend, Thomas Beatie, who's male according to state law but who retains his female reproductive organs, will enter the final weeks of his first successful pregnancy. Will the baby's birth certificate register Beatie as the father or the mother?

Update: looks like Ted Kennedy is out of surgery and doing relatively well.

Quoted: Surgeons on Monday performed brain surgery on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and his doctor said the procedure to treat his cancerous brain tumor “was successful and accomplished our goals.”