You've Got AIDS?

From Family Guy: "You've Got AIDS!"

Hm, the initial reaction, I think, is that this is clearly insensitive, but could one argue that such satire actually serves to raise awareness about AIDS and desensitize the issue, making its acceptance more commonplace? Hmm...

Medical Marvel: Infinite Memory

While reading random blogs online (Daily Dish, if you must know), I came across an interesting story about a woman with "perfect memory":

Price can rattle off, without hesitation, what she saw and heard on almost any given date. She remembers many early childhood experiences and most of the days between the ages of 9 and 15. After that, there are virtually no gaps in her memory. "Starting on Feb. 5, 1980, I remember everything. That was a Tuesday."

She can also date events that were reported in the media, provided she heard about them at the time. When and where did the Concorde crash? When was O.J. Simpson arrested? When did the second Gulf war begin? Price doesn't even have to stop and think. She can effortlessly recite the dates, numbers and entire stories.

"People say to me: Oh, how fascinating, it must be a treat to have a perfect memory," she says. Her lips twist into a thin smile. "But it's also agonizing."

In addition to good memories, every angry word, every mistake, every disappointment, every shock and every moment of pain goes unforgotten. Time heals no wounds for Price. "I don't look back at the past with any distance. It's more like experiencing everything over and over again, and those memories trigger exactly the same emotions in me. It's like an endless, chaotic film that can completely overpower me. And there's no stop button."

She's constantly bombarded with fragments of memories, exposed to an automatic and uncontrollable process that behaves like an infinite loop in a computer. Sometimes there are external triggers, like a certain smell, song or word. But often her memories return by themselves. Beautiful, horrific, important or banal scenes rush across her wildly chaotic "internal monitor," sometimes displacing the present. "All of this is incredibly exhausting," says Price.

Based on other research I have read casually, it seems that we evolved the ability to selectively remember items because it helped with learning. Having too much information was not beneficial. As the article notes, Price's episodic memory is nearly flawless, but her semantic memory (the memory associated with learning facts and concepts) is average, which is why she did not stand out in school. Still, if she exists, there are likely people with nearly flawless semantic memory, right? The whole thing makes one wonder where the true limits of human ability lie.

(Image Source: ImpactLab)

The Sports Gene?

Born to Run? Little Ones Get Test for Sports Gene:

When Donna Campiglia learned recently that a genetic test might be able to determine which sports suit the talents of her 2 ½-year-old son, Noah, she instantly said, Where can I get it and how much does it cost?

“I could see how some people might think the test would pigeonhole your child into doing fewer sports or being exposed to fewer things, but I still think it’s good to match them with the right activity,” Ms. Campiglia, 36, said as she watched a toddler class at Boulder Indoor Soccer in which Noah struggled to take direction from the coach between juice and potty breaks.

“I think it would prevent a lot of parental frustration,” she said.

In health-conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.

The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.

The whole thing seems like a money-making scam to me. I say scam because the entire concept discounts the notions of practice, a work ethic, and intelligence in athletics. Except for certain endeavors, like weightlifting perhaps, raw athletic ability will only get an athlete so far. Beyond that, other factors come into play to determine success. I worry that children with "good" results will face even more pressure from their sports-crazed parents to perform up to expectations.