Antiscience

Leaving aside the correlative nature of this study and the ambiguities around interpreting differences in corpus callosum white matter density as a biomarker for "neural damage," this study makes the dubious assertion that skunk weed is high potency. Bad science compounded by lazy journalism is a reminder to never trust any science news from UPI .  http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/11/27/Study-High-potency-marijuana-linked-with-neural-damage/1671448657013/

The Washington Post reports that researchers at CDC and National Center for Health Statistics now believe the incidence of autism has jumped to an astonishing 1 in 45. This alarming rise is due to a clerical change in the questionnaire used to survey pediatric diagnoses: Lead author Benjamin Zablotsky,  an epidemiologist at the NCHS, and his colleagues said that in previous years some parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder likely reported it as a developmental disability instead of or in addition to autism because it was listed first. The new questionnaire flips the two categories, which researchers said made the autism estimates more similar to ones from other sources. As might be expected from this change, the prevalence of other developmental disabilities declined significantly from 4.84 percent based on 2011-2013 data to 3.57 percent in 2014. Before we get too excited by these findings, let's bear in mind that criteria for an autism diagnosis have widened