Hug the Monkey

curing? autism

Kathryne Ellerbeck, a researcher at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, will study the role of oxytocin in autism. Her premise is that: 

a. Boys are more prone to autism than girls

b. Girls naturally have higher levels of oxytocin

c. Boys with autism have lower levels of oxytocin than normal

therefore ... perhaps lack of oxytocin, aka the cuddle hormone, may be a factor in the development of this syndrome.

My guess: Lower levels of oxytocin and symptoms considered autistic both have another cause. I'm also betting that scientists will begin to crack the mystery of autism within 3 years.

Dr. Ellerbeck's work is funded by Cure Autism Now.

Skin Hunger

I love this phrase, coined by Australian sex expert Rosie King. nzoom.com quotes her as saying,

That skin hunger is with us from the cradle to the grave.  People think they want a fuck. What they really want is a warm body next to them in bed - they don't know how to get that without engaging in sexual activity."

When we don't know how to love, we can find ourselves settling for what King calls fraudulent forms of intimacy: drugs and alcohol to break down the walls with another person, food to fill us up inside, sex with someone we might not trust to take care of the dog.

gentle, gentle birth

If I could, I would be in Vancouver April 26 to 28 to see Michel Odent, the man who invented water birthing. He's speaking at a conference called Birthing Humanity .

Odent  says that the bright lights, noise and distraction of a hospital birth -- to say nothing of the drugs -- can encode an impression of a hostile world into the baby's brain. Instead of a blissful birth, the baby can get locked into fight-or-flight mode.

"My rule of thumb is that the rates of criminality are correlated with the rates of obstetrical intervention,"

Common Ground quotes him as saying.