Jaswal & Akhtar provide several quotes ostensibly from people with autism but obtained via the discredited techniques of Facilitated Communication and the Rapid Prompting Method, and they do not acknowledge the use of these techniques. As a result, their argument is substantially less convincing than they assert, and the article lacks transparency.

Gene flow between jointed goatgrass and winter wheat is a concern because transfer of herbicide-resistance genes from imidazolinone-resistant (IR) winter wheat cultivars to jointed goatgrass could restrict weed-management options for this serious weed of winter wheat cropping systems. The objectives of this study were (1) to investigate the frequency of interspecific hybridization between IR wheat and jointed goatgrass in eastern Colorado, and (2) to determine the gene action of the IR acetolactate synthase (ALS) allele in IR wheat by jointed goatgrass and in IR wheat by imidazolinone-susceptible (IS) wheat backgrounds. Jointed goatgrass was sampled side-by-side with IR wheat and at distances up to 53 m away in both experimental plots and at commercial field study sites in 2003, 2004, and 2005. A greenhouse-screening method was used to identify IR hybrids in collected jointed goatgrass seed. The average percentage of hybridization across sites and years when IR wheat and jointed goatgrass were grown side-by-side was 0.1%, and the maximum was 1.6%. The greatest distance over which hybridization was documented was 16 m. The IR ALS allele contributed 25% of untreated ALS activity in jointed goatgrass by IR wheat F1 plants, as measured by an in vitro ALS assay. The hybridization rate between wheat and jointed goatgrass and the expression of the IR wheat ALS allele in hybrid plants will both influence trait introgression into jointed goatgrass.

We present the results of two 2.3 μm near-infrared (NIR) radial velocity (RV) surveys to detect exoplanets around 36 nearby and young M dwarfs. We use the CSHELL spectrograph (R ~ 46,000) at the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF), combined with an isotopic methane absorption gas cell for common optical path relative wavelength calibration. We have developed a sophisticated RV forward modeling code that accounts for fringing and other instrumental artifacts present in the spectra. With a spectral grasp of only 5 nm, we are able to reach long-term radial velocity dispersions of ~20–30 m s−1 on our survey targets.

Long-term memory (LTM) problems are associated with many psychiatric and neurological illnesses and are commonly measured using free and cued recall tasks. Although LTM has been linked with biologic mechanisms, the etiology of distinct LTM tasks is unknown. We studied LTM in 95 healthy female twin pairs identified through birth records in the state of Missouri. Performance on tasks of free recall of unrelated words, free and cued recall of categorized words, and the vocabulary section of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R) were examined using structural equation modeling. Additive genetic and unique environmental factors influenced LTM and intelligence. Free recall of unrelated and categorized words, and cued recall of categorized words, were moderately heritable (55%, 38%, and 37%). WAIS-R vocabulary score was highly heritable (77%). Controlling for verbal intelligence in multivariate analyses of recall, two components of genetic influence on LTM were found; one for all three recall scores and one for free and cued categorized word recall. Recall of unrelated and categorized words is influenced by different genetic and environmental factors indicating heterogeneity in LTM. Verbal intelligence is etiologically different from LTM indicating that these two abilities utilize different brain functions.

Although not one red dwarf can be seen with the naked eye, they dominate the solar neighborhood, accounting for no less than 70% of all stars. The large numbers of these wee denizens of the night actually translate into a surprisingly large amount of mass – in fact, more mass is found in M dwarfs than in any other stellar spectral type.

To determine just how important red dwarfs are to the nature of the Universe, an accurate mass-luminosity relation (MLR) must be determined so that a relatively easily determined characteristic, luminosity, can be converted into the critical parameter, mass. Results from a decade-long observational effort to calibrate the MLR for red dwarfs using the Fine Guidance Sensors (FGSs) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will be highlighted. For many of the binary systems targeted, the interferometric data from HST are combined with radial velocity data to further improve the mass measurements, which often have errors less than 5%. Related results from a large southern sky parallax program to determine accurate distances to red dwarfs, and a search for companions orbiting them, will also be discussed.

The state of mass determinations for M dwarfs' smaller cousins, the L and T dwarfs, will also be reviewed. Although we do not yet know the size of the true population of these (primarily) substellar objects, only by mapping out the interplay of their masses and luminosities (which change drastically with time) can we understand their contribution to the mass budget of the Universe.

Using infrared speckle imaging techniques, we have completed a comprehensive survey of all northern (δ ≥ −25°) M dwarfs within 8 parsecs for low mass companions. Of the 74 targets searched, six new companions were found. Included in the final census are four objects orbiting their primaries at sub-arcsecond separations which have masses near 80 Jupiters, making them viable brown dwarf candidates. Three of these — LHS 1047B, GL 623B and G 208-44B — are the faintest red objects for which masses have been determined and represent the limit of our current knowledge about the faint end of the mass-luminosity relation.

The complete sample includes 99 members, and under further analysis reveals fundamental facts about the red dwarf population that were unknown until the present study: 1) 30-40 % of M dwarf primaries have companions, 2) more companions are found orbiting 1-10 AU from the primary than in any other decade interval, and 3) there are 50% fewer red dwarfs known in the more distant half of the survey volume, presumably because the parallax and proper motion surveys are incomplete.

In addition, we find that the infrared luminosity function (LF) is fiat or rising toward the end of the main sequence, while the visible LF may be flat, and we illustrate that the determination of an accurate LF is critically sensitive to the resolution of binaries. A better description of the stellar population, the mass function, is found to be undoubtedly rising to the stellar/substellar break. Finally, we have developed a much-needed mass-luminosity relation for stars of mass 1.2 to 0.08 M⊙, and using these relations find that the M dwarfs contribute ~0.2 M⊙/pc3 to the galactic mass.

Conventionally cast and hot-rolled Ni-Fe-AI-B alloys containing 4-20 at.% Fe, 23.9- 31.5 at.% Al, and 300 wppm B were investigated in this study. After oil quenching from 1300°C, all the alloys—except SMA-15 (27A1-14Fe)—have at least a two-phase microstructure, one phase of which is martensite with the characteristic plate morphology, and the other a globular second phase distributed throughout the microstructure. The amount of second phase generally increases with increasing Fe content. Alloys containing less than 14% Fe were found to be quite brittle at room temperature, indicating that a ductile second phase is at least partly responsible for the improved room-temperature ductility in the high-Fe alloys. The best tensile ductility (12%) was obtained in SMA-17 (23.9AI-20Fe) which was shown by X-ray diffraction to consist of 40% (mostly disordered) fcc [(Ni,Fe)3 (AI,Fe)] + 30% (partly ordered) bct martensite + 30% B2. Differential scanning calorimetry showed that the transformation temperatures for this alloy were MP = 65°C and AP = 95°C. Room-temperature tensile strains of 2-3% could be almost completely recovered in SMA-17 by heating for 3 min. at 600°C with the load removed. Upon subsequent cycling (i.e., strain-anneal cycling), the amount of strain recovery increased dramatically from 70% in the first cycle to nearly 100% after 4-5 cycles, indicating that cold work may help in improving the shape memory characteristics of this alloy. SMA-15 was found to have significantly higher transformation temperatures (Mp = 143°C and Ap = 170°C) than SMA-17; however, it is relatively brittle compared to SMA-17.