Maverick individuals who make a huge difference through their spot-on hunches are becoming an increasingly rare breed in this age of big research, with fundamental physics generally investigated in sprawling institutions such as CERN and LIGO. As a result, those who have done so in the past have taken on a mythic nature. Because of…
As social beings, we tend to focus on autism’s social issues, such as difficulty speaking, establishing friends, and displaying empathy. I am a geneticist and the mother of an autistic adolescent. I’m concerned, too, about whether he’ll be able to carry on a conversation and go grocery shopping, as well as whether he’ll ever have…
I had an acquaintance in my early twenties who was clever, charming, Ivy-educated, and wealthy, the heir to a family fortune. I’m going to call him Gallagher. He was free to do anything he pleased. He dabbled in subjects such as neurology, law, philosophy, and others. But he was so critical and picky that he…