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Background on this week's stories:

# 1. Gaming addiction = Aspergers?
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/30296

A Discovery News story in which a researcher from the University of Bolton in England likened video game addiction to Asperger syndrome was widely repeated throughout the blogosphere, and was even picked up by at least one wire service.

Fortunately it turns out that the most immediate conclusion to be drawn from the title of the original release from the British Psychological Society ("Computer game addicts like people with Aspergers"), that one might cause the other, is not true. The researcher himself responded to the coverage of his work with a helpful clarification.

For a full account of neurological phenomena that might underpin Aspergers and austism, check out our recent feature on the subject.

# 2. Intelligent aliens? That's unpossible!
Andrew Watson of the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia in Norwich has calculated that we are probably the only intelligent life in the universe.

This would be remarkable if it weren't simply the latest salvo in the oldest debate in astrobiology, namely, just how much life is out there, and what kind is it?

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