According to this AAAS article, clinical trials are currently underway to see if blocking overactive glutamate receptors in the brain can block the effects of Fragile X, primarily mental retardation.

The hope is that once the Fragile X is suppressed, therapy can rewire the brain to allow it to overcome the limitations imposed by the haywire genetics, thus allowing people once afflicted to lead normal, healthy lives.

Fragile X

In a nutshell, Fragile X is caused by DNA methylation of the FMR1 genome on the X sex chromosome. It causes a longer face, large or protruding ears, flat feet, low muscle tone, and mental retardation. People with Fragile X have a learning rate 2.2 times less than ordinary people, and as they grow older, they lose their ability to make decisions and recall events. Verbal working memory (speech, basically) is found to decay with age; cluttered speech and self talk are common.

Musical Universe is moving from Tuesdays at 9pm Central Time to Sunday 9-11pm Central Time (UDT-6).

If you are at all interested in Physics, Particle Physics, Astrophysics, Astro-Engineering, or Astronomy in general, please come on down to Riverfrontradio.com on Sundays, and listen in.

I am white. In fact, I fancy myself an Astrophysicist and I solve number theory problems for fun. This, as the core of my awesome nerdular nerdage, makes me whiter than sour cream.

My girlfriend is black. She is one of the darkest individuals you have probably ever see, darker than Barack Obama, Mike Tyson, and Halle Berry put together. But just because she is black doesn’t mean she is your stereotypical BET movie-of-the-week illiterate vapid, angry black woman. She completed a degree in Chemical Engineering from the prestigious Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the aforementioned stereotypes piss her off. I have been dating her for six years, and before her, I dated a mocha skinned black gal for a year and a half.

Something new happened just the other day. We were sitting down together in a little business office, and a woman came up to us and asked if we were together. My girlfriend shyly answered yes, and the woman said we look good together The gal said we looked like responsible people, and that we looked cute as a couple. In almost eight years of dating black women, this is the FIRST time someone has ever complimented my girlfriend and myself on our appearance together. Angelica (my current gf) and myself get a lot of snide comments when we go out, but this was the first time we had a compliment. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say.

Angelica and I have been cursed at, mocked, yelled at, refused service, harassed, and even attacked, but this was the first time we had ever gotten a compliment. Even though de jure segregation ended almost a half century ago, and interracial marriage is legal in Missouri, and fairly common here in St. Louis, doesn’t mean that some people accept those of us who look beyond the color of our skin to find love.

I love Angelica more then anyone else, and I cannot imagine being without her. Why so many people go out of their way to express their displeasure towards us makes me curious about their sad little lives. I find myself wondering what kind of pathetic person would intentionally harass others based solely on the differences in their skin color, without knowing anything about the people they deride.

I would have hoped that in this day and age, Americans would have gotten over this irrational fear of each other, and would have learned to accept us for whom we are, not what we look like. Almost daily it appears I am wrong, as these fools pester us almost continually.

I guess that is why a simple compliment threw me for such an extreme loop. I hope my children will not have to endure this, much as Angelica and I have.

Postscript

Missouri University of Science and Technology was formerly known as the University of Missouri – Rolla. They changed names on 1 January, 2008. Before 1964, it was known as the Missouri School of Mines. The proper abbreviation is Missouri S&T, not MS&T like many are wont to write, myself included.