Autism and pupil response

I found this story quite fascinating:

Despite its widespread effect, autism is not well understood and there
are no objective medical tests to diagnose it. Recently, University of
Missouri researchers have developed a pupil response test that is 92.5
percent accurate in separating children with autism from those with
typical development. In the study, MU scientists found that children
with autism have slower pupil responses to light change…

In the study, scientists used a computerized binocular infrared device,
which eye doctors normally use for vision tests, to measure how pupils
react to a 100-millisecond flash light. A pupil reaction test reveals
potential neurological disorders in areas of the brain that autism
might affect. The results showed that pupils of children diagnosed with
autism were significantly slower to respond than those of a control
group.

Certainly raises many questions the press release did not address.  Hopefully, I'll find time to read the article.  I'm especially curious about the 7% it does not capture.  Are those people more on the borderline of autism?  Also, what about autism in the cases of a known genetic disorder, like my son Alex (Tuberous Sclerosis) or Fragile X.  And, of course, what else could we diagnose, or at least screen for with pupil response?  I am going to have to read this.

Quick hits

1) The Fort Hood police officer who took down the shooter and got hit in her femoral artery in the process apparently had two thoughts at that point: 

In an extreme example of the multi-tasking familiar to moms everywhere,
one of the police officers hailed as a Fort Hood hero says she had two
priorities after she and her partner stopped a gunman who had just
killed 13 people.

One: get a tourniquet applied to her thigh, bleeding heavily where a bullet had pierced her femoral artery.

Two: arrange for someone to pick up her toddler from day care.

2) Support for gay marriage varies a lot by state (NC is 41st).  Also, the support gap between those 18-29 as compared to 30-44 is huge. 

3) The DVR is pretty much the greatest invention since the world wide web.  In large part, because you get to easily skip through all the commercials.  Amazingly, nearly half of all viewers watching shows on DVR playback are still watching the ads.  (There's some other really interesting analysis about the role of DVRs in the article, too).