The news that fathers pass on more genetic mutations to their children as they age was widely reported, but a tough story. The problem is that there are 3 separate issues here that almost everyone mushed together, but needed to be parsed out. 1) What’s the risk of passing mutations to child? 2) What’s the risk that those mutations would lead to conditions like autism? 3) What’s the connection to the incidence of said conditions? Absolute numbers and comparisons to other sources of genetic variation would be helpful. Otherwise, you get panicked middle-aged men worrying that they’ve shot their partners up with autism sperm. Or something. Ewen Callaway’s coverage at Nature was good, and Virginia Hughes totally