This podcast is supported by the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,

the academic arm of the Mount Sinai health system in New York City,

and one of America's leading research medical schools.

What are scientists and clinicians working on to improve medical care and health for women?

Find out in a special supplement to Science magazine prepared by the Icon School of Medicine

and Mount Sinai in partnership

with science. Visit our website at www.science.org and search for Frontiers of Medical

Research-Wedmen's Health. The Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, we find a way.

Welcome to the Science Podcast for October 12, 2018. I'm Megan Cantwell. On this week's show, Sarah Cresby talks with reporter Hannah Ferraro about a small town in Colombia with an outsized

population of people with fragile X, a chromosomal disorder that causes neurological problems and autism.

And I talk with Maria Ignativa about the pros and cons of lawns

and how they can be transformed to better benefit the environment.

Now we have Hannah Fufaro, a staff writer for Spectrum.

Her story was produced in a collaboration between science, spectrum, an online news site.

Welcome, Hannah.

Thanks for having me on.

So your story, your feature story this week, is on a small town in Columbia with what is likely the biggest cluster of fragile X cases in the world.

And you look at the research being done there. Let's start with the basics here. What is fragile X? Fragile X is a genetic

condition that affects a person's X chromosome, which is where the condition gets its name.

It's the most common form of inherited intellectual disability.

Many people with fragile X have a very low IQ. Many also have autism. Some people with a condition

have physical features that you can see. So, for instance, some men are unusually tall.

...