The use of felbamate to treat infantile spasms.

Based on the initial successful use of felbamate for infantile spasms in an infant with tuberous sclerosis, three additional infants with infantile spasms of different etiologies who had failed conventional therapies were treated with felbamate. Three of the four patients have shown complete resolution of infantile spasms. All responding patients did so within 1 week of starting felbamate. The one treatment failure had an initial reduction of seizure frequency and severity but has not maintained that response long term. Controlled studies are needed to firmly establish that felbamate is both safe and effective for the treatment of infantile spasms. As these cases document, felbamate is currently available for use in infantile spasms, and the frequent conversion of infantile spasms to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, for which felbamate is approved, makes its use in infantile spasms logical.

Abnormal polarity of thunderclouds grown from negatively charged air.

Experiments were carried out in New Mexico to determine whether the electrification processes that lead to the formation of lightning in clouds are influenced by the polarity of the charges in the air from which the clouds grow. The normal, positive space charge in the sub-cloud air was reversed by negative charge released from an electrified wire, suspended across a 2-kilometer-wide canyon. On more than four occasions when the clouds over the wire grew and became electrified, they were of abnormal polarity with dominant positive charges instead of the usual negative charges in the lower part of the cloud. The formation of these abnormally electrified clouds suggests both that the electrification process in thunderclouds can be initiated and that its polarity may be determined by the small charges that are present in the atmosphere.