A man’s risk of fathering a child with autism begins to rise at age 30 and significantly increases after age 50, according to a report published online 30 November in Molecular Psychiatry.

As autism rates rise, so do health care costs for the disorder. Despite federal programs, some children with autism are falling through the cracks in the health care system.

Changes in diagnostic practices, more active neighborhood networks, and an increase in the number of older parents may all contribute to the massive rates of autism in California, says a group of social scientists. But the numbers still don’t add up.

The older a grandmother was when she bore her grandchild’s mother, the greater the child’s risk of autism, according to a study published last month in PLoS One.

A new report adds to the wave of research on autism risk that’s shifting the focus from older fathers to older mothers.

There are well-established paternal age effects in diseases less common than autism. A new paper in Nature Genetics explains how the effects might arise, and it involves a kind of tumor you’ve probably never heard of.

Are older fathers more likely to have children with autism? A series of epidemiological studies is giving credence to the idea, suggesting that, with age, sperm may accumulate damage that increases risk in the next generation.