A researcher in Iowa is looking for help with a study that tries to find a link between ALS and the insecticide chlorpyrifos. She's got 66-page questionnaires for anyone diagnosed with ALS.

"It'll take some time for them to do it," says Naomi Bienfang of the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

If you're willing to do her survey, contact Bienfang at (319) 273-3689 or by e-mail at nomeinroma@yahoo.com. She'll send you a consent form and follow that up with the survey itself. You'll also need to find one or two "controls," so she can compare people with the disease to people who do not have it.

You will need to find someone of your same gender, in your same age range, who is not a blood relative and who is free of any neuromuscular disease. They will need to fill out a similar survey.

Your second person could be your spouse or significant other, who will also need to fill out a similar survey.

Bienfang's mother, Aris, died from the disease two years ago. Now she's looking for answers and finding the disease as mysterious today as it was in 1835, when it was first described in France.

She says ALS used to affect people over age 40, but now it's showing up in people in their 30s and even late 20s. She doesn't believe it's wholly genetic. "Something is triggering it. What is it?"