Medical science: Kids Get Arthritis Too!

(As of April 7th, Emily has reached $3500 in donations.  This more than exceeds her $1000 goal from four months ago.  Keep up the good work.) 

Please visit Emily’s Arthritis Walk Donation Page.

I do not normally request donations from people, but Emily is a special case, and yes I am a bit biased.  Emily is 14 years old and suffers from Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and has so since she was born.  And though she suffers from pain and swelling and undergoes long periods of treatment on a frequent basis, this young gal lives a full and active life including being one of the Arthritis Foundations spokesperson.  She and I even competed against each other one night last year during a competitive round of bowling.  If you ever had a chance to sit down with her and talk about the medical science behind JRA and arthritis in general, you would be convinced you were talking to a pre-med student. 

Unfortunately, she has learned all of this information by suffering from the disease.  The annual Arthritis Walk is one of many events during the year that the Arthritis Foundation uses to bring in donantions to help find a cure.  During the walk, people with arthritis (or teams supporting someone with arthritis) spend the day walking at various events around the nation during the month of May not only in order to raise funds to find a cure but also as a sign of defiance against their illness.  This is why our donations are so important.

I can continue to search for the words to describe Emily to you and help you learn more about her, but let me let her do the talking.  The link below is a video summary from the Juvenile Arthritis town hall meeting held in Atlanta in July this year.  Emily is one of the speakers, followed by US Senator Johnny Isakson.  When the page loads, on the lower left-hand side of the screen you will find a drop-down box with Emily’s name listed.  You can use this option to jump quickly to her 5-minute speech, or you can take the time to listen to the whole presentation.  In either case, knowledge of JRA and arthritis in general is important for everyone, so please spend a moment, visit Emily’s site (link at the top of the page) and view her speech below.  She has set a goal of $1000, and has currently raised $730.  Our efforts here can help her raise the additional $270.  Thank you all for your time on this matter.

Video:  Adventures in Atlanta, 2006

Space: Solar flares

This past week the Earth was blasted with a coronal mass ejection which showered our atmosphere with radiation.  From the surface of the Earth, this ration is visible in the form of auroras.  As the radiation hits the atmosphere, it excites the particles in the air, creating primarily green (oxygen) and blue (nitrogen) hues in the sky.  For a gallery of recent auroras from this past event, check up the images on the Space Weather web site.  But what causes these ejections?

Space: Shooting star spotted Saturday

It is always a case of being in the right place at the right time.  Last night, I walked outside and caught a shooting star streaking down towards the Northeast,  with a bright golden tail as it passed through our atmosphere.  Just before it reached the horizon, it began to break up and fizzle out.  This is the second shooting star I have seen in the past 14 months, with the prior one being Halloween night 2005.  So if you are ever out at night, especially when it is clear, remember to look up in the sky and keep an eye out.  You never know what you might see.

Medical science: Possible cure to Type 1 Diabetes?

Note:  The information contained in the news summary and the article below discusses results from medical testing on non-humans, and therefore should not be considered as a found cure for practical application.  Most of us know someone who is suffering from diabetes.  Hopefully as further experimentation (both human and non-human) progresses, we will be able to come up with a cure for a growing medical concern for many people around the world.  Let’s just keep in mind that we are still far from a cure, and that we should not get up our hopes too quickly.  And with that . . . here’s the article.

 

Technical difficulties

My home computer is temporarily down, but I hope to get it repaired before the week is up.  Sorry for the silence.  Have a great week!

Sorry about that folks.  My home computer is now up and running again, so new content will be coming soon.