Bibliosphere

It's election year here in the US, and the Affordable Healthcare act is one of the key platforms that the cadidates argue about. Now this act isn't about research, or improving treatments; it's about health insurance. Don't get me wrong, it's very important to have health insurance so that health care can be affordable and so that everyone has access to preventative and long term care, not just emergency care. Today, 26 years after Chernobyl, the nuclear disaster is still taking it's toll. The area around the site is still off limits due to high radiation, but the fallout in a large area around the zone of exclusion is still affecting new births. The rate of heart defects alone in babies is 8 times the normal level. Birth defects, including limb deformities, cerebal palsy, epilepsy and cognitive defects and delays are at extremely high levels. In Belarus, many of these children end up in orphanages, and later in adult asylums, simply due to the high financial

Tonight, please keep Ariel in your thoughts and prayers tonight as she bravely battles on against rhabdo.

It is almost Halloween, and I've been back from fall break for two weeks. A few updates: Sorry I haven't been writing much. Life has been hectic with midterms, projects and some rather interesting (read: difficult to fully understand) concepts. We had our first major snowstorm/ snow fall here in Salt Lake City on Thursday. While it's mostly melted here in town and at the U, the mounains have a nice cover of snow. It's simply beautiful. Ski season isn't too far off. Today was a Pre-med outreach event up at the medical school, and I have now seen my first cadaver (well, 18 of them). Very interesting. I got to see both normal cadavers, as well as most of the major systems, lung cancer, metastic melanoma, and implanted pacemakers, ports and dialysis equipment.

It's been a few weeks since the Salt Lake City Curesearch Walk that i participated in, and here's the current numbers: I personally raised $175, with the help of family, friends and some gift matching from corporations. Thank you so much for everyone who donated. I also roped a friend into coming, which was pretty awesome. The Salt Lake CureSearch walk raised $168,427 as a whole, thanks to over 3000 participants and many donors. But wait, if you've been a slow poke it's not too late to donate. You can donate to the walk's page at  https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp? , although no telling how logn it will be there. You can also donate by mail to CureSearch for Children's Cancer 440 E. Huntington Drive Suite 400, Arcadia, CA 91006 or cut out the middle man and donate straight to cure search at  https://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/Single/SinglePledgeBasket.asp?iev