Bibliosphere

 While a lot of this blog focuses on days and awareness of what's happening with childhood cancer in the US, the reality is that childhood cancer has a global impact. This year International Childhood Cancer Day falls on February 15. From the organizers , "International Childhood Cancer Day is a global collaborative campaign to raise awareness about childhood cancer, and to express support for children and adolescents with cancer, the survivors and their families." Did you know that over 400,000 children develop cancer annually, but only half are ever diagnosed. There are huge gaps in childhood cancer care between countries, where 70% of children in some low and middle income countries won't survive their cancer, but only 20% of those in high income countries won't survive. Still far too high, but think about that difference for a moment. The International Childhood Cancer Day organizers have provided a toolkit to learn more about how you can help here .

 In a new, multi-institution collaboration, the first of it's kind open source analysis platform for childhood brain tumors has been created: Open Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas (OpenPBTA). Thanks to the support of Alex's Lemonade Stand researchers , data from a pediatric brain tumor database that started in 2018, plus additional samples, is now open for scientists and researchers. We hope that this will usher in a new era of collaborative research for pediatric brain tumors like glioblastoma and DIPG. Read more about it here .

   While the majority of the information I post about childhood cancer is from or about the US, childhood cancer is a global disease.  There are over 200,000 cases around the world annually.  Though the 5 year survival rate in the US and other high-income countries is around 80%, the survival in low and middle income countries (80% of the children diagnosed) survival is under 5%.  While childhood cancer isn't the biggest worry or cause of death by disease in low income countries, it still has a high prevalence around the world. 

This summer has been fairly relaxing so far (although that is partly due to the fact I was furloughed from work for two weeks).  I've been catching up on my reading, and have come across a few gems of scientific and historical note: A 1500 year old skeleton showing signs of Down's syndrome (trisomy 21) was found in France. The child was buried in similar fashion to the others in the site, possibly indicating that the child was treated no different than others.  Read about it at New Scientist . A 50+ year old frozen smallpox vial was found while researchers were cleaning out an old freezer at the NIH facility in Bethesda, MD.  The vial, though unsecured, was still intact and fully sealed.  The CDC has gained custody of the vial.  The contents were DNA tested to verify it's contents (definitely smallpox) and is now being tested to see if it could have infectious.  Read about it on NPR , CNN , and TIME .   Apparently plants can hear themselves being...

     Ask the majority of people about genocide, and they will tell you about the holocaust.  You might ask them if they know of any other genocides, and a few might tell you about the movie Hotel Rwanda.      What the majority of Americans don't know is that there have been many more genocides.  There have been hundreds of crimes against humanity, some of which are still going on now.  243 Nigerian girls were kidnapped from school two weeks ago, yet I see very little on the news.  Today, 30+ people were killed in a Syrian marketplace, and on Tuesday 14 children were killed and 80 injured when a school was bombed.  These things should be making the news, but instead I see profiles on sports stars and celebrity gossip.      Crimes against humanity still happen.  They didn't stop with the Holocaust.  Be aware that not everything is as America-centric as we may think.