“Navigators aid patients through hospital maze - Tulsa World” plus 4 more

Navigators aid patients through hospital maze - Tulsa World
High school fundraising weeks net big money for charity - Greenville News
Testicular tumors may explain why some diseases are more common in ... - Genetic Engineering News
PHOTOS The President & First Lady's Day (Oct 23) - Democratic Underground.com
NC hospital volunteer still working at age 101 - WLOS.com

Navigators aid patients through hospital maze - Tulsa World

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 10:17 AM PDT

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High school fundraising weeks net big money for charity - Greenville News

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 11:07 AM PDT

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The philanthropy

Each school has a slightly different focus when it comes to choosing a charity.

Eastside generally selects disease foundations where students feel like they're contributing to finding a cure – "the underdog," according to Beth Payne, central spirit president.

Wade Hampton chooses a local charity, and Greenville tends to choose a few local charities to share in the proceeds. J.L. Mann takes things to heart; the school's charity focus this year is Susan G. Komen for the Cure because of the school athletic director's successful battle with breast cancer.

"This is going to be a member of our school and one of our teachers who's with us every day," said Hannah Pace, a Mann student body executive. "That really makes it mean so much more, so much past the competition."

Wade Hampton this year chose A Child's Haven, a therapeutic center for children with developmental delays caused by poverty, abuse or neglect. Michelle Shain, interim executive director, said the money couldn't have come at a better time.

"The money that will be raised for spirit week will go toward helping us keep the doors open, and that is so critical right now in this economy," she said. "We're going to learn from them. They'll hopefully learn from us. And at the end of the day, children and families get served at the highest possible level."

The fun

Students at Eastside High described the week as "crazy" and "chaotic," and that's easy to understand with a spirit week schedule that includes events such as a 5K walk/run, a Haunted Hallway, silent auction, dress-up days, basketball tournament, a womanless pageant, teacher talent show, arm wrestling, bonfire and much, much more.

And every school's calendar is just as full with events like powder puff football, dodgeball, yard sales, mud wrestling, dances and performers.

Wade Hampton's signature impersonating, cross-dressing event, Poultry, is its biggest fundraiser every year, raking in $60,000 alone last year.

Teachers and students alike get into the spirit, Beacham said, with challenges like "My fifth-period class is going to raise more money than your fifth-period class.'

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Testicular tumors may explain why some diseases are more common in ... - Genetic Engineering News

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 10:38 AM PDT

Oct 25 2009, 1:20 PM EST

Testicular tumors may explain why some diseases are more common in children of older fathers

EUREKALERT

Contact: Craig Brierley
c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk
44-207-611-7329
Wellcome Trust

A rare form of testicular tumour has provided scientists with new insights into how genetic changes (mutations) arise in our children. The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Danish Cancer Society, could explain why certain diseases are more common in the children of older fathers.

Mutations can occur in different cells of the body and at different times during life. Some, such as those which occur in 'germ cells' (those which create sperm or eggs), cause changes which affect the offspring; those which occur in other cells can lead to tumours, but are not inherited.

In work published today in Nature Genetics, researchers at the University of Oxford and Copenhagen University Hospital describe a surprising link between certain severe childhood genetic disorders and rare testicular tumours occurring in older men: the germ cells that make the mutant gene-carrying sperm seem to be the same cells that produce the tumour.

Although the original mutations occur only rarely in the sperm-producing cells, they encourage the mutant cells to divide and multiply. When the cell divides, it copies the mutation to each daughter cell, and the clump of mutant sperm-producing cells expands over time. Hence, the number of sperm carrying this mutation also increases as men get older, raising the risk to older fathers of having affected children.

Professor Andrew Wilkie from the University of Oxford, who led the study, explains: "We think most men develop these tiny clumps of mutant cells in their testicles as they age. They are rather like moles in the skin, usually harmless in themselves. But by being located in the testicle, they also make sperm causing children to be born with a variety of serious conditions. We call them 'selfish' because the mutations benefit the germ cell but are harmful to offspring."

The work helps to explain the origins of several serious conditions that affect childhood growth and development. These include achondroplasia and Apert, Noonan and Costello syndromes, as well as some conditions causing stillbirth. The research links these conditions to a single pathway controlling cell multiplication, and will be valuable to doctors explaining to parents why the disorder has arisen, and informing them about the risks of it occurring again: in most cases, future children are unlikely to be affected.

The findings may also help explain one of the mysteries of genetics: why scientists have yet to account for much of the genetic component of common diseases. Common diseases tend to be caused by the interaction of many genes, but despite powerful genome-wide association scans to search for these genes, relatively few have been uncovered. Several of these diseases, including breast cancer, autism and schizophrenia, seem to be more frequent in the offspring of older fathers, but the reasons are unknown. Professor Wilkie suggests that similar but milder mutations might contribute to these diseases.

"What we have seen so far may just be the tip of a large iceberg of mildly harmful mutations being introduced into our genome," he explains. "These mutations would be too weak and too rare to be picked up by our current technology, but their sheer number would have a cumulative effect, leading to disease."

Further research is needed to find other genes that are affected by this process. However, DNA sequencing technology has recently undergone a step change in capacity, enabling more sequence to be obtained in one day than was possible in a whole year just a decade ago. As the sequencing data emerge over the next decade, we should discover just how vulnerable we are to men's selfish mutation factories.

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PHOTOS The President & First Lady's Day (Oct 23) - Democratic Underground.com

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 09:41 AM PDT

President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on October 23, 2009 en route to Boston

President Barack Obama and Senator John Kerry step off Air Force One in Boston, October 23

President Barack Obama looks at a model of a wind turbine during his visit to a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

President Barack Obama holds up a t-shirt given to him by Mechanical Engineering Professor Alex Slocum

An autograph by President Barack Obama on a vacuum apparatus that he had just written on during his visit to a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

President Barack Obama holds up a copy of the periodic table given to him before delivering a speech about renewable energy and climate change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts

President Barack Obama participates in a fundraiser for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in Boston

President Barack Obama with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Tim Murray

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President Barack Obama with Senator Chris Dodd at New York's JFK Airport

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President Barack Obama at a fundraiser for Sen. Chris Dodd

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Back home

By public demand: Pink tie explanation :-)

First lady Michelle Obama looks on as Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, speaks during a breast cancer awareness event in the First Lady's Garden at the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 23, 2009.

First lady Michelle Obama poses with Shira Sternberg, of Washington, after speaking at a Breast Cancer Awareness Month event

Meanwhile

First Lady Michelle Obama and Queen Silvia of Sweden meet in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House, Oct. 23, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

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