May 10 is World Lupus Day
More than five million people worldwide, mostly women, face an unpredictable future as they struggle daily with the often debilitating health
consequences of lupus, a potentially life-threatening autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack the body’s own healthy tissue.
An international call-to-action has been issued by more than one hundred lupus organizations based in countries around the world to
conduct the annual observance of World Lupus Day.
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LifeScience Moment: English scientist and physician Edward Jenner inoculated 8-year old James Phipps against smallpox
On May 14, 1796, English scientist and physician Edward Jenner inoculated 8-year old James Phipps with the world's first vaccine against smallpox.
For many years, Jenner had heard the tales that dairymaids were protected from smallpox naturally after having suffered from cowpox. Jenner concluded
that cowpox not only protected against smallpox but could be transmitted from one person to another as a deliberate mechanism of protection.
In early 1796, Jenner found a young dairymaid, Sarah Nelms, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hands and arms, and used matter from Nelms'
lesions to inoculate Phipps. In July, Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. No disease developed.
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It is a Small World
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Rug fibers & dust particles, Photo credit: Andrea Ferro, Clarkson University
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Science Quote
"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science."
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Albert Einstein
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(1879-1955)
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