November 16, 2014 Rayshell Clapper for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online Every day, across the United States, some little kid loses a tooth, which means every night that same little kid has a magical visit from the tooth fairy who replaces it with money. But what happens to those teeth? Sure, they may be stored away as keepsakes, but thats a lot of baby teeth for parents to pack away. Scientifically, there are some serious benefits in studying those teeth. In fact, the Radiation and Public Health Project started a program called the Tooth Fairy Project. This project has participating families send the baby teeth in so that they can study them, specifically looking at elements the teeth have been exposed to since inception. The program looks for Radioactive Strontium-90 (Sr-90) because it is so deadly, and like calcium the body stores it in the bones and teeth indefinitely. Sr-90 will continue to emit cancer-causing radiation, so studying baby teeth will help researchers accurately determine when and where radioactivity was absorbed from the environment. But this is not the only study for which the Tooth Fairy Project has proven to be a benefit. According to the University of California San Diego … Continue reading →

CHERRY HILL There will be many performances of The Nutcracker this season, but few will be as charming or for such a worthwhile cause as the one Sunday at St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church. The Philadelphia-based troupe performed highlights from the Tchaikovsky ballet during a lavish Victorian Tea Party fundraiser, with the bulk of the days funds slated for research into a little-known disease that afflicts a parishioner's son. The disease, Friedreich's ataxia, is an inherited disorder that gradually destroys the nerve tissue of the spinal cord, leaving the victim unable to move without a wheelchair and vulnerable to heart disease, diabetes and scoliosis. Medford resident Leonidas Lazaropoulos, the 25-year-old son of parishioner Krissa Lazaropoulos, did not let the disease keep him from graduating from Drexel University with a bachelors degree in biology in 2012, nor will it keep him from working toward his doctorate and his goal of a career in zoology. But the disease, which leaves the mind intact as it attacks the body, has given him deeply slurred speech and hampered his movements. Which is why the sponsor of the fundraiser Nike chapter 230 of the Daughters of Penelope chose the Friedrichs Ataxia Research Alliance, or FARA, … Continue reading →