January is National Blood Donor Month.

You don't need a special reason to give blood. You just need your own reason. Some of us give blood because we were asked by a friend. Some know that a family member or a friend might need blood some day. Some believe it is the right thing to do.

Whatever your reason, the need is constant and your donation is important for maintaining a healthy and reliable blood supply. You'll feel good knowing you've helped change a life!

LifeScience Moment: First Birthday Balls to raise funds for the Warm Springs Foundation was held on FDR's birthday.

On Jan. 30, 1934, the First Birthday Balls to raise funds for the Warm Springs Foundation was held on FDR's birthday. When Franklin Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921, at age thirty-nine, it inspired his interest in medical philanthropy. When he heard about the therapeutic value of the thermal mineral baths at Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt went there and ended up buying the site and creating a foundation in 1927. He persuaded his friend and New York City law partner Basil O’Connor to run it.

After Roosevelt became president in 1933, O’Connor co-coordinated Birthday Balls that took place on Roosevelt’s birthday each January and raised money for the care of polio patients. These were so successful that in 1938 they were merged into a nationwide organization, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later renamed the March of Dimes.

It's a Small World
	Cryptosporidium Parasite

Science Quote

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."