So after taking a couple of classes with my friends at the University of Pretoria, we decided to go to a bar called Aandlkaas. It’s an Afrikaans word…not really sure what it means.
Oh wait–it means “evening class”. LOL how ironic.
Aside from the drinks special (which lets you have any drink you want for R10 which comes to about $1.75 or something), the bathrooms were also a cool sight. Like the losers that my friends and I can be, we initiated a mini photo shoot. The walls were covered in graffiti—well, mostly people just declaring their unconditional love to untold crushes. Reminiscent of Brooklyn, I reckon.
So here I am posing. Inside a bathroom stall. All that’s left to wonder is who took the picture. Lol.
I guess young people are the same everywhere. And artistic flair seems to creep into every aspect of life. Even the place where excretory activities are meant to take place.
Studies from National Institutes of Health describe new findings in non-hodgkin lymphoma.
Blood Weekly November 26, 2009 “Sun exposure and sensitivity, including pigmentation, are associated with risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). One variant in the immune regulatory factor 4 (IRF4) gene (rs12203592) is associated with pigmentation, and a different IRF4 variant (rs12211228) is associated with NHL risk,” scientists writing in the journal Cancer Causes & Control report (see also Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma).
“We evaluated the independent roles of these IRF4 polymorphisms and sun sensitivity in mediating NHL risk and explored whether they are confounded or modified by each other. Genotyping of tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IRF4 gene was conducted in 990 NHL cases and 828 controls from a multi-center US study. Measures of sun sensitivity and exposure were ascertained from computer-assisted personal interviews. We used logistic regression to compute odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for NHL in relation to sun exposures, sun exposures in relation to IRF4 genotypes, and NHL in relation to sun exposures. We further assessed the effects of sun exposures in relation to IRF4 genotypes. As previously reported, we found significant associations between IRF4 rs12211228 and NHL and between hair and eye color and NHL. The IRF4 rs12203592 polymorphism (CT/TT genotype) was statistically significantly associated with eye color and particularly with hair color (ORLight Blonde = 0.24, 95% CI = 0.11-0.50, overall Chi square p = 0.0002). Analysis of joint effects between eye and hair color with the IRF4 rs12203592 SNP did not reveal statistically significant p-interactions although NHL risk did decline with lighter hair color and presence of the variant IRF4 rs12203592 allele, compared to those without a variant allele and with black/brown hair color. Our data do not statistically support a joint effect between IRF4 and sun sensitivity in mediating risk for NHL,” wrote A.H. Gathany and colleagues, National Institutes of Health. web site brown hair color web site brown hair color
The researchers concluded: “Further evaluation of joint effects in other and larger populations is warranted.” Gathany and colleagues published their study in Cancer Causes & Control (Relationship between interferon regulatory factor 4 genetic polymorphisms, measures of sun sensitivity and risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Cancer Causes & Control, 2009;20(8):1291-1302).
Additional information can be obtained by contacting S.S. Wang, National Cancer Institute, Division Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, National Institutes of Health, DHHS, 6120 Executive Blvd., EPS 7070, Rockville, MD 20852, USA.
The publisher of the journal Cancer Causes & Control can be contacted at: Springer, Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 Gz Dordrecht, Netherlands.
