Health

We asked our friends on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere what they love about upstate New York, for a special upstate Valentine.  

Turns out, you love mountains and lakes, snow and sun, orange and blue, and a certain grocery store chain.  

Now, without further ado:  

Valentine's Day is coming, so it's time to let the one you love (or the one you tolerate) know what makes your heart strings sing. 

Let us know why you love upstate in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter. 

If your answer makes us tear up (or crack up) we might include it in our Upstate Valentine!

Today in your Trail Mix:

Officials are trying to combat concerns that a cluster of strange symptoms is related to an old toxic spill.

New York home sales are down in 2011.

Depressed natural gas prices might prevent drilling.

Plus: Does increasing the minimum wage matter in New York?

Buffalo-based CUBRC could earn $67 million for work on the behalf of the federal government.

Through a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CUBRC will investigate potential medical treatments for a handful of conditions that currently have no cure.

"Our country, and frankly our world at large, face a growing threat," says Anne Radcliff, director of biological & medical sciences at CUBRC. "That's a threat from deadly infections for which treatments are nonexistent or inadequate. These diseases could be caused by either man made threats, in the case of biological weapons, or emerge naturally."

One of the tasks of the HHS is to fill the gaps in the government's response to possible medical scenarios.

Can a vaccine treat cancer?

That’s the question behind new clinical tests, soon to begin at Buffalo’s Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

The medicine in question is not your average vaccine: Each dose is customized for each cancer patient.

Researchers will draw healthy cells from each study participant, attach a specialized protein in a sterile lab environment and then inject the mixture, now known as a dendritic cell vaccine, back into the body.

“You can see that these cells now come back. They have memory. They’re able to remember that cancer cells are bad. They need to be destroyed. They need to be killed,” says Kunle Odunsi, chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology.

Under a new piece of legislation in New York’s Assembly, all new nurses in New York would need to earn a four-year Bachelor of Science of Nursing (BSN) degree - within 10 years of passage of the bill.

Under the initiative, dubbed “BSN in 10,” a two-year associate’s degree leading to Registered Nurse (RN) licensure would be sufficient for up to a decade.