Swine flu and snake oil
Category: General Epidemiology
Never one to miss an opportunity--flush your colon waste and adjust your spine to cure swine flu!
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:00 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Now on ScienceBlogs: ScienceOnline'09 - interview with Christian Casper
Discussing causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena.
Tara C. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Her research involves a number of pathogens at the animal-human nexus. Additionally, she is the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science and also writes for The Panda's Thumb and previously for WIRED SCIENCE's Correlations. Please note the views expressed on this site are Dr. Smith's alone and may not be representative of the groups mentioned above.
"...a veritable expert on tawdry cosmetic procedures gone horribly awry..."--Kevin Beck
Follow Tara on Twitter: http://twitter.com/aetiology
Category: General Epidemiology
Never one to miss an opportunity--flush your colon waste and adjust your spine to cure swine flu!
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:00 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General Epidemiology
More suspected cases around the globe...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 6:00 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General biology
Swine flu has now been confirmed in 4 US states and Mexico...what does it mean?
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 4:50 PM • 36 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Book & movie reviews
The fever hit suddenly in the form of a piercing headache and painful sensitivity to light, like looking into a white sun. At that point, the patient could still hope that it was not yellow fever, maybe just a...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:05 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General biology
Though there still may be some lingering doubt about the cause of the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of plague, the pathogen behind the outbreaks that have taken place in the last 150 years or so is much less ambiguous. What is the current state of plague epidemiology, and what does the future hold?
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 10:24 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General Epidemiology
When looking for the cause of historical outbreaks, symptoms only get us so far. How can we use DNA analysis to help confirm (or reject) a hypothesis about causation?
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 9:00 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General biology
I discussed yesterday an "alternative" hypothesis for causation of the Black Death and subsequent plague outbreaks. How robust are those claims?
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 8:30 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General biology
Scientists have accepted Yersinia pestis as the cause of the Black Death for over a century. Are they correct?
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 11:15 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General Epidemiology
Did Yersinia pestis really cause Black Plague? Part 1: Objections to Y. pestis causation Did Yersinia pestis really cause Black Plague? Part 2: Examination of the criticisms Did Yersinia pestis really cause Black Plague? Part 3: Paleomicrobiology and the detection...
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 10:00 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: General Epidemiology
Did Columbus and his sailors bring syphilis back to Europe from the New World, or was it an ancient, but previously unrecognized, infection there? A new paper sheds additional light on the controversy.
Posted by Tara C. Smith at 2:00 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Highly Allochthonous 11.05.2009
Eruptions 11.05.2009
Not Exactly Rocket Science 11.05.2009
Corpus Callosum 11.05.2009
Starts With a Bang 11.04.2009