tsmith

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Tara C. Smith

Associate Professor, lab rat (microbiologist/infectious disease epidemiologist) and occasional blogger, full-time nerd.

Posts by this author

February 3, 2013
Ivan Oransky and I moderated a session last week at ScienceOnline, the yearly conference covering all things at the intersection of science and the internets. We discussed the topic ""How to make sure you're being appropriately skeptical when covering scientific and medical studies." We started out…
December 4, 2012
I discuss the topic of emerging infectious diseases today over at Slate, as part of their Pandemic series.
November 19, 2012
Ebola has long been known to be a zoonotic virus--one which jumps between species. Though it took several decades to find evidence of Ebola virus in bats, these animals had previously been associated with human index cases of Ebola disease have worked in bat-infested warehouses or traveled to caves…
November 15, 2012
Just...wow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZy6XilXDZQ
October 19, 2012
Uganda's latest Ebola outbreak, which I covered back in July, was just officially declared over on October 5th, a mere two weeks ago. Now today there is a report that three are dead from an outbreak of Marburg virus. That makes 4 Ebola outbreaks and now 2 Marburg outbreaks in the country since 2000.
October 17, 2012
Guest post by Hillary Craddock Last week a new study regarding Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) was published online (Bingham et.al.). EEE is a mosquito-borne virus that can cause serious, and sometimes deadly, disease in humans and equines. In warmer parts of North America, the virus is spread…
September 28, 2012
Rabies is a disease without a public relations firm. In developed countries, human disease is incredibly rare--we see typically one or two deaths from rabies each year. In contrast, lightning is responsible for about 60 deaths each year. However, worldwide, rabies is another matter. Today is World…
September 24, 2012
It's that time of the year. Spots for ScienceOnline are a hotter commodity than Justin Bieber concert tickets amongst the pre-teen crowd; The Open Laboratory 2011 has just come out in print; and academics are discussing the utility of social media in full force. This topic has long been an interest…
August 28, 2012
Mahabouba*, age 14, was sold into a marriage as a second wife to a man 50 almost years her senior. Raped and beaten repeatedly, she ended up pregnant, finally succeeding in running away 7 months into her pregnancy. Fleeing to the nearby town, she found that the people there threatened to return her…
August 24, 2012
Despite its reputation as a scourge of antiquity, Yersinia pestis--the bacterium that causes bubonic plague--still causes thousands of human illnesses every year. In modern times, most of these occur in Africa, and to a lesser extent in Asia, though we have a handful of cases each year in the U.S…
August 22, 2012
Regular readers don't need to be told that I'm a bit obsessed with zoonotic disease. It's what I study, and it's a big part of what I teach. I run a Center devoted to the investigation of emerging diseases, and the vast majority of all emerging diseases are zoonotic. I have an ongoing series of…
August 18, 2012
August, 1976. A new infection was causing panic in Zaire. Hospitals became death zones, as both patients and medical staff succumbed to the disease. Reports of nightmarish symptoms trickled in to scientists in Europe and the US, who sent investigators to determine the cause and stem the epidemic.…
August 2, 2012
Science denial, I fear, is here to stay. Almost half of Americans believe in creationism. Anti-vaccination sentiment is going strong, despite record pertussis outbreaks. Academics are even leaving their jobs, in part, because of the terrible anti-intellectual attitude in this country. It's…
July 30, 2012
Uganda just can't catch a break. They've recently been hit with nodding disease, a mysterious syndrome where children repeatedly nod their heads and undergo serious seizures, typically leading to death. Now they're in the grips of another Ebola outbreak. This will be the fourth time the country has…
July 16, 2012
With my colleague Greg Tinkler, I spent an afternoon last week at a local public library talking to kids about zombies: The Zombie Apocalypse is coming. Will you be ready? University of Iowa epidemiologist Dr. Tara Smith will talk about how a zombie virus might spread and how you can prepare. Get…
July 11, 2012
Iowans, Carl Zimmer will be in Iowa City this Friday and Saturday. Friday his talk will be in the hospital complex on Science Communication and New Media (Details), while Saturday he'll be speaking on "A Planet of Viruses" as part of the Iowa City Book Festival (Details). Stop by!
July 9, 2012
I know summer is winding down, but there's still plenty of beach time left and some great books to take along with you. Two giants in the field have recently released memoirs of their respective fights against infectious diseases: William Foege's House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox and…
June 23, 2012
This is the last of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Jessica Waters.  Climatologists have been warning us about the ongoing and impending consequences of global warming for years. But the results of climate change affect more than just polar bears and penguins  - if you live anywhere in the…
June 22, 2012
This is the fifteenth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Cassie Klostermann.  One of the major accomplishments that public health professionals pride themselves in is the reduction of people getting sick or dying from preventable infectious diseases. Unfortunately, these debilitating, historic…
June 22, 2012
This is the fourteenth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Caroline Rauschendorfer.  Cryptosporidiosis, known more commonly as crypto, is a gastrointestinal (GI) disease caused by parasites of the Cryptosporidium genus. If infected with crypto you may experience diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever…
June 22, 2012
This is the thirteenth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Jessica Ludvik.  One Disease, Many Species Brucellosis, more commonly known as undulant fever in humans or bangs disease in cattle, is one of the oldest bacterial scourges of livestock-producing nations, especially those in which the…
June 21, 2012
This is the twelfth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Stanley Corbin. Disease in wildlife is an important concern to the health and safety of humans and domestic animals. The expanding growth of our nation and resultant land use changes with urbanization has resulted in a shrinking habitat and…
June 21, 2012
This is the eleventh of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Ilze Berzins.  When one hears the words “food-borne illness”, what comes to mind?  For me, I think of a medium rare, pink, juicy hamburger, or something like potato salad that may be made with mayonnaise containing raw eggs, or maybe a…
June 21, 2012
This is the tenth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Jean DeNapoli.  I own a small back yard flock of sheep and lambing season is the most exciting and rewarding time of the year.  Nothing is more enjoyable than watching a lamb who takes a few wobbly steps and nurses for the first time as her…
June 19, 2012
This is the eighth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Michelle Formanek.  For many of us in the scientific world, particularly budding infectious disease epidemiologists like myself, the Plague (or, more dramatically, the “Black Death”) is a prime example of the rapid and devastating spread of…
June 18, 2012
This is the seventh of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Joshua Pikora. Recently an article published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases titled Chagas Disease: “The New HIV/AIDS of the Americas” caused a stir in the media receiving coverage through Fox News and The New York Times among others. …
June 18, 2012
This is the sixth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Anna Lyons-Nace.  Natural…unprocessed…raw.  These terms are often used by consumers, nutritionists and health experts to denote the most healthful, high-quality food options available for consumption. However, when pertaining to the recent…
June 16, 2012
This is the fifth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by E. Jane Kelley. Did you know that some dogs might have a tapeworm in their small intestine that can cause the development of large cysts in people’s livers, lungs, and brains? This is not very common in the United States currently, though…
June 15, 2012
This is the fourth of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Eric Wika. Let's face it, it's a dangerous world to be a brain. The brain is so soft and squishy it cannot even support its own weight. That's right, even gravity itself is enough to take out an unprotected brain. Besides these passive…
June 15, 2012
This is the third of 16 student posts, guest-authored by Mary Egan. Murine typhus has been in the news recently in Austin, TX, where in May of this year, two people were found to be positive and one died.  This rings a number of alarm bells for me, since I live in Texas, and specifically in Austin…