Tara C. Smith
Associate Professor, lab rat (microbiologist/infectious disease epidemiologist) and occasional blogger, full-time nerd.
tsmith
Posts by this author
August 27, 2007
Yes, that's actually the argument made by the Orwellian group, PRISM ("Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine"):
Policies are being proposed that threaten to introduce undue government intervention in science and scholarly publishing, putting at risk the integrity of…
August 24, 2007
...and that's not just a comment on the weather here. The past few days have been packed. In addition to the work stuff, I've been gearing up for classes next week and getting my kids off to their new school year (and my son in kindergarten). It's always nice when hard work pays off, but it…
August 23, 2007
...is underwater.
FINDLAY, Ohio - Hundreds of Ohio residents remained flooded out of their homes Thursday as some rivers continued to rise, while forecasters had bad news for the state and other parts of the Midwest: expect more storms and even a taste of the heat wave baking the South.
***
In…
August 22, 2007
Seems like just yesterday that I was watching (from afar) Ewen head off to grad school in journalism. Well, now he's making a splash in the latest issue of Nature, with a story on the potential for a dengue vaccine, and why there may be more of a market for it currently--largely because it's…
August 21, 2007
Since there are already several threads on HIV running, and I'm loathe to have another, I'll post this up for consumption but leave the comments for one of the other threads. While I was in New York over the weekend, PLoS Medicine published an article authored by myself and Steven Novella (also of…
August 20, 2007
I mentioned August would be a hellish travel month. Beginning August 2nd, I drove to Chicago for YearlyKos, back to Iowa and grabbed the kids and dogs, headed to Ohio to visit family (including an almost-9-months-pregnant sister and her 18-month old son), headed out to Maryland/DC/Delaware for an…
August 16, 2007
I've not mentioned this yet because I hadn't had a chance to see it myself, but C-SPAN did broadcast this year's YearlyKos Science Panel. You can see Chris's talk on hurricanes and global warming here; Ed's talk on fighting creationism by running for school board here, and Sean's talk on dark…
August 16, 2007
A reader pointed this out to me awhile back, and it's just too absurd not to mention. You may or may not be familiar with Gary Null. He's a self-proclaimed "natural living" guru, and the writer/director of the recent HIV denial documentary, AIDS Inc.:
AIDS, Inc. is a film about the multi-billion…
August 13, 2007
There have been some interesting updates in the field of HIV politics and denial recently. First, after having several months of moving forward with a real plan to combat AIDS in South Africa, the deputy minister of health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, has been fired. For those who follow this area…
August 9, 2007
Apologies for the silence; as I mentioned, August is a crazy month for me. I hope to get back to some heavier science posts some point here, but those will, unfortunately, have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I did want to say a bit about last week's science discussions at YearlyKos, featuring…
July 31, 2007
Busy week for me. I'm preparing a talk for a conference next month with the longest title ever: The International Conference on Diseases in Nature Communicable to Man. (Basically, a conference on zoonotic disease.) I'll be speaking about my research on Streptococcus suis, and hopefully meeting…
July 30, 2007
The Danica McKellar posts (review; interview) have sparked some discussion that I want to address here. It largely centers on the issue of McKellar's approach: is it a good one? Or is it trying to replace one Bad Thing (girls' dislike of math) with another Bad Thing (encouraging them to be, as…
July 27, 2007
XDR-TB has been in the news quite a bit lately, largely thanks to Andrew Speaker's notoriety. Even though his TB was later re-classified as "just" multi-drug resistant (MDR-TB) instead of the initial extremely drug resistant (XDR) type, it did serve to raise awareness about the issues public…
July 27, 2007
Just a quick post from the "weird happenings in Iowa" file: Mysterious chunks of ice pelt Iowa town.
DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) -- Large chunks of ice, one of them reportedly about 50 pounds, fell from the sky in this northeast Iowa city, smashing through a woman's roof and tearing through nearby trees…
July 26, 2007
In terms of physical size, microbiologist Rita Colwell is a petitie woman. However, her distinguished research and service career has made her a giant in her field. Her research revolves around many aspects of water ecology, including the intersection of the environment and infectious disease (…
July 25, 2007
Yesterday I reviewed Danica McKellar's forthcoming book, Math Doesn't Suck. When I contacted the book's publicist about receiving a review copy, I also inquired about an interview with Danica, and she graciously agreed. Perhaps this will cover some topics brought up in the comments section of…
July 24, 2007
It's not a rosy picture for girls in math. As Barbie infamously framed it, girls should think that "math is hard." While Mattel (rightly) received a lot of flack for that comment, the sad fact is that Barbie was reflecting the attitude many girls tend to take toward mathematics education: it's…
July 24, 2007
After 8 1/2 years of imprisonment, torture in jail, and a death sentence hanging over their heads, the Tripoli Six (collected links) are back home, and have been granted pardons from the Bulgarian president.
Revere, again, has the details; more at the BBC and New York Times. Many kudos go…
July 21, 2007
Scienceblogs gets another infusion of public health goodness with its latest addition, The Angry Toxicologist. It looks like a great start, with posts on vaccines and autism, restless leg syndrome and balancing your chi (quote: "Oooo, scientificy!") Welcome aboard!
July 20, 2007
A looong time ago, I mentioned that I spent St. Patrick's Day weekend in Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, at a symposium I helped to plan (but neglected to blog! Oops). Along with other scientists, theologians, philosophers, and generally interested persons, we worked for a bit over a year to…
July 18, 2007
The strange and tragic case of the Tripoli Six, a group of 5 Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor working in Tripoli, Libya, is finally drawing to a close. The six health workers had been found guilty of infecting up to 400 children in the hospital where they worked with HIV, and had…
July 18, 2007
Today's Tangled Bank has just gone up over at The Voltage Gate; this week's Grand Rounds is up at vitum medicinus, and Pediatric Grand Rounds can be found over at Parenting Solved.
July 17, 2007
By now, regular readers will probably be familiar with The Clergy Letter Project spearheaded by Michael Zimmerman. Formulated in part to respond to the framing of the evolution controversy as a battle between science and religion, the letter now boasts more than 10,700 signatures from clergy, and…
July 12, 2007
Traveling yet again today (things finally calm down in September, I think). In the meantime, here are a few posts from elsewhere I've been meaning to highlight:
Some more background for those of you who may not be up to speed on HIV/AIDS: AJ Cann explains what we know (and don't know) about how…
July 9, 2007
Welcome to Aetiology and this week's edition of Grand Rounds. It's my pleasure to host this carnival for a second time, and I greatly appreciate all of you who sent along submissions for today's round-up.
I want to start by briefly mentioning what looks to be an excellent new source, especially…
July 9, 2007
Last year, Seed magazine and Scienceblogs noted the 25th anniversary of the recognition of AIDS. You'd think that in all that time, especially with the identification of HIV and all the public education campaigns in the 1980s, people would realize by now that HIV isn't spread by casual contact.…
July 9, 2007
I rarely watch TV, and probably the last time I was a regular viewer of any evening news program was in graduate school, pre-kids. However, I've peripherally followed the Katie Couric drama, her move from the Today show to CBS Evening News, and her subsequent disappointing ratings. I've had a…
July 8, 2007
Don't forget to send your entries for this week's Grand Rounds along to me by the close of business today.
July 6, 2007
Every time you love just a little
Take one step closer, solving a riddle
It echoes all over the world
Every time you opt in to kindness
Make one connection, used to divide us
It echoes all over the world
--Dar Williams, Echoes
I write about African countries with some regularity on here. The…
July 6, 2007
Over at Neurotopia, Evil Monkey has been busy writing up a series on hormone therapy.
Part One: history and basics. (Be sure to check out the 1960s-era ads for hormone replacement therapy too...be warned that they might raise your blood pressure).
Part Two: types of HRT and consequences,…