Tara C. Smith
Associate Professor, lab rat (microbiologist/infectious disease epidemiologist) and occasional blogger, full-time nerd.
tsmith
Posts by this author
July 5, 2007
Need some more reading? Check out the latest edition of Tangled Bank over at Aardvarchaeology, and the latest Skeptics' Circle over at The Skeptical Alchemist.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned previously, next week's Grand Rounds will be here at Aetiology. Send your submissions in to me by Sunday…
July 4, 2007
I know many of the HIV threads here get very tedious and repetitive, but occasionally interesting things come out of them. Believe it or not, I've learned a lot about HIV denial over the past year and a half or so. I've long been familiar with Duesberg's objections, but it wasn't until more…
July 3, 2007
A few other topics readers here may appreciate:
First and foremost, this week's Grand Rounds can be found over at Over my med body!. Next week, however, it will be hosted right here at Aetiology for the second time, so send your posts along to me (aetiology AT gmail DOT com), preferably by Sunday…
July 3, 2007
I mentioned back in May that myself and a group of science bloggers went and got ourselves interviewed by Chris Condayan of The American Society for Microbiology's MicrobeWorld. Well, the video ("Microblogology") is up, featuring fellow U of Iowan John Logsdon, Jonathan Badger, Yersinia, Elio…
July 2, 2007
Over at Uncommon Descent, the blog of William Dembski and friends, a contributor has a post up discussing Peter Duesberg's aneuploidy hypothesis for cancer (which Orac discussed here for more background). The post itself is a bit confusing--it's titled "When Darwinism Hurts," and according to the…
July 1, 2007
AiG volunteers confront gay man, love sodomites:
We asked the lone gentleman behind the booth about the origins of the rainbow colors as a symbol for the homosexual movement. He gave us some history, apparently in San Francisco is where it originated. It was meant to reflect the diversity of…
June 29, 2007
I don't often provide a lot of background into HIV science or HIV denial, instead referencing previous posts I've made or websites such as AIDStruth.org or the NIAID fact sheet. For those of you who may be looking for more background in a nice, concise format, HealthDot has a 20-minute interview…
June 29, 2007
Last year, I mentioned some ongoing research suggesting a link between exposure to light and the development of breast cancer. As I mentioned then:
While we know a good deal about factors that can contribute to breast cancer risk--including genetics (such as mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes…
June 26, 2007
Women do some rather insane things to achieve modern standards of beauty. We wear shoes that do terrible things to our feet. We don bras that dig into our chest and push our breasts into strange conformations. We slide on pantyhose to firm our stomachs, makeup to hide our imperfections, and…
June 26, 2007
Blogging will probably be light this week; while I was in Ohio a week ago for a happy event, this weekend was much the opposite, and I'll be out of town part of the week at a memorial service. In the meantime, though, I got tagged (twice!) with a meme that I've already seen pop up recently on…
June 25, 2007
I mentioned that a whole group of us went to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Professor Steve Steve has his account now up at the Thumb, while Jason Rosenhouse has a two-parter at EvolutionBlog, and Wes Elsberry's account is here. Oh, and a group picture:
Rear, L to R: Evil Monkey, Richard…
June 22, 2007
While I was out last week, I completely missed this Science article all about HIV denial and the AidsTruth.org website, and features frequent commenter Richard Jeffreys:
For 20 years, a small but vocal group of AIDS "dissenters" has attracted international attention by questioning whether HIV…
June 22, 2007
Seems like this discussion is starting to wind down, but I did see a few additional posts that I haven't linked yet: Janet, Josh, Bora, doc-in-training, and Melinda Barton. As with the previous posts, lots of good ideas (from both the scientist and the journalist points of view).
[Edited to add…
June 21, 2007
Sally Mason Named University Of Iowa's 20th President.
Interesting. A female biologist, currently Provost at Purdue:
During her tenure at Purdue, Mason invested both professionally and personally in diversity and innovative research and education.
She raised funds for and implemented a number of…
June 21, 2007
I mentioned I was back in Ohio last week. The occasion was the celebration of my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, but while I was in the area, a number of us from Panda's Thumb also met up south of Cincinnati to take our own tour of Answers in Genesis' Creation Museum. (Wesley has a…
June 21, 2007
Check out a very clever Tangled Bank over at Greg Laden's place, and the latest Skeptics' Circle (Solstice edition!) at Relatively Science.
June 20, 2007
Really, one of these times I'll get onto a new topic, but every time I turn around, new posts pop up in the scientists and journalists conversation. The most recent updates:
Chris Mooney, part II. I want to emphasize a resource he linked: the report from a 2005 workshop on "Science…
June 20, 2007
Check out new posts on the scientist/journalist (mis?)communication topic at Evolving Thoughts, The Loom, and The Post-Normal Times.
June 19, 2007
In addition to comments by Mike, Jennifer, and Astroprof, Chris Mooney added his thoughts to the scientist-journalist communication discussion in a post here--so perhaps a few more journalists will pop out of the woodwork there and elaborate.
I see a common theme here. Scientists have often had…
June 19, 2007
It's that time again. Check out the latest edition of Pediatric Grand Rounds over at Med Journal Watch, while the original version of Grand Rounds can be found this week at code blog: tales of a nurse (set up as a very cute advice column).
June 19, 2007
I've had a busy week (and an especially busy weekend--more on that in a later post), so today's activity will again be sparse, but I have a lot on tap (now just to get it all typed up!) I do, however, want to highlight a few other posts you should read if you were interested in my post on the…
June 15, 2007
As y'all know, a frequent topic of conversation here is communicating science to the public. While many of us do it directly via sites such as this one, the bulk of science writing that the public will read is done by the pros--people writing for the magazines and newspapers, among other outlets…
June 13, 2007
Over at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles, the good doc brings up another instance of quackery from an unexpected source: Dr. Henry Heimlich, originator of the Heimlich maneuver for choking. While that procedure has clearly saved many lives, Dr. Heimlich doesn't stop there--he advocates using…
June 12, 2007
One of the most famous stories in all of epidemiology revolves around the very birth of the science, in the midst of a London cholera outbreak in 1854. At the time, the scientific community was divided over the cause of cholera and other diseases. The majority of them accepted the miasma…
June 12, 2007
I'm on the road today, literally--driving from Iowa to Ohio with kids and dogs in tow. (Well, okay, not exactly in tow--I do allow them to ride *inside* the car). I have a post scheduled for a bit later, but in the meantime, hop on over and check out not one, but two versions of this week's…
June 11, 2007
It's been awhile since I picked on the real science journalists (as opposed to we Daily Show-esque "fake news" sites). I don't mean to get down on them too much; I know that there are many out there who do an incredible job, but then there are also ones who write up articles like this one on how…
June 11, 2007
HIV "dissident" David Crowe is like the gift that just keeps on giving. Last year, I mentioned a paper he'd written in the journal Medical Hypotheses, suggesting that influenza serotype H5N1 doesn't exist. Well, it just keeps getting better. Now, it seems he's writing a book on "the infectious…
June 10, 2007
Rwanda abolishes the death penalty:
Rwanda's parliament voted late on Friday to abolish the death penalty, a move that should clear the way for suspects in the 1994 genocide to be extradited back to Rwanda.
You might think that survivors of such a horrible genocide would want to see those who…
June 9, 2007
Via Bora, I see that the Koufax awards are back up and running. All of the categories (I think) can be found at this link. Aetiology was nominated in two that I noticed: best series (for the emerging diseases and zoonoses series--now up to 27 posts) and most deserving of wider recognition.…
June 8, 2007
I keep saying I'm going to update my blogroll, and really, one of these days I'll get to it. In the meantime, I'll keep highlighting a few of the sites that I'll be adding. One of these is Epidemiologic Inquiry, kind of one-stop-shopping for epidemiologists. The site includes updates on epi and…