Tara C. Smith
Associate Professor, lab rat (microbiologist/infectious disease epidemiologist) and occasional blogger, full-time nerd.
tsmith
Posts by this author
August 28, 2006
Yeah, yeah, so a bunch of astronomers and stuff are arguing about whether Pluto is a planet or not. But Kevin over at Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge gives the low-down on the real Pluto controversy.
August 26, 2006
If you're interested in biology and not reading Sandra Porter's Discovering Biology in a Digital World, you should be. As she notes in her profile, her passion is "developing instructional materials for 21st century biology," and it shows--she provides all kinds of little online experiments you…
August 26, 2006
Burt's write-up of Wells' first chapter of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design is up at The Panda's Thumb. PZ's also re-posted his review of Chapter 3 at PT; link here.
August 26, 2006
Those kooky folks over at Frink Tank, what with their delayed additional Tangled Bank goodness. (I will say, though, that's certainly the only time anyone's ever accused me of having "pop cult cred.")
August 25, 2006
Seed's Jacob Klein has a video up from his time at the AIDS conference last week: link. It includes short interviews with Kay and Rick Warren, evangelical Christians and founders of Saddleback Church, the grandaddy of all mega-churches. (Warren is also the author of The Purpose-Driven Life, which…
August 25, 2006
Most of the stories I blog about here regarding sex (and sexually-transmitted infections) have bad news to offer. People are still poorly educated about STDs, or worse, actively misinform to try to scare people away from sex. Admittedly, good news about sexual issues are few and far between, but…
August 25, 2006
Check it out here. I mentioned previously that I'll be reviewing another chapter of the book in the future, and PZ has a write-up of the chapter on developmental biology here (that will be posted to Panda's Thumb in the coming days), and he also has some suggestions here on how bloggers can help…
August 25, 2006
The Iowa Academy of Science has released its summer newsletter online, and is available here (.pdf).
There's a lot going on for scientists and the science-interested at all levels (students, teachers, researchers), so for the Iowa folks (or, those of you in other states who are just looking for…
August 24, 2006
Jaime made a thoughtful comment here regarding yesterday's "hater" post. I started responding in the thread but it's become more of a treatise. Hope I don't scare Jamie away (since it's noted that s/he is unlurking to make it):
i read the post, and the comments, and the stuff on here, so i will…
August 24, 2006
If you ever wonder about some of the actual research we do here (and I know, it must keep you up at night with curiosity), our most recent center newsletter is up. (warning: .pdf)
August 24, 2006
Carl Zimmer has a few excellent micro-focused posts that you shouldn't miss. Yesterday the topic was new research demonstrating kin selection in amoebae, and earlier in the week, he wrote about Wolbachia, a fascinating bacteria that infects a large number of insects. (Those of you who've read…
August 23, 2006
10 Ways To Enrage A ScienceBlogs.Com Audience.
A few of the better ones:
10) Ask why they don't just find a missing link to prove Evolution.
9) Say you're not convinced the entire state of Kansas is stupid.
***
3) Tell them that saying they have a "Lysis To Kill" at football parties isn't all that…
August 23, 2006
So, you may or may not be aware of the latest "challenge" to evolutionary theory--DI Fellow Jonathan Wells' new book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design." Following in the footsteps of Tom Bethell's "Politically Incorrect Guide to Science" (whose terrible chapter…
August 22, 2006
Over at Unqualified Offerings comes this quip regarding analyst Kenneth Pollack:
In Washington, he gets to write new articles, as if he were an epidemiologist and not Typhoid Mary.
Whether you agree with the criticism or not, you have to admit it's a nice turn of phrase.
August 22, 2006
As fellow ScienceBlogger Dr. Charles so aptly puts it, check out the veritable "orgy of medical goodness" over at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles.
August 22, 2006
The International AIDS conference is barely over, but already it's getting results when it comes to working against stigma and combatting denial--and is receiving help from one U.S. politician. Stories after the fold...
First, from Buisness Day comes harsh words for South Africa's leaders:…
August 21, 2006
I blogged previously on the potential of bacteriophage, viruses that infect--and often kill--bacteria, in treating bacterial infections that are resistant to our current antibiotics. This is an area that's really just opening up, and while there is a lot of promise, there are also a significant…
August 21, 2006
The latest issue of Mendel's Garden, a carnival o' genetics blogging, is up over at The Inoculated Mind.
August 21, 2006
I've blogged several times on here about the connection between microbes and obesity (aka "infectobesity;" previous posts here, here, and here.). It's an interesting area of study, with two general directions: investigating which of our gut flora (alone or in combination with others) affect our…
August 20, 2006
Since I've been tied to the computer this weekend, might as well take a break and do something a bit more entertaining than revising papers and books and preparing for the impending start of classes. Janet passed around the random quotations meme: scrolling through here and picking the first 5…
August 20, 2006
So, the Discovery Institute is planning the "largest conference on Intelligent Design ever held," sponsored by Physicians for Scientific Integrity (yeah, this group I wrote about previously) and being held in Florida in two parts--late September and early November. In the latter portion (held in a…
August 19, 2006
Razib over at Gene Expression has an excellent post* about cultural issues affecting HIV and circumcision, elaborating on Lindsay's mention here of the limitations of trying to increase circumcision as a way to reduce viral spread:
There was a strong undercurrent of resistance to the approach…
August 19, 2006
One catchphrase that permeated the conference this past week was "scaling up." I just want to wrap up my posting here with a brief discussion of what that is, and what that means as far as HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.
Readers who are scientists or who have some kind of science background…
August 18, 2006
As the conference wraps up, I just want to be sure to point you to some other areas where AIDS is being covered on ScienceBlogs.
Every week, our Seed overlords pose a question to us (originally titled, "Ask a ScienceBlogger.") This week's question is:
To what extent do you worry about AIDS, either…
August 18, 2006
I mentioned yesterday that one way to help prevent new HIV infections is to treat people who are infected with herpes, another sexually-transmittted virus that infects as much as 20% of the population in the United States. That may seem odd; how does treating one viral infection prevent infection…
August 18, 2006
Workers at candy company see form of Virgin Mary in chocolate:
Workers at a chocolate company have discovered a 2-inch-tall column of chocolate drippings that they believe bears a striking resemblance to traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary.
Since the discovery of the drippings under a vat on…
August 17, 2006
If one thing has been hammered home this week (and, indeed, over the past 25 years) regarding HIV/AIDS, it's that prevention is key. Treatments, while improving, are still a distant second place to preventing primary infection as far as the fight against AIDS goes, and a large portion of the…
August 17, 2006
This week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine contains two articles on AIDS that are available free of charge.
The first article, Changing the Paradigm for HIV Testing -- The End of Exceptionalism, goes over content I blogged about here, discussing moving toward a more universal…
August 17, 2006
...is up and running over at Snail's Tails.
If general skepticism is more your thing, be sure to also check out the new Skeptics' Circle at Interverbal.
August 17, 2006
I see he already mentioned this while I was out of town, but I just ran across it: Squid Soap:
More on this and handwashing in general below the fold...
SquidSoap is a fun soap dispenser designed for teaching children healthy hand washing habits.
SquidSoap works by applying a small ink mark on…