Tara C. Smith
Associate Professor, lab rat (microbiologist/infectious disease epidemiologist) and occasional blogger, full-time nerd.
tsmith
Posts by this author
September 25, 2008
Thanks again to those who blogged, commented or emailed regarding our PLoS Biology manuscript. Nick already has his own response here, highlighting posts such as Larry's, Blake's, Drug Monkey's, Thomas', and Carlo's. Several criticisms ran along the same lines: that, as Nick notes, "that…
September 23, 2008
Along with Shelley Batts and Nick Anthis, I have a new paper out today in PLoS Biology on academic blogging: a short commentary on potential ways to integrate blogs into academia. Nick already has a bit of the history and goals of the manuscript over at The Scientific Activist so I won't repeat…
September 18, 2008
This started out in the comments to Janet's conundrum about what to do regarding her child's upcoming science fair:
I'm very committed to the idea that a science fair project is the kind of thing a kid should control, from start to finish -- conceiving the project, formulating some clear questions…
September 18, 2008
As today's Scienceblogs homepage notes, we've now reached over 1,000,000 comments. To celebrate, bloggers are throwing shindigs across the country. Ours is now officially set as well. We'll be screening "Flock of Dodos" on Monday, Sept. 22nd at 7PM in Kollros auditorium (Biology Building East…
September 13, 2008
Via Bora comes some of the week's most important journalism: video of a Chicago Tribune reporter trying to put lipstick on a pig. He gets it much too easy with the first one; the squealing and running around when he tries to go for the second one is more familiar to me (after the jump).
September 4, 2008
Oh, let's go back to the start... --Coldplay, "The Scientist"
A decade ago, a paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues was published in The Lancet, detailing the cases of 12 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Anecdotal reports from parents of several of these children suggested that…
August 14, 2008
Chris Condayan, ASM's public outreach and media guru (and the guy behind the scenes of MicrobeWorld), has an editorial in the latest issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology. Cleverly titled "Culture media," Condayan encourages microbiologists to get involved sharing their knowledge online (and gives…
August 7, 2008
So, after almost a week of intense media scrutiny and finger-pointing at USAMRIID scientist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI has now released its documents pertaining to the case, and declares that Ivins was indeed their man. However, a lot of unanswered…
August 1, 2008
Real life work has once again stepped in, so I won't have the Helicobacter posts up until next week. However, in the meantime, a big story has broken regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks--a potential suspect, and his suicide before he could be arrested. Will we ever actually get to the bottom of…
July 30, 2008
An interesting new paper is just out today in PLoS ONE. You recall the announcement a few years back that soft tissue that resembled organic tissue had been isolated from a Tyrannosaurus femur. This started off a huge controversy in the field (and beyond)--researchers disagreeing with each…
July 29, 2008
Helicobacter pylori is, by bacteriological standards, a relative newcomer to medicine. Although its pathogenesis has been studied for only about the past 20 years, there are reports from as far back as the late 19th century of small, helical bacteria in the stomachs of some patients. Largely these…
July 28, 2008
After this year's meeting was cancelled due to flooding, both the Evolution of Sex and Recombination and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution meetings will be here in Iowa City next year, May 31-June 7. John and RPM will be there; I smell scienceblogger meetup...
July 25, 2008
Thomas asks in the comments:
"More after the jump..." WTF? Why must people insist on using this trite, meaningless phrase? Don't they know it immediately makes people hate them for using it? I'm pretty sure people know how to scroll down to see if the article continues. And when all that "jump" is…
July 25, 2008
As I've mentioned, this has been a busy year. In the span of 3 months, 3 small grants were funded; enough to keep me busy for the next year. Though my training prior to arriving here was almost exclusively in bench microbiology (mostly molecular microbiology/molecular epidemiology), I knew when…
July 23, 2008
So it's not quite a colonoscopy on live TV, but Janet's done the public health world a favor and blogged her mammogram.
However, one commenter notes:
How about a discussion of the ethics of this particular screening method since it's fairly equivocal whether it's actually worth the hassle and…
July 23, 2008
Revere once again is the voice of reason regarding latest developments in Tomatogate (e.g., the ongoing outbreak of Salmonella, serovar Saintpaul). Has the source been identified?
For those of you who many not have been following this closely, the outbreak has now hit almost every state, with…
July 16, 2008
Back out swabbing today (noses this time, not asses). Heading out with 3 grad students who've never done field work before, so should be a fun day. Meanwhile, just got another manuscript submitted last night; that makes four currently under review with still a few other in draft. In the meantime…
July 14, 2008
So, as you've probably heard and read around here on Scienceblogs and elsewhere, filmmaker Randy Olson has made a new film about climate change. It's billed as a "mockumentary," and it's certainly a mock...something. There are several nuggets of good stuff in the movie, but they unfortunately get…
July 14, 2008
How about over a billion dollars in Cedar Rapids (where flooding affected 9.2 square miles--roughly 1/7th of the city) alone?
City officials last night estimated the cost to clean up and repair or replace flood-damaged city buildings and other infrastructure at $504 million.
In addition, the…
July 11, 2008
Marburg is a filovirus; a cousin of Ebola. Both cause hemorrhagic fever; both have been recently discovered in fruit bats; both have hit Africa in a small number of human outbreaks. Both also remain largely mysterious; we know very little about their ecology in the wild; how frequently they…
June 30, 2008
I rarely talk politics here, but I received this email from a cousin the other day:
According to the Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuassive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal…
June 28, 2008
Balance is a tricky thing to find in area, and medicine is notorious for its trade-offs. A drug that may make you well in the long run may also have side effects that make taking the medicine difficult. Even drugs that we often think of as typically innocuous, such as antibiotics, can have an…
June 25, 2008
I had ended up with a ratty old piece of Army gear, a space suit that belonged to nobody A little voice started speaking in my head. What are you doing here? the voice said. You're in an Ebola lab in a fucking defective space suit. I started to feel giddy. It was an intoxicating rush of fear,…
June 23, 2008
Many of you probably followed the 2005 "Kitzmiller vs. Dover" trial in Dover, Pennsylvania closely. From its early days, with daily updates at the Panda's Thumb to the publication of the ruling--"Kitzmas"-- in late December, the trial was filled with drama and moments right out of the movies.…
June 20, 2008
Here in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids corridor, the waters have been going down for several days, and people are being allowed back into their homes and businesses to begin assessing the damage and cleaning up what remains. However, while the dangers from the initial flooding are receding along with…
June 19, 2008
In her guest post at Highly Allochthonous, hydrogeologist Anne Jefferson explains how one can have two "500 year floods" in short measure. Great reading...
June 14, 2008
Photo of Cedar Rapids, Iowa
The university has now canceled all classes through June 22nd, and told all "non-essential" employees to stay home. The town is almost impossible to navigate as bridges across the river have closed one by one. And it's not only in town; interstate 80 and 380 both have…
June 11, 2008
Two years ago Iowa City was hit by a tornado. Last year my hometown back in Ohio was underwater. This year, Iowa's already been hit by an EF5 tornado, and now 49 out of our 99 counties are disaster areas because of flooding. And it's raining now, and more is predicted for the next few days.…
May 30, 2008
Back from Mongolia (photos here for anyone interested), but heading off across the country this weekend for this year's American Society for Microbiology general meeting in Boston, then down to Connecticut for some reunion-ating. I just wanted to draw your attention (especially those of you…