sa smith

PZ officially wins the internet. He wins it. Its his. A month ago, he did what any of us would do-- defended a kid from Reavers 'Catholics'. His reward? A month of bullshit. The Reavers 'Catholics' are still frothing at the mouth. But I guess Reavers 'Catholics' can hold a long grudge, the…

Home again, home again, jiggety jog. Arnie and I are back in OK (on the way home we learned how The Evidence(TM) supports Creation!). Unfortunately, teh puppahs arent as happy as I am. Arnie spent the entire week playing with my parents ~1 year old black lab, Daisy. From the second we arrived to…

Whoooo! Thank you for your interest in the Noble Foundation's Workshop in Virus Evolution. Your abstract has been accepted for presentation as a POSTER. Registration for the meeting is now open... Whoooo! My first conference! And is in... Ardmore... LOL! I have no idea why/how this workshop…

Two words: New T-shirt. Ive had my eye on these shirts for a while, but it took an 'I hate all of my clothes' moment, plus a plug from Skepchick to get me to finally order one of these (taken with a digital camera from 1992 Mom and Dad still cant figure out how to use): I really wanted to get one…

*sigh* Its that time of year, again. Before school starts every fall, Bossman kicks me out of the lab for a week. Ugh. He calls it a 'vacation'. Whatever. So now Im back home on The Farm, with my 28.8 kbps dial-up internet, and no wireless. Its like I went back in time 15 years... *shudder…

Im going to try to be as nice about this as I can: If you missed 'Dr. Horrible' the first time around, you better not make the same mistake twice. You have to deal with commercials now, but thats your own goddamn fault. Watch it, or deal with the wrath of ERV. Embedded below the fold: More…

Astute ERV readers have noticed a couple of odd things about my research. 1- How the hell am I cutting and pasting bits of a retroviral (RNA) genome together? 2- How the hell do I have a (seemingly) endless supply of HIV-1 for my experiments? The answer to both questions is, infectious molecular…

The discussion PZ and I had a couple of weeks ago sparked a lot of fun questions from viewers/readers. PZ covered a TON of the basics last week, so I figured I better step up to explain my view of epigenetics! Epigenetics is inherited. Take agouti mice, for an example. If you alter how much…

EMAIL! Dear ERV-- I have a question about virus transportation inside, say, blood. I did a rough estimate of the average virus Reynolds Number and it turned out to be around .0051. So aside from some good old Brownian Motion, those viruses aren't really going anywhere without some sort of flagella…

STEP 1: Profess your undying love for a revolutionary person in your field of study, on your blog. STEP 2: ??? STEP 3: PROFIT! Dear ERV As I notice that you are interested in the origin of virus and role in evolution. I send you a recent chapters that I wrote on the subject Best regards Your…

This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that! I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as '…

Bless their hearts. The Creationists over at Answers in Genesis are working their perfectly designed fingers to the bone. Blowing the Discovery Institute out of the water by not only publishing a for-realsies science journal (well, at least once), but also performing 'semi-technical' research!…

People have been sending me links to "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog". I was like "wtf? Sounds stupid." Go. Watch. It. NOW! Seriously! Theyre taking it down Sunday night!

Do you guys get to see new Dawkins specials on TV like, every other month, or something? I hate you guys! *pouts*

heh. You can still see EXPELLED in theaters if you dont mind paying $2,400. heh. heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.

Im mad about SIZZLE. I didnt like it. I thought it was dumb. Like, genuinely *dumb*.** But I liked Randy. I liked what he is/was trying to do. So rather than write a one word review ('ugh'), I tried to make some positive points, and push him in the direction of the aspects of SIZZLE I thought…

This next installment of 'Intro to ERVs' is about the coolest protein on the planet*, Env. Weve got all the enzymes protected in their nice little core-- but retroviruses are enveloped viruses. Theyre coated in the membranes of the cells they budded off of. Thats where env comes in! env codes…

Man, Randy, you were close with SIZZLE. You were really close, I think. I wish you would have let us preview the movie earlier, or just bounced some ideas off of us. 1-- The scripted portions of SIZZLE were painful. Painful. Very awkward. Not at all believable. Your 'producers' could have…

While Creationists get a free-pass to call scientists 'Nazis' and 'liars' and 'baby killers', Larry Moran gets a lot of crap for calling IDiots, 'IDiots'. While Ive always found that pet name more than apt, some people get their panties in a wad over it. I think maybe what we need is a nice…

PZ and I are on Blogging Heads TV today! w00t! Clip below the fold (epigenetics!), full video at BloggingHeads!

A funny thing happened today. PZ is now, officially, a D-List Blogger** (a status I attained months ago, hehehehehe!!). Shortly after that, Richard Dawkins made a nice statement of support for PZ on RichardDawkins.net. ... I love being *us*, you guys. I love being *the good guys*. One of us is in…

OMG YOU GUYS! You wont BELIEVE the incredible traffic spike I got from a front-page UD link! AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! WE. ARE. SCREWED!! Game over, guys! Game over! RUN AWAY!!!!

Darwin isnt the only one celebrating a very special birthday soon! This year is the 30th anniversary of 'quasispecies'!!! To celebrate, there is going to be a drool-inducing conference in Barcelona Spain later this year!! QUASISPECIES: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, 30TH ANNIVERSARY (they dont have a…

Ive been trying to make an active effort not to link/quote Associated Press articles since their little temper-tantrum last month. I thought it would be easy, I mean, link to a journal article instead of the crappy AP synopsis. Link to a blogger that was at a 'gay' wedding in CA instead of a…

Use #1-- Identifying the exact source of HIV-1 and HIV-2. Use #2-- Determining the ecological/zoonotic/epidemiological implications of Simian Foamy Virus infection in chimpanzees! Simian Foamy Virus (SFV) is another complex retrovirus, like HIV-1, but on a different branch of the retroviral family…

Remember a couple months ago, when I freaked out at The Humane Society for speaking out against city animal shelters going no-kill? But then it turned out The Human Society wasnt really 'The Humane Society'? It was really 'The Humane Society of the United States', an animal liberation group like…

ugh. Another timeless addition to the philosophical metamind is going to be squeezed through the tightly clinched buttocks of a Southern Baptist later this month: Atheism Remix! HAHAHAHA HE SAID 'REMIX'! HES HIP AND CURRENT! HAHAHAHAHA! HES GETTIN JIGGY WITH IT! HAHAHA! THATLL APPEAL TO YOUNG…

Its too hot and too sunny for a black puppy to go outside and play, so Arnies bored and pouting. I think this is why I get some degree of Summer SAD-- I can only go outside from like, 5 am to 8 am. Rest of the day, its miserable out. Summer sucks.

Something odd has been happening recently. Every time I make a post on HIV, I get the same comment from someone named 'Apostle Shada Mishe'. The first time I didnt let it through because its over 1,000 words long, and just looks like spam, but if he came back and protested, I woulda approved it.…

Lots of people have been emailing me about this article, currently rotating through the usual science news outlets: Science Daily New Scientist WIRED Slashdot *sigh* Look, guys, I am obnoxiously optimistic about the future of HIV/AIDS. I have no doubts about our ability to one day make HIV/AIDS a…