Stacey Smith
I'm a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. I also study epigenetic control of ERVs.
sa smith
Posts by this author
May 14, 2012
So some panel at the FDA just approved this antiretroviral drug, Truvada-- they say its okay to prescribe this drug for HIV negative people to keep them from getting HIV.
Im going to this news the nicest way possible:
I think there were a lot of MDs, and very few PhDs, on this FDA review panel. If…
May 9, 2012
Anti-vaxers are horrible people-- They refuse to receive the recommended/required vaccinations and put everyone else (not just the very young, very old, or otherwise immunocompromised) at risk of contracting preventable diseases.
Anti-vaxers are horrible parents-- They abuse their children with…
May 8, 2012
Integralmath, our Justicar, recently reposted my 'debate' with Steve Kern on his YouTube channel, and its gotten some fun comments. One was from someone making fun of Kern:
I CAN'T INTO SCIENCE, I HAVE THE DUMB.
I love it and literally loled*.
While the commentor was making fun of Kern, I also…
May 7, 2012
I *love* living in the internet era.
Someone can give a talk in OKC on April 28th, and someone in Thailand can watch that talk while theyre doing the dishes on May 7th. LOVE IT! All the more reason skeptic/atheist/pro-science/pro-church-state-separation groups should be highlighting, encouraging…
May 2, 2012
I mentioned this in my interview with Karl, and its a topic Im going to be speaking about at FreeOK2 this year-- hell, its something Ive mentioned over and over and over and over on this blog:
We arent Cave Men dancing around a fire chanting 'OOGA BOOGA VIRUS BAD!'
We are modern humans who can bend…
May 1, 2012
Several years ago, my friend Karl Mamer at Conspiracy Skeptic had me on to talk about HIV Denial.
A couple days ago, I was finally back to talk a bit about the science and politics of XMRV!
Make sure you listen to the very end to catch Arnies surprise cameo appearance! PUPPAH NO LIKE KITTEH!!!!!…
April 30, 2012
February 2009--
Republican senators, led by a Susan Collins (R-ME) stripped Obamas stimulous package for funding to the CDC and pandemic flu preparedness:
"Everybody in the room is concerned about a pandemic flu, but does it belong in this bill? Should we have 870 million dollars in this bill? No,…
April 27, 2012
If you are in/around the OKC area, you arent going to want to miss the FREE event the OK chapter of Americans United is throwing this Saturday!
Oklahoma City Chapter
Americans United for Separation of Church & State
Spring Dialogue
Saturday, April 28, 2012, 10:30 am to 1:30 pm
Midwest City…
April 26, 2012
Know what sounds like fun? Testing almost 5,000 bats and over 4,000 rodents, from all over the world, for a cadre of viral infections ;)
Im not kidding!
Bats host major mammalian paramyxoviruses
Think about this: Where did, say, measles, come from? How were humans originally infected? Where…
April 25, 2012
Skeptics of Oz was great--
Sean Gillespie asked me if I had any requirements/requests to speak, I gave him my usual rider:
Sean didnt just fill a brandy glass with brown M&Ms... He filled huge Richard Dawkins Foundation coffee mug with brown M&Ms!
AWESOME!
Sean was just a fantastic…
April 24, 2012
The human genome is about 3.1 billion nucleotides long.
8-10% of your genome is retroviral-ish. We will be conservative and go with 8%-- thats 248,000,000 nucleotides of retrovirus.
The average retrovirus is about 10,000 nucleotides long. So we should have ~ 24,800 retroviral elements in our…
April 19, 2012
Viruses are everywhere.
Theyre even in other viruses.
:-|
A couple of scientists at Portland States 'Center for Life in Extreme Environments' just found a virus in the sediment of Boiling Springs Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park ('boiling'? 'volcanic'? sounds cozy!). It is a single-strand,…
April 18, 2012
Via jonnyneviripine:
Maria Papagiannidou died last Sunday. Another very public and active denialist has kicked the bucket; sad but predictable. Her face and "story" is all over the internet. You can read more about her there. I know she contacted some people I know about starting HAART but…
April 17, 2012
As many of you know, I am a graduate student. Luckily, I am a graduate student in the biological sciences, which means that while I am going to school, I get a monthly stipend. Also luckily, I go to school in a place like Oklahoma, a state with a relatively low cost of living.
Its also lucky that…
April 17, 2012
This is just another excuse to poke fun at the stupidity of Creationists--
Creationists try to lecture us all the time about how 'perfect' our immune system is. How wonderful and precise and intelligently designed it is obviously points towards the existence of a creator god (aka the Christian god…
April 15, 2012
HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS???
A couple weeks ago, the would-be-hilarious-if-they-werent-so-dangerous group, the National Organization for Marriage (OMNOMNOMONOMNOM!) had their 2008 donor list leaked via the Human Rights Campaign (pdf).
One of the largest donations came from none other than the…
April 12, 2012
I wasnt super thrilled about the last ERV-->MS paper I wrote about, but I really like this new one:
Human endogenous retrovirus type W envelope expression in blood and brain cells provides new insights into multiple sclerosis disease.
Those of you who have been following the XMRV fiasco will…
April 6, 2012
Skeptics of Oz:
FREE EVENT
April 21 - 22
Forum Theater
147 South Hillside Street, Wichita, KS 67211
Speaker lineup
Im going to be speaking at 2 pm on "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Viruses" - Sure some viruses are 'scary', but modern domesticated viruses are what make our vaccines work,…
April 5, 2012
Its not so hard to get your head around endogenous retroviruses once you get the gist of them. RNA virus turns itself into DNA, inserts itself into your genome, makes babby viruses. Sometimes the RNA virus infects an egg/sperm, turns itself into DNA, inserts itself into the genome, and that egg/…
April 2, 2012
The Young Earth Creationist Intelligent Design Creationist 'Academic Freedom' bill 'authored' by infamous Young Earth Creationist Intelligent Design Creationist 'Academic Freedomist' Sally Kern (introduced this year by King Gus of the Playground) is dead.
The Education Committee didnt even talk…
April 2, 2012
There has been a 'fun' story going around the scientific and pop-culture media circles for the past couple of months.
Apparently, a couple of labs worked together to make a 'bird flu' a 'mammal/people flu', and somehow terrorists are going to use this information to kill everyone on planet earth,…
March 29, 2012
So a lot of you saw my recent 'debate' with Pastor Steve Kern.
People who do not live in this part of the US often say that religious radicals like Kern, and his infamous wife Sally Kern, dont really exist. When people like me address/confront people like the Kerns, people who dont live in this…
March 27, 2012
The technology we have available to us today in the lab is both a boon and a bafflement. Example: The screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels in healthy/diseased/drug treated/etc cells. YAY! More information! More observations…
March 26, 2012
The Oklahoman just had a really interesting article up on polio support groups in Oklahoma City:
Oklahoma City polio support group helps residents understand disease
I freely admit to forgetting the real-world side of my research, at times. Especially for diseases like polio, which have been…
March 23, 2012
This is an... odd... educational opportunity...
Anne Bass' boyfriend mesmerized jury with frightening account of Connecticut mansion invasion:
He said, "I love you, Anne" -- then prepared to die.
Wealthy philanthropist Anne Bass' boyfriend yesterday mesmerized a jury with a frightening account of…
March 21, 2012
Common everybody! Sing the chorus with me, you know the words!
The vast, vast majority of ERVs are junk. They are genomic pirates, and your genome is doing the best it can to keep them silent. When ERVs are making noise, its a sign that something has gone wrong. Very, very wrong. Like, for…
March 18, 2012
Keep this one in your bookmarks for when someone tells you "AWWWWWW! UR JUST MAKING A CARICATURE OF CHRISTIANS! NO ONE ACTUALLY ACTS LIKE THAT!"
Yeah, that guy was for real.
The debate actually makes more sense if you watch it with the nonsensical closed captions turned on.
He is a real…
March 15, 2012
Just a reminder for those of you in the OKC area that I will be debating Steve Kern (infamous husband of infamous Sally Kern) on the topic of Intelligent Design tonight!
Some of Kerns homies advertised for the event too:
Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee
* THURSDAY EVENING - OKC…
March 13, 2012
When a disaster happens in science, like the XMRV fiasco, the most important lesson everyone can take away from the incident is 'Why?'
If you understand the 'Why?' behind what happened, you can avoid the problem in the future.
So specifically in the case of the XMRV fiasco, the question was, "Why…
March 12, 2012
ERVs and Multiple Sclerosis
ERVs and Multiple Sclerosis, #2
Hmmm... This new paper on the association between 'active' ERVs and Multiple Sclerosis is a step back, and a step forward, at the same time:
Expression of HERV-Fc1, a human endogenous retrovirus, is increased in patients with active…