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
March 7, 2012
One month after some grossly irresponsible parents let their measles-infested offspring roam about the Super Bowl festivities, here is the end result:
16 cases of measles
I dont know about the last three, but the first 13 were unvaccinated:
According to Larkin, the first 13 individuals infected had…
March 6, 2012
Posted on: January 11, 2011 12:00 PM, by ERV:
Before were allowed to do ANYTHING on Antarctica, we had a lecture on what we could and could not do while we were visiting. Even though everyone was ecologically conscientious, there were tons of things we had to do that none of us would have thought…
March 5, 2012
SWEEEEET!
Scientists found a brand new branch of organisms in the boiling acid pools or Yellowstone National Park!
Identification of novel positive-strand RNA viruses by metagenomic analysis of archaea-dominated Yellowstone Hot Springs
HA!
Before we had only found DNA viruses in these pools, DNA…
March 2, 2012
'Thinking positively':
Thinking any and all observed phenotypes are observable phenotypes because of some evolutionary reason. Phenotype X must have an evolutionary advantage! Even if Phenotype X appears detrimental/neutral, if Phenotype X wasnt advantageous, it wouldnt exist, right? Survival of…
February 29, 2012
Let me make this clear, for like the millionth time:
You do not want transposable elements in your genome (DNA transposons, ERVs, LINEs, SINEs, etc) to be active and functional. You are happy, happy, happy that these elements are junk. Yes, occasionally a transposable element has been…
February 28, 2012
Second Annual Hot-Button Debate
The Oklahoma City chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State will host its second annual hot-button debate on Thursday, March 15, 2012, starting at 7:00pm and ending by 8:30pm. The location will be on the campus of Oklahoma City Community College…
February 27, 2012
Sometimes, people do not respond well to vaccines.
What I mean by that, is that sometimes a person will not generate a protective immune response to a particular vaccine on a given day... the whole point of vaccination.
Now that person might respond (and have responded) just fine to other vaccines…
February 24, 2012
Posted without comment:
Anti-abortion "personhood" bill clears Oklahoma senate
The bill offers no exceptions in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest and could mean some forms of contraception such as the "morning after pill" would be unavailable, she said.
-----
Oklahoma State…
February 22, 2012
I am not a 'fan' of dietary sensationalism.
A can of Mountain Dew made with high fructose corn syrup once a week is not going to kill you.
Megadoses of various vitamins and minerals is not going to 'cure' you.
People who demonize or canonize food annoy me.
Funny enough, we have examples of both…
February 20, 2012
Arnie is a very happy dog (see photo in upper left). Its always a party when Arnie is around-- He loves everyone and everything...
... Everything, that is, except cats.
It didnt used to be like that. Arnie used to like cats just fine. But then one day, when he was a puppy...
Neighbor: Hey can I…
February 16, 2012
Conceptually, having something like The Pill anyone could take every day to prevent HIV-1 infections would be a good idea. Take some kind of preventative antretrovirals when you are sexually active and feel you are 'at risk', maybe prevent some new HIV-1 infections.
We had hopes that an…
February 15, 2012
As much crap as Oklahomans get for being backwards hicks, Oklahoma is a state of many faces. Slowly but surely, the faces of the politicians are starting to represent the diversity of Oklahoma (not just middle-upper-class 'straight' Evangelical white male Oklahomans).
To counter the insane,…
February 14, 2012
Hey, do you all remember Michael Behe?
Dude was for real 'famous' a while back (not just 'Christian famous'). He went on talk shows and news programs (including the Colbert Report) to talk about his personal brand of Creationism, Intelligent Design.
Unfortunately, things 'didnt go as planned' with…
February 9, 2012
Even though XMRV has joined the choir invisible (rather than the list of human pathogens), scientists all over the world have still been publishing on it. Some of these studies were started before XMRVs demise, some were initiated to figure out how/why XMRV died, and some were done just to be on…
February 8, 2012
Are you freaking kidding me???
Super Bowl Village visitors on Friday may have been exposed to measles
Tuesday night, the state Department of Health confirmed they have requested information from county health departments as part of an investigation into a report that a person who has been diagnosed…
February 8, 2012
Frequent readers of ERV, or SciBlogs in general, are used to vitamin/mineral woo. "Megadoses of Vitamin C cures EVERYTHING!" "Vitamin D is better at preventing the flu than the VACCINE!" "Zinc cures the COMMON COLD!"
What we are used to dealing with, is snake-oil salesmen looking to sell their…
February 6, 2012
Last time I talked about why treating cancer is so hard:
Why havent we cured cancer yeeeeeet?
Briefly, scientists did complete genome sequencing of seven individuals prostate tumors, and things were all kinds of jacked up. Not only were all seven tumors different, but one tumor had over 200…
February 3, 2012
Im more than usually swamped for time right now, and dont have time to get more deeply into the conversation, but I wanted to post this glimpse into what I am doing in the lab right now:
I am infamous for several of those, plus I would have added "I am going to die here. I am going to die in this…
January 30, 2012
Im glad none of you accused me of joking or exaggerating when I told this story:
A *very* common exchange I have with the general public regarding HIV-1:
Person-- Where did HIV-1 come from?
Me-- HIV-1 is related to a virus we can find in African primates, SIV. SIV crossed over from chimpanzees to…
January 26, 2012
Just, turn off your brain before you read this post, folks.
If you try to to think about this, Im pretty sure your entire brain will hemorrhage, and I dont want to be responsible for that.
You think I am joking.
I am not.
I actually heard rumors about what Im going to type here today a week ago,…
January 25, 2012
Non-stick pans, water-proof clothing, stain-proof carpet, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags, the air outdoors, the air indoors-- if youve ever been exposed to these things, you have been exposed to 'Perfluorinated Compounds' (PFCs).
Because the most common PFCs have a relatively long half-life (~…
January 24, 2012
We in the skeptic community like to make fun of naturopaths and homeopaths and all the snake oil salesmen out there. While its a good ol laugh here in the West, if not nostalgic, the damage these charlatans can do in other parts of the world is not funny at all.
Long-time readers of SciBlogs might…
January 23, 2012
Readers of ERV know the basics of how breast feeding affects the immune system of breast-feeding babbies:
Fetuses (fetii?) and babbies are protected from pathogens, even though their own immune systems have not matured yet. How do they manage this feat? They steal antibodies from Mommy!
Remember…
January 20, 2012
Novel treatment and treatment stratagies for Hepatitis C infection is something I have written about on ERV a couple of times before:
New Hepatitis C treatment, maybe!
New Hepatitis C treatment, again, maybe!
To briefly summarize, Hepatitis C sucks. It has infected lots of people. It kills lots…
January 18, 2012
Well this is shitty! A cruise headed for the Falkland Islands was turned away from dock because of a norovirus infection on board:
The Falkland Islands came under further criticism Tuesday for refusing to allow a cruise ship with an outbreak of stomach flu to dock, as passengers complained about…
January 17, 2012
Science is nothing without trust.
We trust each other to perform experiments exactly how we say we did.
We trust each other to report our findings exactly how they turned out.
We *have* to trust each other, or else we just sit in our labs doing the same experiments over and over and over, to see…
January 17, 2012
It has officially been one year since India diagnosed a new case of polio.
This week, India will cross the milestone of 12 consecutive months without any case of polio being reported - the onset of paralysis of the last case was on 13 January, 2011 in West Bengal.
More:
India was once recognized…
January 12, 2012
A *very* common exchange I have with the general public regarding HIV-1:
Person-- Where did HIV-1 come from?
Me-- HIV-1 is related to a virus we can find in African primates, SIV. SIV crossed over from chimpanzees to the human population to make 'HIV' sometime in the late 1800s, early 1900s.…
January 11, 2012
Last fall, a bizarre but interesting paper was published in Nature Cell Research:
Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA
(subsequent correction after they duplicated images in their figures LOL!!!! Nature/Science, you so…
January 6, 2012
I think the unofficial Favorite Journal of ScienceBlogs has got to be the journal, Medical Hypotheses. It used to be, you could take two different approaches if you wanted to publish in Medical Hypotheses. 1-- Smash your face into your keyboard for 15 minutes. Submit for publication. Or, the…