Iowa/area news
tsmith | February 22, 2013For those of you in the general vicinity, the University of Iowa Department of Epidemiology will be once again sponsoring the Great Plains Emerging Infectious Diseases Conference on April 19-20 in Iowa City. This year's keynote speaker will be Dr. Peter Daszak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance:
Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, is a leader in the field of conservation medicine and a respected disease ecologist. EcoHealth Alliance is a global organization dedicated to innovative conservation science linking ecology and the health of humans and wildlife. EcoHealth Alliance's…
tsmith | July 11, 2012Iowans, Carl Zimmer will be in Iowa City this Friday and Saturday. Friday his talk will be in the hospital complex on Science Communication and New Media (Details), while Saturday he'll be speaking on "A Planet of Viruses" as part of the Iowa City Book Festival (Details). Stop by!
tsmith | March 7, 2012I mentioned last month that we are planning an Emerging Diseases conference here in April. Things are moving quickly and registration is now open (here). Abstract submission is also up and running here.
The details:
Oral and poster presentation research abstracts are due by 5:00pm on March 23, 2012. Individuals may submit up to two research abstracts. Abstracts must not exceed 250 words in length. There are a limited number of spots available for those interested in providing a 15-minute oral presentation. Abstracts submitted for oral presentations that are not selected for a talk will…
tsmith | February 10, 2012I mentioned earlier in the week that I had two pending announcements; now I can officially share the second. We're putting on an Emerging Infectious Diseases conference here in Iowa City April 27-8th, and the Keynote speaker will be Ian Lipkin, a world leader in the field of viral discovery and most recently, a consultant for the Stephen Soderbergh movie "Contagion."
For the conference itself, it will be a regular research conference in one sense (abstract submission, poster presentations), but much of it will be done in "unconference" format a la ScienceOnline. We're working on finishing…
tsmith | January 19, 2012Back in November, I blogged about one of our studies, examining methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Iowa meat products. In that post, I mentioned that it was one of two studies we'd finished on the subject. Well, today the second study is out in PLoS ONE (freely available to all). In this study, we focused only on pork products, and included 395 samples from Iowa, Minnesota, and New Jersey. We also looked at not only conventional meats, but also "alternative" meat products. Most of the latter were products labeled "raised without antibiotics" or "raised without antibiotic…
tsmith | May 6, 2011The University of Iowa press office did a nice story on our recent article showing "livestock-associated" S. aureus in a daycare worker in Iowa. LabSpaces covers it here.
I started a new Facebook page for our research center, the University of Iowa Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. Join up for research updates! We'll have a lot coming up this summer.
And on that note, soon we'll have a new Research Assistant starting at the Center: Megan Quick, who was featured today on in the "Photo of the Month" on the Association for Schools of Public Health website.
Have a few blog posts…
tsmith | April 29, 2009It was only a matter of time:
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver says the state has two probable causes of swine flu.
Speaking Wednesday at a Statehouse news conference, Culver told reporters that officials would know Thursday if the cases are swine flu.
Officials say one case was from a California resident who visited Scott and Clinton counties last week. The other was a woman who returned from Mexico and traveled through Johnson, Des Moines and Muscatine counties.
State Medical Director Patricia Quinlisk says both of the people infected were now recovering.
Should know by tomorrow if they are confirmed…
tsmith | March 25, 2009Apparently, I'm infamous. From yesterday's Ames Tribune (below the fold):
Challenging the gang of three
The Evolution Academic Freedom Act HF 183 introduced Feb. 3 by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll) has come under attack by the infamous gang of three, namely Hector Avalos, of Iowa State University; and James W. Demostes and Tara C. Smith, of the University of Iowa.
HF 183 states that college and high school teachers often suffer discrimination or punishment for questioning evolution. The gang of three, who are godless atheists, want to push their agenda on the teachers and students at our schools…
tsmith | March 13, 2009For those of you following our "academic freedom" bill saga here in Iowa, you'll be pleased to know that today was the last day for the bill to make it out of subcommittee, which it appears it hasn't. Hector Avalos has an overview of the history of the bill, our response, and the results at The Panda's Thumb.
tsmith | February 26, 2009I am so incredibly tardy with this information that Arizonian John Lynch and the lovely folks at Uncommon Descent have already blogged this, but recently an "academic freedom" bill was introduced in Iowa. For those who may be unfamiliar, in addition to "teach the controversy," these "academic freedom" bills are one of the new tactics for creationists who want to introduce creationism into science classrooms via the back door by claiming that teachers need the protection to teach "the full range of scientific views" when it comes to evolution (in other words, to teach creationism/ID). The…
tsmith | November 6, 2008 I know I have many promised posts, and I'll get to them one day. Alas, the family and day job come before blogging, and I've been swamped with ongoing projects, grant applications, and manuscripts. I've been so busy, in fact, that revere over at Effect Measure beat me to the punch on my own upcoming paper, looking at antibodies to Streptococcus suis in Iowa swine workers. The paper is scheduled for the December issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, but the unedited draft is already up in their ahead of print section. As revere already has a good overview of the paper, I'll just point…
tsmith | July 14, 2008How 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 officials estimated that it would cost another $810 million to protect the city against future floods through an assortment of mitigation efforts like levees, floodwalls, a possible reservoir and property buyouts.
City Manager Jim Prosser called the numbers "staggering."
He spoke in billions: half a…
tsmith | 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 the waters, the clean-up and aftermath bring about a new set of misery.
Flooding is a potential nightmare when it comes to infectious diseases. The water can bring people returning to their flooded residences into contact with sewage, animal carcasses, and other sources of pathogens--and warm…
tsmith | June 19, 2008In her guest post at Highly Allochthonous, hydrogeologist Anne Jefferson explains how one can have two "500 year floods" in short measure. Great reading...
tsmith | 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. All this is after an incredibly soggy spring where the rivers started out high due to one of the snowiest winters on record. Many farmers only in the past few weeks finally were able to get out in the field to plant crops--crops which are now underwater. So far I've not seen reports of any human…
tsmith | February 7, 2008It's not certain there will be a decision immediately, though:
From the Iowa State Daily:
The Iowa Board of Regents will meet Thursday to discuss the tenure denial appeal of Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State, at its regional meeting on the ISU campus.
The meeting is at 8:30 a.m., with a one-hour closed session dedicated to discussing the appeal beginning at 8:35 a.m. The regents will emerge with either a decision on the case or a decision to postpone it.
"The board does not have to decide within the hour time slot given for the meeting, and…
tsmith | January 14, 2008
Darwin Day is fast approaching, and we'll be celebrating with 2 and a half days' worth of festivities here in Iowa next month.
We'll kick off Thursday night, February 14th, with Dr. Massimo Pigliucci reading from his latest book at Live from Prairie Lights, with drinks and snacks following at a location TBA.
Friday February 15th will consist of academic talks by Dr. Pigliucci and Dr. Martha McClintock. Friday evening we're hosting a dinner for the speakers and the general public at the Linn Street Cafe. Tickets are limited in number, and $40 a person (which includes an appetizer,…
tsmith | December 4, 2007I mentioned that the Discovery Institute was in Iowa yesterday, accusing Iowa State University (and specifically, professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy) of conspiring against assistant professor Guillermo Gonzalez, an intelligent design advocate and fellow of the Discovery Institute. I was unable to attend, but Evil Monkey headed to Des Moines to cover the event, and has his initial thoughts on the dog 'n' pony show up at Neurotopia.
tsmith | November 29, 2007Like the gift that never stops giving, the Discovery Institute is taking its dog and pony show on the road, and heading right here to Iowa in order to plead (via press conference) Discovery Institute fellow Guillermo Gonzalez's case for tenure. You may recall the Iowa State assistant professor of astronomy was denied tenure there this past May, and he and the DI have contended that this was due to his support for intelligent design, rather than any other issues with his performance or scholarship.
Not content to simply leave it at that, Gonzalez has appealed his tenure denial, and is…
tsmith | November 5, 2007 I wrote about an emerging mosquito-borne virus with the strange name of chikungunya in a pair of posts last year. This is a virus that was first discovered more than 50 years ago, but as far as arthropod-borne viruses ("arboviruses") go, it's been a minor player for most of that time, as other arboviruses such as yellow fever, dengue, and West Nile caused more disease and death than chikungunya. However, the virus began to rapidly spread beginning in ~2004, causing around a quarter million infections on the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean before moving on to cause smaller…