Misc.
tsmith | February 28, 2008Just wanted to say how appreciative I am to those of you who took the time to read and/or comment on this week's guest posts from my students. Though a few of them did take part in the comments section (something I didn't require), I know that they were all following along and appreciated the input and questions from y'all. I hope you'll come back for the next installment in April!
tsmith | February 26, 2008As part of his ongoing series of interviews following the 2007 Science blogging conference, Bora today has his Q&A with yours truly.
tsmith | February 24, 2008...my grad students.
My spring semester course is on infectious causes of chronic disease, looking at the role various infections play in cancer, autoimmune disease, mental illness, and other chronic conditions. Since I've often discussed the importance of having scientists communicate with the public, I decided to assign each of them to write 2 blog posts for the course, discussing anything of relevance to the course. Their first round of assignments was due last week, and I'll be posting them beginning on Monday. Constructive comments on their posts are appreciated, but keep in mind…
tsmith | February 23, 2008I received a very nice email from a high school student looking for a mentor for a research project on progeria:
Currently, I'm in a science research program at school where we choose a topic of interest and study it for a period of three years, as well as design an experiment and carry it out based on this topic. Eventually, students are able to present their work for competition purposes or just to share their knowledge in symposia or other forums, such as the Intel Science Competition, or the Siemens Competition.
I am studying Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome for my project and…
tsmith | February 11, 2008Well, it sure is Monday. 2 grant decisions back, no money. In the meantime, I'm up to my ears in bacteria samples, so I'll send you over to the LA Times, where they have an entertaining pair of stories: The Science of the Orgasm, and Call him Doctor "Orgasmatron:"
He was in the operating room one day in 1998, implanting electrodes into a patient's spine to treat her chronic leg pain. (The electrodes are connected to a device that fires impulses to the brain to block pain signals.) But when he turned on the power, "the patient suddenly let out something between a shriek and moan," says…
tsmith | January 14, 2008Every year, the folks over at Medgadget.com host the Medical Weblog Awards. I've been nominated a few times, and even did OK in the best new blog category a few years back. This year, I'm apparently nominated in the Best Clinical Weblog category--which, honestly, I don't think I fit into. So I won't ask for your votes here, but I'll suggest you check out some of the other fine blogs that are nominated, and the others that are nominated for all the other awards (including fellow Scienceblogger Orac). If you see something you like, pass along a vote or two.
tsmith | November 16, 2007Now that a proposed increase of funding to NIH has again been shot down, scientists have to once again face the reality of intense competition for very scarce funds.
However, the process of awarding research grants is, well, a bit crazy. Scientists work for months on a grant, drafting, revising, trying to winnow it down to fit the page limitations, finding collaborators and assembling potential research teams, obsessing about minutiae in the methods section. We then cross our fingers and send them off for review (which can take many months), and hope that they'll be well-received. When…
tsmith | November 14, 2007WIRED Science host Ziya Tong reveals how she ended up where she is today, and the secrets behind her success. Check out her post to see how spamming, melting make-up, Jane Goodall, and Michael Jackson have played into her career trajectory.
(And if you've not watched WIRED Science yet, tonight Ziya will have a segment on the business of disease and direct-to-consumer drug advertising, using the example of Restless Leg Syndrome).
tsmith | September 30, 2007Over at Respectful Insolence, Orac discusses an article where a scientist has spent his days shut away, slaving endlessly over a data set--of pictures of topless models. Why? To produce the perfect boob job, of course--or as the article puts it, "to help Hollywood look even more perfect."
Great. Just what we need.
According to the researcher, the ideal breast "...is a 45 to 55 per cent proportion - that is the nipple sits not at the half-way mark down the breast, but at least 45 per cent from the top." Like it wasn't enough before to worry about them being too perky, or too saggy, or…
tsmith | August 23, 2007...is underwater.
FINDLAY, Ohio - Hundreds of Ohio residents remained flooded out of their homes Thursday as some rivers continued to rise, while forecasters had bad news for the state and other parts of the Midwest: expect more storms and even a taste of the heat wave baking the South.
***
In Findlay, Ohio, firefighters and a volunteer armada navigated boats and canoes through streets waist-deep in water on Wednesday, plucking neighbors and their pets from porches. Every downtown street and many neighborhoods were under water as the Blanchard River topped 7 feet above flood stage, its…
tsmith | August 20, 2007I mentioned August would be a hellish travel month. Beginning August 2nd, I drove to Chicago for YearlyKos, back to Iowa and grabbed the kids and dogs, headed to Ohio to visit family (including an almost-9-months-pregnant sister and her 18-month old son), headed out to Maryland/DC/Delaware for an impromptu road trip, back to Ohio, back to Iowa, to Wisconsin for a science conference, back to Iowa for the evening, then flew back to DC to pick up a friend, and then drove up to New York to meet up with many other Sciencebloggers for the weekend. Then back to DC, and back to Iowa this morning…
tsmith | July 27, 2007Just a quick post from the "weird happenings in Iowa" file: Mysterious chunks of ice pelt Iowa town.
DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) -- Large chunks of ice, one of them reportedly about 50 pounds, fell from the sky in this northeast Iowa city, smashing through a woman's roof and tearing through nearby trees.
Authorities were unsure of the ice's origin but have theorized the chunks either fell from an airplane or naturally accumulated high in the atmosphere -- both rare occurrences.
"It sounded like a bomb!" 78-year-old Jan Kenkel said. She said she was standing in her kitchen when an ice chunk crashed…
tsmith | June 26, 2007Blogging will probably be light this week; while I was in Ohio a week ago for a happy event, this weekend was much the opposite, and I'll be out of town part of the week at a memorial service. In the meantime, though, I got tagged (twice!) with a meme that I've already seen pop up recently on Scienceblogs, and since it's Kate's first meme ever, well, how can I refuse?
The rules: to make it short and sweet, the meme just asks for 8 random facts, then I'm supposed to tag 8 others. I'll comply with the first; for the latter, anyone who's not been hit already, feel free to consider yourself…
tsmith | June 25, 2007I mentioned that a whole group of us went to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Professor Steve Steve has his account now up at the Thumb, while Jason Rosenhouse has a two-parter at EvolutionBlog, and Wes Elsberry's account is here. Oh, and a group picture:
Rear, L to R: Evil Monkey, Richard Hoppe ("RBH"), Wes Elsberry, Andrea "I'm Italian, not female!" Bottaro, Jason Rosenhouse, and Art Hunt. Front row: RBH's wife (whose name I didn't catch, sorry!); journalist Lauri Lebo; me; Professor Steve Steve, and Art's daughter (and Steve Steve's kind tour guide), Amy Hunt.
tsmith | May 31, 2007In the comments to the XDR-TB update post, Scott suggested that bloggers were putting too much emphasis on whether the TB patient was stupid/arrogant/self-centered/whatever, and later that "waxing indignant is pointless." I started this as a response to those comments, but thought instead it might be an interesting conversation--is it pointless? Certainly indignation about this guy's behavior won't change what's happened. Indignation about creationists' abuse of science won't make them stop. Does it have a point? My thoughts on it below the fold.
So, my thoughts. I think there…
tsmith | May 29, 2007 Scanning today's New York Times, I ran across this article on designing for the world's poor, which isn't really an issue I'd spent much time considering previously. From the article:
"A billion customers in the world," Dr. Paul Polak told a crowd of inventors recently, "are waiting for a $2 pair of eyeglasses, a $10 solar lantern and a $100 house."
The world's cleverest designers, said Dr. Polak, a former psychiatrist who now runs an organization helping poor farmers become entrepreneurs, cater to the globe's richest 10 percent, creating items like wine labels, couture and Maseratis.
"We…
tsmith | May 21, 2007Well, I made it here for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting. In Canada. So far, I had the people at my hotel completely screw up where the airport shuttle left from, leaving me waiting at the airport for an hour and a half, screwing up my reservation by almost shorting me a night, then having no internet access in my room (not just that I'd have to pay; but no possibility of getting it because my floor isn't even wired, and my roomate--whom I've not even met yet--is already settled in). So I'm here in this little tiny corner lounge where there's a wireless signal, right…
tsmith | May 18, 2007So, Dave over at The World's Fair has started a coffee mug meme, suggesting that "...it's almost like it s an emblem of your character. As if the type of cup you use can offer insight into the sort of personality you are.
Or maybe not..."
He asks then:
1. Can you show us your coffee mug?
2. Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?
3. Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?
3. Can you try to get others to comment on it?
1). I'd love to, but the problem is...
...I don't have one. I don't drink coffee, and anything I drink…
tsmith | May 3, 2007Busy today and have family visiting from out of town, so I'll take a few minutes instead to highlight some fairly new blogs.
First I'll note that my friend and colleague over in the Biology department, John Logsdon, has a new blog: Sex, Genes, and Evolution. He's a real live evolutionary biologist working on a number of projects revolving around, well, sex and genes. And he has great hair.
Second, the American Society for Microbiology now has an official blog, Small Things Considered, written by past ASM president Moselio Schaechter. I've been meaning to mention it for awhile and…
tsmith | May 3, 2007Over at Deep Sea News, Craig has a heartbreaking story about the death of his dog a year ago, and it's possible connection to the current pet food recall. I admittedly haven't been paying very close attention to all the updates on this. I have two small dogs of my own, a 10-year-old chihuahua and a 8-month-old Boston terrier mix, and they both get boring dry food that hadn't been implicated in the recall, so I tuned out a bit after assuming their food was safe. However, Craig's post noted that this melamine spiking has been going on for as long as 15 years, and the American Veterinary…