Water Pipe Funk

Every time you bend over the public water fountain to take a drink and see the gunk at the bottom, do you wonder what’s living in it? Microbiologists do… This 2013 study from Finland collaborated on a study examining biofilms on the drinking water distribution system in office buildings. They started sampling right as the …

Not all pathogen research should be done

Recently, a bit of an uproar occurred when the CDC reported that workers there had been accidentally exposed to the bacterium that causes anthrax.  The lesson from this?  Well, I think it is simple.  Accidents happen.  And they can happen anywhere to anyone.  No matter how careful one is. A few days ago a friend …

Long read by Carrie Arnold in Environmental Health Perspectives on the Hospital Microbiome

There is an article by Carrie Arnold in the new issue of EHP (Environmental Health Perspectives) should be of interest to some people out there: EHP — Rethinking Sterile: The Hospital Microbiome. In the article, Carrie Arnold discusses Jack Gilbert’s hospital microbiome project, hospital acquired infections, DNA based surveys of microbes, and work from the …