Archived Newsletter August 2014

As usual, our blog posts this summer spanned a wide range of topics relevant to the microbiology of the built environment, ranging from concrete to germophobia.

Announcements:

• Abstract Submission open for Healthy Buildings Europe 2015
• Sloan Microbiology of the Built Environment Data Analysis Workshop (secrets of QIIME, VAMPS and QIITA) January 6-7, 2015
• Reminder about Sloan post-doc RFP in microbiology of the built environment
• NSF Funding Opportunity: Science and Technology Centers: Integrative Partnerships
• New Joint Initiative from the Knight and Sogin Labs as a Follow-up to the MoBEDAC Initiative
• PhD Opportunity “Fungal Growth on porous materials: the roles of the water supply” (Netherlands)
• Human Microbiome Coursera this Fall with Rob Knight and others
• The American Institute of Architects are looking for “Educational Proposals” for their 2015 Convention #microBEnet
• American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) poster deadline July 21
• Conference Announcement: AIA Convention 2015, Atlanta GA

Reviews and commentary:

• A disturbing trend – casual and reckless use of antimicrobial agents in building materials.
• 50 Shades of Gross
• Termite mounds: another kind of built environment
• Work of Rachel Dutton on a fascinating human-made microbial ecosystem – cheese rinds
• Who are the contaminants in your sequencing project?
• American Society for Microbiology Letter on CDC/NIH lapses in biosafety
• A heartbreaking dome of staggering magnitude
• Cheetahs, carcasses and flies
• Not all pathogen research should be done
• Bacteria and concrete-a love-hate relationship

The history of microbiology

• Walking in the footsteps of van Leeuwenhoek (part 3)

Input solicited:

• Wanted – building scientists input on Jane Brody in the @nytimes on “Sick” Houses and Mold
• Workshop on Animals in the Built Environment
• Help wanted: Repeat annotation in microbial genomes

Conference and workshop reports:

• EDAMAME 2014s Greatest Hits
• Workshop report: Building science to advance research in the microbiology of the built environment
• Storify of #microbenet tweets from Indoor Air 2014 in Hong Kong

Recent interesting articles, preprints and books:

• More than just a fingerprint-our microbes are efficient hotel “cleaners,” too!
• Nice paper on Malassezia-like Fungi – commonly found in human skin – but also found in many other places
• Spinal Tap-The Fungal Meningitis Edition
• Awesome science paper 1st lines example regarding microbes on the Archimedes Palimpsest
• Diversify Your Microbiome by Rock Climbing Indoors
• Nice series of papers on microbial ecology and space travel
• Antioxidants: Their role in Anaerobic Culturing
• Are Green Building Materials Tastier for Fungi than Conventional Materials?
• Contaminated tap water in hospitals
• Frightening Levels of Antibiotic Resistance and Capacity for Horizontal Gene Transfer Reported in a Wastewater Treatment Plant
• “Modifiable factors governing indoor fungal diversity and risk of asthma”
• Blast from the past now free at NCBI: The Airliner Cabin Environment and the Health of Passengers and Crew. – Books – NCBI
• For those interested in metagenomics – a mash-up from The Scientist
• What’s Your Kardashian Index?
• Methodological approaches for studying the microbial ecology of drinking water distribution systems
• Viruses – and why you should love them – really love them – really
• Must read paper of the week: Tools to improve built environment data collection for indoor microbial ecology investigations
• Nice Primer on “Conducting a Microbiome Study”
• A really important technique for metagenomic studies: stable isotope probing
• A very important paper for any interested in microbial ecology: importance of rare taxa
• Quick post: Interesting paper on affect of Monochloramine Disinfection System on drinking water microbial ecology at a hospital
• “Air, surface sampling techniques used by US government effective in fighting bioterrorism”
• Preprint of interest: Phylogenetics and the human microbiome
• Water Pipe Funk
• Long read by Carrie Arnold in Environmental Health Perspectives on the Hospital Microbiome

The story behind the research

• Behind the scenes at the Earth Microbiome Project by @gilbertjacka
• Nice summary of the Earth Microbiome Project by Gilbert et al.
• Swabs to Genome Workflow Part II: The Problems
• Swabs to Genome Workflow available as pre-print on PeerJ

Microbes and buildings in the news:

• Are Faster Diagnostics (Finally) Here?
• Energy Vanguard Blog on “4 ventilation quotes that will rock your IAQ World”
• Contamination of hospital water w/ Mycobacterium abscessus
• Save the Microbes

Germophobia in the news:

• Germophobia story of the day: Newsweek and Marissa Rothkopf Bates on “Gadget Lust”
• Germophobia story of the week: SpongeBath sponge cleaner system

Podcasts and videos:

• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation podcast covers microbiomes of the built environment

Resources, methods and tools:

• Nice resource: BRIK – Building Research Information Knowledgebase
• Antimicrobial Terminology
• American Gut data and pipelines now freely available

Social media resources:

• Worth a read: Shelly Miller @ShellyMBoulder on Why She Tweets
• Most popular microBEnet blog posts (2011-2014)