Almost everyone in developed countries uses cosmetics, from body washes to make-up. In the US, the cosmetics industry makes over $56 billion dollars in revenue. As a society, we use a lot of personal care products. And in order for those products to have a useful shelf-life, they contain antimicrobials – no one wants to open their …
Whenever I got sick as a young child, my mom insisted upon opening my windows in the mornings to let fresh air in. She claimed it would help me get better if we let clean air in to flush out the dirty air. To me, it was a nuisance. I had the chills and resented …
If you read this blog, you probably know a thing or two or more about antibiotic resistance. Especially in terms of how humans have aided in furthering it. This LA Times article reports that in mid-September, President Obama signed an executive order aiming to combat drug-resistant microbes. A 20 million dollar prize will be given …
Researchers in Egypt did a fascinating study recently on probiotics for fish. They tested the effect of three different types of Psuedomonas fluorescens on two pathogens that affect tilapia in the Nile (P. angulliseptica and S. faecium). Their aim was to find a more eco-friendly way of controlling the pathogens in aquaculture compared to chemical antimicrobials. The probiotic was indeed …
I just stumbled across a NY Times article about a children’s book by Nicola Davies by the title Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes. The article and the quotes from the book make me both excited and optimistic for how microbes are portrayed. A huge problem I have found in talking to non-microbiologists about microbiology is …
With the recent popularity of “green” buildings, we have to wonder how these new materials affect the microbes in the built environment. This 2010 paper from researchers at the University of Texas examines fungal growth in such materials. The study involved artificially and naturally inoculating four green building materials and their non-green counterparts with Aspergillus niger, as well as …
Gareth Griffith’s Slate article (2012) on endangered microbes told a story that had honestly never occurred to me. Sure, there are endangered species all over the world, and we are all too aware of organizations like the IUCN that classify and aim to preserve such creatures. But none of the organisms on IUCN’s Red List are microbes. …
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 …
Researchers at the Japan Science and Technology Agency found in this 2012 study that microbes like Geobacter sulfurreducens and Thiobacillus denitrificans can form small electric grids. These species cooperatively create electric currents through conductive minerals in soil, and can probably do so over a (relatively to microbes) large distance. These microbes and others like them are …
A really interesting aspect of Japan’s most recent and disastrous earthquake and tsunami involves microbial impact on cultural property and documents. Even as a student in microbiology, I never considered how these natural disasters could exacerbate the problem of biodeterioration. A 2013 article by Gu et al summarizes some important information presented at The International …