So we recently had two problems with a common solution: #1, we hadn’t had a lab social function in awhile #2, we wanted to try using the MinION sequencer in a “field” setting, but weren’t quite ready to try it without electricity on hand. The obvious solution, have the entire lab over to my house …
So yesterday morning, Jonathan Eisen and myself headed down to Antioch, CA to sample a pilot wastewater treatment facility. In a couple of hours I went from knowing literally nothing about the process to having some handle on at least the latter stages. Pretty cool microbiology. As I understand the problem at hand, conventional wastewater …
Interesting new article from Rob Dunn’s lab about the microbial and arthopod communities associated with chimpanzee beds. The article itself is clearly pitched within a microbiology of the built environment context… highlighting the fact that we haven’t really looked much a non-human constructed artificial environments. Pretty cool stuff! The outpouring of press on the topic …
Received this in the mail from Katie Bowman at NAS. Looks like a program with a lot of MoBE related material considering the sessions are “Big Data”, “Water Systems”, “The Microbiome”, “Air Quality”, and “Next Generation Buildings and Infrastructure”. Details below are from the e-mail. Dear Colleagues, The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, …
(This is a blog post by Cinta Gomez-Silvan, the first author on this paper) Story behind the paper: A comparison of methods used to unveil the genetic and metabolic pool in the built environment. It seems pretty obvious that in the field of microbial ecology we need to understand how living microorganism interact. Nevertheless, …
Neat article in the Harvard Gazette about an awesome-sounding exhibit, “Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight.”. Put together by Roberto Kolter and Scott Chimileski, the exhibit highlights microbial life… particularly the discoveries of microbial ecology over the last couple of decades. Looks like a cool blend of science and art.
So I’d heard about “self-healing” concrete using chemicals that react with water to seal cracks, I’ve even blogged about self-healing concrete using bacteria embedded into the concrete (back in 2011). And then yesterday I came across research talking about using fungi for this purpose. Regardless of which method ends up working, I think these are …
Just came across this paper today from the University of Illinois, “Drinking water microbiome assembly induced by water stagnation“. Looks like a good study on actual residential tap water systems. Was also happy to see that the press release didn’t dip too much into scare-mongering. Worth a read by folks interested in water systems. Abstract …
I just got pointed to this article today “Ugly Ducklings – the dark side of plastic materials in contact with potable water“, along with the accompanying commentary “About duck, pipes, and microbiomes“. I think this is a fascinating study for a few reasons. Firstly, like probably most parents, I observed and wondered about the biofilms …
(Note: This post was updated on 3/26/18 after re-running some of our analysis based on suggestions in the comments and on Twitter). We were very excited to get our MinION sequencer from Nanopore 1.5 years ago… so many potential applications; sequencing in real time, use in the classroom, use in the field, not having to …