Air Quality on Airplanes

Happy 4th of July! Given how many people in the US are travelling this long weekend, this article about air quality on airplanes caught my eye. And, while you are reading this post, may I suggest the following song: B.o.B – Airplanes ft. Hayley Williams of Paramore ? In this short article called Air Quality on …

Recent Built Environment Microbiology papers, July 2, 2015

Just in time for the long weekend (where we all will be catching up with the literature – ahem), here is another collection of recent papers about microbiology of the built environment. The first paper is about the mattress microbiome, so the video song Jump from Glee came to mind (“Here at Mattress Land we believe that …

Recent Built Environment Microbiology papers, June 21, 2015

What’s new in the built environment microbiology literature? Here is my selection of the new papers from the past 2 weeks. And, since one of them is about the microbiome of gyms, I thought “Pump It” by the Black Eyed Peas would fit nicely with this post. And I apologize that only two of these …

Recent Built Environment Microbiology papers, June 8, 2015

It’s World Oceans Day, so I have included a couple of papers today about the anthropogenic influence on marine microbes. Other recent papers cover microbes in school dust, metabolites in houses with moisture damage, dental units, rust, and arsenic removal filters. Suggested song to play while reading this post: Jack Johnson — Only The Ocean Book …

Recent Built Environment Microbiology papers, June 3, 2015

New “Built Environment” papers that came out in the last couple of days, covering microbes in indoor air, flooded areas in Thailand, and on money bills. Chamber Bioaerosol Study: Outdoor Air and Human Occupants as Sources of Indoor Airborne Microbes – Rachel I. Adams – PLOS ONE ..we used DNA sequencing of filter samples to assess the …

Recent Built Environment Microbiology papers

Some recent scientific papers and popular science articles that I already included on my daily MicrobiomeDigest blog, but that I would like to share here as well.  Feasibility study involving the search for natural strains of microorganisms capable of degrading graffiti from heritage materials – Patricia Sanmartín – International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation A total of 54 different …

Exposure to dust and dirt increases mouse gut microbial diversity

Appropriate song to play while reading this post: Farmhouse – Phish Just a quick post today about a paper that was published in Environmental Microbiology this week. Not open access, alas, but it looks like a good study. Exposure to soil, house dust, and decaying plants increases gut microbial diversity and decreases serum IgE levels …

Microbiota and urban grey space

Appropriate song to play while reading this post: “Fade to Grey” by Visage A new paper in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology touches upon some interesting viewpoints. The paper is called Dysbiotic drift: mental health, environmental grey space, and microbiota, and was written by Alan C Logan. And it’s Open Access, which we all appreciate! The article, which is rather …

The Best from MicrobiomeDigest

Some recent papers and news articles from my daily blog MicrobiomeDigest. Not all are Open Access, but they are worth mentioning here too. Indoor air bacterial communities in Hong Kong households assemble independently of occupant skin microbiomes – David Wilkins – Environmental Microbiology While indoor air and dust are known to also contain many human-associated taxa, household air …

WSJ article on the Hospital Microbiome Project

A nice article by Robert Lee Hotz in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal called “Designing a Hospital to Better Fight Infection“. The article summarizes data from the 3-year Hospital Microbiome Project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York. and quotes Emily Landon, Julie Segre, James Meadow, Jack Gilbert, and Jessica Green. From the article: …