Are Autonomous Sewer Robots Live-Streaming Neighborhood Microbiome Data?

Ok I saw this Tweet and I thought it sounded cool: Autonomous Sewer Robots Live-Stream Neighborhood Microbiome Data – Nickolaus Hines https://t.co/fr8Xfs8XxQ pic.twitter.com/e5mDTGU44Y – Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) May 5, 2016 And definitely worth looking into in more detail.  And, well, after looking I still think it is cool but not quite what the headline suggests. …

You Know Your Field Has Made It When …

I have nothing to add to this. The Onion picks up on the recent study by Caporaso and colleagues A study that swabbed office buildings in major cities found that the bacterial profile of the swabs corresponded to their location, suggesting that cities each have their own “bacterial fingerprint.” What do you think? Source: Study: …

Videos of talks from “Microbiomes of the Built Environment: From Research to Application”

On April 11 there was a meeting in Washington DC that was part of an effort from a new study being conducted by the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering on “Microbiomes of the Built Environment”.  Videos and slides from the meeting have now been posted.  I have compiled them below. In addition, I …

Don’t Cry. Don’t Raise Your Eye. It’s Only Microbe Wasteland

These will almost certainly be of interest to the MoBE community.  There is a new paper in mSystems “Geography and Location Are the Primary Drivers of Office Microbiome Composition” by John Chase, Jennifer Fouquier, Mahnaz Zare, Derek L. Sonderegger, Rob Knight, Scott T. Kelley, Jeffrey Siegel, J. Gregory Caporaso.  I found out about the paper via …

A true must read: amazing essay by Tal Addaby “Less Disinfectant, More Rioja”

There is a wonderfully essay by Tal Abbady coming out in tomorrow’s New York Times (and available online now). A few years in Spain, and my mother’s last days, helped me see the futility of a sterilized life. Source: Less Disinfectant, More Rioja  The essay is about many things, including differences between cultures (pun intended …

A microbiology of the built environment April Fools’ joke

Well I am sad I missed this yesterday but there was an April Fools’ joke published in the Western University Gazette that had a microbiology of the built environment angle. “We’re holding Ivey business classes in there to decontaminate the premises,” Chakma said. Source: English Department relocated to broom closets | Spoof | westerngazette.ca “There …

Kudos to Marc Edwards, selected as one of Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders

This really made my day / week / month.  Marc Edwards has been selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s “World’s Greatest Leaders”. Source: Marc Edwards Here’s what they wrote about him Edwards, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, is one of the nation’s top experts on water contamination–and nowhere has his impact been bigger than in …