Paper: “Undergraduate Bioinformatics Workshops Provide Perceived Skills”

Just a quick post here.  I found this paper in JMBE when I was browsing in a special connection of ethics in biology.  This was in the same volume of the journal and it struck me as something some people might find interesting.  It is an article about undergraduate bioinformatics training: Undergraduate Bioinformatics Workshops Provide Perceived …

A Figshare Collection on Microbiology of the Built Environment

I got an email the other day about a new feature at Figshare.  It was about a new feature they have called “Collections“. But before I describe that I should probably describe Figshare.  Figshare is a repository for depositing and sharing various digital objects including not just Figures (which they name kind of implies … …

Report: Laminate wood flooring risk was underestimated by CDC

There is a new report out Tuesday from the CDC National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).  It is an update of a report issued on February 10, 2016.  Alex Alexiev wrote about this error in a microBEnet post: CDC Error in Flooring Report. For more on the corrected report …

Must read of the month: paper on impact of “Relic DNA”  on microbial diversity studies

I was casually browsing Twitter yesterday when something caught my eye DNA from dead #bacteria (and extruded DNA) may inflate species counts (depending on protocol). Early DNAse step? https://t.co/YQvUJq10Df – Michael J Wise (@some_wise) March 22, 2016 This Tweet embedded one from Carl Zimmer. Here is the original: The Earth is filled with relic DNA. https://t.co/eJ0lmggmAw …

Who are the microbes in your hospital’s showerhead? In your showerhead? In your showerhead?

There is a new paper in AEM of interest: Characterization of biofilms developing on hospital shower hoses and implications for nosocomial infections by Maria J. Soto-Giron, Luis M. Rodriguez, Chengwei Luob, Michael Elkd, Hodon Ryu, Jill Hoelle, Jorge W. Santo Domingo and Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis They used 16S rRNA gene sequencing of cultured isolates, and metagenomic sequencing, to characterize the microbes living in hospital shower hoses. …

Micro Student Symposium 5/6 at @ucberkeley w/ Keynotes by Victoria Orphan and Michael Laub

The Microbiology Student Group at UC Berkeley welcomes you to join us for the 17th Annual Microbiology Student Symposium (MSS) on Friday, May 6, 2016 at the David Brower Center in Berkeley. This year, our keynote speakers are Victoria Orphan from Caltech and Micheal Laub from MIT. The MSS provides a forum for students researching …

Strategies & Techniques for Analyzing Microbial Population Structures (STAMPS) Course 8/3-8/13

The Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. MA will be offering their “STAMPS”: (Strategies & Techniques for Analyzing Microbial Population Structures) Course this August (8/3-8/13). Course Dates: August 3 — August 13, 2016 Deadline: April 8, 2016 | Apply here Course Website Course Schedule Directors: Mitchell L. Sogin, MBL and David B. Mark Welch, MBL …

Guest post from @northenlab on “Exometabolite niche partitioning”

Guest post from Trent Northen of LBNL. I wrote to Trent recently when I had seen a paper of his that I found fascinating: Exometabolite niche partitioning among sympatric soil bacteria.  So I asked if he would be willing to write a guest post about it. And so – he did.  It seems like the issues …

Great long read from WisconsinWatch.org on water radium levels increasing as wells are dug deeper 

As communities grow and pump more groundwater, radium from deep bedrock is contaminating dozens of water systems. The city of Waukesha wants to tap into Lake Michigan to solve its radium problem. Just was pointed to this piece by Deborah Blum: As wells go deeper, radium levels rise in state tap water | WisconsinWatch.org.  It …