New microbiome tools just keep coming – fun times – hard to keep up

So many new tools and methods in microbiome and microbial community studies and it is just really hard to keep up with them.  Here are some that have caught my eye recently: PLOS ONE: IM-TORNADO: A Tool for Comparison of 16S Reads from Paired-End Libraries. Jeraldo P, Kalari K, Chen X, Bhavsar J, Mangalam A, …

Healthcare Design discusses design issues relating to hospital acquired infections

Just a quick post here pointing people to an article of possible interest: Healthcare-associated Infections Keep Industry On High Alert.  In the article Sara Marberry discusses some issues relating to microbes and the built environment in hospital design.  Among the topics covered are hydrogen peroxide vapor systems, UV irradiation devices, and copper as possible antimicrobials.  Also …

Humans living underground – doesn’t look like fun, but interesting topic for #microbiome work

Heard this story on NPR yesterday:  ‘A Universe Beneath Our Feet’: Life In Beijing’s Underground : NPR.  It discusses the growing trend in Beijing for people to be living in apartments / basements comlpetely underground.  This is happening for multiple reasons and it clearly has some potential big consequences.  It does seem like a possible …

Congrats to Gwynne Mhuireach on new grant to study people, plants, microbes in urban settings

Just a quick post here.  Found this news story (from Nov 18) doing some Google Searchers: UO student gets EPA grant to study health link between plants, people – Portland Business Journal.  It discusses a new grant on “Relationships Among Airborne Microbial Communities, Urban Land Uses and Vegetation Cover: Implications for Urban Planning and Human Health.” …

Conclusions not totally convincing but hand microbiomes worth considering in hospital acquired infection studies

So – just was reading this paper: Healthcare Workers’ Hand Microbiome May Mediate Carriage of Hospital Pathogens.  Basically, they showed that the microbiome on health care worker’s hands was correlated with estimates of pathogen carriage. And, it seems to be of potential interest to the microBEnet community.  I confess, I am skeptical of the validity of some …

Fascinating look and Microbes, Architecture and the Anthropocene from Nicholas Korody

I am starting to think a lot about the connections between architecture and microbiology – in part in preparation for the American Institute for Architects Annual Meeting in Atlanta May 14-16 where I will be participating in sessions on “microbes in the built environment” The tentative details for the sessions are Session: Microbes in the Built Environment: Perspectives …

UC District Court rules on whether bacteria are a pollutant

Well, I am no lawyer but this certainly seems interesting from a microbial point of view: Court’s Reasoning That “Bacteria” Is Not A “Pollutant” Favorable For Policyholders In Other Cases – Insurance – United States.  From the article: That court found that “under Louisiana law, Legionella and Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria” — the bacteria which cause Legionnaire’s …