Some News Stories on Recent Microbiology of the Built Environment papers

Just a quick link fest here.  Lots of buzz going around about various microbiology of the built environment papers.  Here are some news stories / blog posts of relevance: Brooke Borel at PopSci: Building Design Influences Bacterial Growth | Popular Science. Me on microBEnet: Studying — not wantonly killing — the microbes around us and the rise …

Studying – not wantonly killing – the microbes around us and the rise of the “microbiology of the built environment”

Imagine you have a camera with a special “anti-macro” lens.  This lens scrubs from any image all plants and animals and other “macro” organisms.  And this lens also highlights  the remaining living things – the microorganisms – anywhere in the frame (including those that were in or on the macro organisms removed from the image). …

Wanted – suggestions for alternatives to Mendeley (socially aware reference collections)

So – my microBEnet project has spent a lot of time working on this reference collection that we have currently in Mendeley. Microbiology of the Built Environment | Mendeley Group. In addition to just collecting these 700+ papers we have also added our own tags to the references in regard to the types of environments …

NASA report of interest (from 2012): Genetic inventory (of spacecraft) task final report

Just discovered this report: BEACON eSpace at Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Genetic inventory task final report.  It is a summary of genetic studies of microbes found on various spacecraft and associated facilities. Abstract: Contaminant terrestrial microbiota could profoundly impact the scientific integrity of extraterrestrial life-detection experiments. It is therefore important to know what organisms persist on spacecraft …

Long read on “bioMASON” company

There is an interesting article in the News Observer of relevance to microBEnet: NC startup develops a way to turn sand into bricks with bacteria instead of heat | Science/Technology | NewsObserver.com. There are parts I am a bit skeptical of but the article tells the story of Ginger Kreig Dosier and her company “bioMASON” …

Request – Information on Places that do rRNA sequencing as a service

I have gotten many outside requests for the following information – what places (companies, Universities, government agencies, etc) provide contract services for rRNA PCR and sequencing? I know that uBiome will do this (full disclosure – I am on their SAB). The UC Davis Host-Microbe Systems Biology Core will do this (more disclosure – I am the …