CO2 and ventilation rate measurements from Day 1 of MoBE 2015

This is just a quick posting of some building science data that I collected during Day 1 of the 4th Annual Conference on the Microbiology of the Built Environment in Boulder, CO. I setup a couple of our Open Source Building Science Sensors (OSBSS) in the front corner of the room before the conference convened yesterday and left …

Metagenomics of toilet waste from long distance flights

I just saw this paper, published a couple of days ago in Nature’s Scientific Reports. And yeah, it’s open access! While reading this post, I would suggest playing Dalai Lama by Rammstein, the in-flight version of Der Erlkönig. Meta-genomic analysis of toilet waste from long distance flights; a step towards global surveillance of infectious diseases and antimicrobial …

More on the history of uninformed, risky microbiology of the built environment experiments  by US Military

A couple of stories with a scary connection to microbiology of the built environment are worth checking out: Story in the SF Chronicle (originally by Kevin Lotia in Business Insider) is a must read for many reasons. ‘One of the largest human experiments in history’ was conducted on unsuspecting residents of San Francisco.   This appears to …

Report of Interest on Home Dampness & Mold from Mark Mendell

An automated Google Scholar search for “Indoor Microbiology” alerted me to this report from Mark Mendell: A Research Agenda on Assessing and Remediating Home Dampness and Mold to Reduce Dampness-Related Health Effects by Mark J. Mandell. This definitely seems of interest to the microbiology of the built environment crowd and anyone interested in moisture effects …

Recent Built Environment Microbiology papers, July 6, 2015

Several new papers about microbes and the built environment came out or came up in my searches this weekend, so time for another installment. Since one of the papers is about prison workers, you could play Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues while reading this post. Open Access: Coccidioides Exposure and Coccidioidomycosis among Prison Employees, California, United States – …

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 …

Sensationalist headline from Time on Air Conditioning health risks, but OK story

Another quick post here.  There is a story by Markham Heid in Time of potential interest: You Asked: Is My Air Conditioner Killing Me? | TIME.  A bit sensationalist as a headline but has some good discussion and quotes in it including some interesting comments from Mark Mendell about indoor microbes.

Inside Philanthropy covers the BioBE Center and Sloan MoBE Program 

Just a quick post.  There is a story of interest at “Inside Philanthropy” on the Sloan Foundation MoBE (microbiology of the built environment) Program and the renewal of the BioBE center project.  See Sloan’s Deep (and Kind of Gross) Probe Into the Microbes Crawling All Around You – Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence – Inside Philanthropy Although I …