As the oldest daughter of 3rd generation HVAC/plumbing/electrical small business owners, I held my share of flashlights on service calls and even wrapped ductwork one summer. I loved fiddling and building with the different tools, left-over bits of copper tubing, and other miscellaneous tidbits from jobs. But my heart was more into asking questions about living …
About a month ago, listeria found in Sabra Hummus caused a massive food safety recall across the US. So I got to thinking — how common are pathogens in the food we eat and how is this addressed on industrial scales? Food is processed, transported, and eaten in our built environments multiple times a day, …
I know I am late to the game here but I am getting more and more fascinated by “chamber” studies in which people are placed in a sealed chamber and then emissions from those people (or from other things in the chamber with the people) are characterized. With ever improving sensors, particle analysis tools, mass-specs …
Just got this from NSF and thought it would be of interest: Dear Colleagues, Applications are invited for an Ideas Lab on “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Biomedical Data Science Challenges” taking place at the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) located in the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Biomedical Data Science Challenges …
Household air microbial community resembles that of household surface and occupant’s skin? Maybe, maybe not… By Marcus Leung (Twitter @leungmarcus) Indoor microbial communities, such as those found in indoor air and indoor surfaces, have been shown to be closely connected to microbial assemblages on humans. Also, re-suspension of house dust from surfaces following routine residential …
Some recent papers and news articles from my daily blog MicrobiomeDigest. Not all are Open Access, but they are worth mentioning here too. Indoor air bacterial communities in Hong Kong households assemble independently of occupant skin microbiomes – David Wilkins – Environmental Microbiology While indoor air and dust are known to also contain many human-associated taxa, household air …
Another funding opportunity from the Sloan Foundation for postdocs working in the (broadly defined) microbiology of the built environment. A full copy of the RFP is below or can be found here. ****************************************************************************** May 1, 2015 Dear Colleague — The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announces a funding opportunity in its Microbiology of the Built Environment …
A nice article by Robert Lee Hotz in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal called “Designing a Hospital to Better Fight Infection“. The article summarizes data from the 3-year Hospital Microbiome Project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York. and quotes Emily Landon, Julie Segre, James Meadow, Jack Gilbert, and Jessica Green. From the article: …
Here’s a summary of the conference: Join your colleagues from around the world to participate in platform and poster presentations, symposia, and plenary lectures which highlight the latest advances in aerosol science and technology! Special symposia this year will address the following topics: Primary and Secondary Aerosols from Agricultural Operations; The Role of Water in …
Well, as with some other recent posts here, the paper I am writing about is not open access and I do not have any obvious way to get it at this time. But it looks interesting, and more importantly it shows just how many places are thinking about microbial ecology in built environments. The paper …