“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water” -Loren Eiseley- Aquatic ecosystems can be placed into two discrete categories, native and managed. Native aquatic ecosystems may be influenced by human activities, in fact we’d be hard-pressed to find one that isn’t, but there is no intention to the influence. Managed aquatic …
Have you ever wondered what’s in the air of a daycare center, where kids swap microbes every day? A team from Virginia Tech and the University of Pittsburgh is investigating the viral ecology in air of a daycare center using metagenomics. We have collected samples on HVAC filters and are looking for a sequencing core …
A recent study form Ling et al explored microbial community succession on concrete. They examined the concrete in two sewage manholes over a year using 16S rRNA sequencing. Concrete is a huge part of urban environments, and corrosive microbes eat it away. This causes structural damage, which is especially unwanted in sewage systems. The abstract for the …
OK that was deceptive of me. This is not a draft paper. But it is a paper about drafts – beer that is: Mapping microbial ecosystems and spoilage-gene flow in breweries highlights patterns of contamination and resistance | eLife. And, well, I am a bit biased since it came from UC Davis colleagues, but it …
Following the last posts about sampling in buildings and other man-made environments, I would like to share the paper I will present at Healthy Buildings 2015 Europe. The paper mainly focuses on sampling advice for practitioners, but we have also tried to explain what the concept of «building microbiome» means to us. Although buildings are not living …
Just got out to Bodega Bay with my family. I am teaching at the Bodega Bay Phylogenetics course tomorrow and we have made it an annual tradition to come out for a few days around the time when I teach at this course. This trip we rented a small house (3 days for the price …
By Amanda Makowiecki Miller Research Group University of Colorado, Boulder With drug resistant bacteria becoming a growing problem, alternative methods are being pursued to decontaminate air and surfaces; ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is one of these methods. UVGI uses short wavelength light in order to disrupt the genetic material of microorganisms, this disruption either kills …
A recent paper by Newton et al compares the microbial community composition in human stool to that of the sewage sludge that it inevitably ends up in. And surprise! The communities looked really similar. Sewage species recaptured most of the human stool species, and was essentially a medley of various gut microbes. The really cool part is how the …
Really nice article from Sarah Zhang at Gizmodo “Not Even Science Could Explain the Bacteria In My Apartment“. In it, she discusses the results of her participation in the Wildlife of Our Home study, the NY metagenomic data, and the fact that we’re still in the “exploration” phase of DNA-based microbial ecology. I think it’s …
I love the idea behind this: And see the associated story in AL.Com by Lee Roop Scientists study the microbiome – the bacteria, viruses and fungi – living in an Alabama high school. Basically this is a partnership between Hudson Alpha and a local school on doing the microbiome of their classroom. Though I would note …