Bacterial communities on plants grown indoors

We recently published a paper (http://mbio.asm.org/content/5/4/e01564-14) reporting that plants grown indoors have different leaf-surface (phyllosphere) bacterial communities than those grown outdoors. We found that Romaine lettuce grown in environmental chambers contains 10- to 100-fold lower numbers of bacteria than age-matched, field-grown lettuce. The bacterial diversity on laboratory-grown lettuce plants was also significantly lower and contained …

Fish Want Probiotics Too

Researchers in Egypt did a fascinating study recently on probiotics for fish. They tested the effect of three different types of Psuedomonas fluorescens on two pathogens that affect tilapia in the Nile (P. angulliseptica and S. faecium). Their aim was to find a more eco-friendly way of controlling the pathogens in aquaculture compared to chemical antimicrobials. The probiotic was indeed …

Job Posting (Grad Student) at Virginia Tech studying aerosol microbiology

Just received the following job posting from Linsey Marr at Virgina Tech: The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech invites applications for a Ph.D. student to study the influence of environmental conditions and aerosol chemistry on the infectivity of airborne bacteria and viruses. Contact Dr. Linsey C. Marr at lmarr@vt.edu to find …

“Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes”

I just stumbled across a NY Times article about a children’s book by Nicola Davies by the title Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes. The article and the quotes from the book make me both excited and optimistic for how microbes are portrayed. A huge problem I have found in talking to non-microbiologists about microbiology is …

Abstract Submission open for Healthy Buildings Europe 2015

Abstracts are now being accepted for Healthy Buildings Europe 2015.  The call for abstracts for Healthy Buildings America will come out in October.   Note that there will be a Sloan-funded symposium on the microbiology of the built environment at both conferences.   Details on abstract submission below, from the conference website. Please find hereby an invitation …

More than just a fingerprint-our microbes are efficient hotel “cleaners,” too!

Think hotel rooms are gross?  An elegant study led by Jack Gilbert, published Thursday in Science Reports, suggests that our resident microbes could help ease our minds on this issue, as they very quickly populate hotel rooms (and houses, more on that below) to make our hotels microbiologically identical to our homes within 24 hours. …