Shared post by Rachel Adams & James Meadow As intrepid scientists working to understand the interactions between humans, buildings, and the microbes we share, a recently published review paper caught our attention. The piece, Recent Advances in the Microbiology of the Built Environment, by Konya and Scott, set out to synthesize what has been learned …
There is a new blog post from the Department of Energy pointing to a resource that may be of use: White House Highlights Two Energy-Slashing, Open Data Initiatives | Department of Energy. This post highlights two steps featured in the “Energy Datapalooza” activity going on now: KEY BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE STEPS INCLUDE: – Anonymized building …
Interesting article about a “living alternative to concrete”. Ignoring the fact that the final product is not actually living, this is a pretty cool idea. This product uses bacteria to produce a concrete-like substance using much less energy than traditional methods. A number of similar ideas are the in the works including mushroom-grown bricks. Some …
Heard a very interesting story on NewsHour yesterday about portable classrooms: The story is reported by Katie Campbell of KCTS in Seattle. Some of the issues discussed in the context of “reinventing” portable classrooms include carbon dioxide monitoring, sustainability and the Living Building Standards, using solar for electricity, natural ventilation instead of noisy HVAC units, …
For those interested in molecular studies of fungi these two posts by Jenna Lang may be of interest: What the fungi do I do with my ITS library? What the fungi do I do with my ITS library (Part 2) Jenna is a post-doc in my lab and has worked on many different microbiome related projects over …
One of the unmet challenges to the Sloan Foundation’s Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) program is the sharing of the results of the Foundation-funded studies as well as other studies of the indoor and built environment microbiome. At the American Society for Microbiology’s annual conference in Boston last week, I was impressed by Pieter …
I know it is a bit late but I just discovered this story about how May has been declared “Building Safety Month” in Tennessee: Governor Haslam Proclaims May as Building Safety Month. This appears to be mostly a public awareness campaign but hopefully it will (or has) gotten people in Tennessee to think about “Building science” …
Good to see builders putting money into the academic side of building science: Home builder donates $10 million to U of A to make construction greener. Not sure if this builder has a good or a bad or a middle of the road track record in any way but 10 million dollars to help start the …
Having been camped out in Portland, OR this week to speak at the 2014 Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting, I woke up this morning to find a “boil water alert” had been issued for the entire city. Repeated testing over the last few days has found fecal contamination (E. coli) in the city’s reservoirs. So that means a lockdown …
This year’s ASM meeting in Boston provided a chance for many of the Sloan-funded grantees working on the microbiology of the built environment to get together for a dinner for a good mix of socialization and collaboration. Here’s a few pictures, courtesy of Paula Olsiewski.