Postdoctoral Funding Opportunity in Microbiology of the Built Environment

(The following information is taken from the full RFP which is attached here) The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announces a funding opportunity in its Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) program. The Foundation seeks to further the development of talented early stage Ph.D. scientists and engineers through the Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) Postdoctoral …

Paper says: To all microbiologists everywhere – deposit your strains in public collections – I agree

This is a very very important paper for all people who culture strains of microbes as part of their work: SpringerPlus | Abstract | Deposit of microbial strains in public service collections as part of the publication process to underpin good practice in science. Abstract: Despite recommendations to release microbial resources to the community post-publication, the …

IRB approval to collect samples from buildings, people, and yes, kittens!

Happy spring! It’s time for flowers and kittens. We are starting a study to explore the development of the microbiome in neonatal kittens. Because what’s cuter than kittens? This project is partially an outreach project to get people who already love kittens excited about microbes and how the microbiome can be shaped by the environment. Here’s our …

The antibiotics that could kill you

“In 2010, Americans were prescribed 258 million courses of antibiotics, a rate of 833 per thousand people. Such massive usage, billions of doses, has been going on year after year.” or so says Martin Blaser who has written a book (“Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues” published by Macmillan …

Editorial by Nazaroff on “Illumination, lighting technologies, and indoor environmental quality”

Definitely worth checking this out: Illumination, lighting technologies, and indoor environmental quality – Nazaroff – 2014 – Indoor Air – Wiley Online Library.  It is an editorial for Indoor Air and has many interesting bits.  Of particilar interest to me and microBEnet is the part about how lighting affects the microbiology of indoor spaces and also …

AAAS Microbiomes of the Built Environment Symposium videos available on-line

Registrants for the March AAAS Symposium are recipients today of the following message from Anette Olsen at AAAS. “I’d like to let you know that the videos of each panel is now online, but they currently remain unedited. We anticipate another two weeks before the edited versions are placed online. In the meantime, here is …

Where do biological particles found indoors come from?

Most of us spend most of our time indoors amidst suspended biological particles — spores, pollen, bits of dead skin, bacteria, viruses, and so on. We care about these particles because they may have human health impacts (positive or negative), effects on building materials, and possible forensic uses. Two sources known to be important for …

Microbes from the built environment finally head to space, #spacemicrobes

After 1.5 years of collection events, culturing, identification, and selection of candidates our space microbes experiment finally is in orbit.  Our 48 microbes, collected from a variety of built environments on earth, are now whipping around the planet.  The rocket took off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral at 3:25pm EST yesterday.  In a …