Well this is interesting. Holly Bik pointed me to the fact that the Clinton Global Initiative has a track on the Built Environment:About Us: The Built Environment | Clinton Global Initiative. Not sure exactly what they do in this track but seems like a good way to get exposure for the field of microbiology of …
In November, 2012, Curtis Huttenhower began work (with funding from the Sloan Foundation) to examine the transmission of human-associated microbes by public transportation surfaces. An article on “Big Data” in the current issue of Harvard Magazine includes a description of Huttenhower’s work in the lead article “Why “Big Data” Is a Big Deal.” After very …
From the start, Project MERCCURI has involved classrooms and students in the process of citizen science. Many of our samples were collected by students and the microbes going into space from JPL were voted on by a number of high-school classrooms. Now we have a “Project MERCCURI Educator’s Guide” which contains a detailed overview of …
Well, most of the news I see about “germs” being found somewhere or other are germophobia in some way or another. I think this is a different case though: Kitchen Cutting Boards Remain a Source of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacteria After Use. Not sure if what they report is particularly unusual but seems disconcerting at first glance. …
Well, the news just does not get any better / different for cruise ships and microbes. Despite major efforts (or so they claim) by the cruise industry – people keep spreading Norovirus and other such illnesses aboard cruise ships. For example, see: Illnesses Aboard California Cruise Ship Nearly Double. Not sure just what is going …
Rachel Adams touched on this topic in a post last year, Size matters, or what I learned collaborating with environmental engineers, so I thought I’d revisit it. In her original post, Rachel described that she had been working on methods for air sampling for microbes and when she ran some ideas past her environmental engineering …
Yersinia pestis, Direct Fluorescent Antibody Stain (DFA), 200x Magnification. CDC 2057. Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. “Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers” reported in the Guardian Reportedly it was “pneumonic” rather than “bubonic” as previously thought. Fortunately it was a very, very long time ago, although there have been many …
Not actually Danish chickens. (cc-by-nc river seal)One of the most coveted chores at my high school was to feed our school’s chickens. The chickens provided eggs for the students, faculty, staff and our extensive Meals on Wheels program. I always thought it was the best chore assignment you could ask for; the hen house had …
Microbial Ecology Research Tech position (for application details go here) The Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon currently has an opening for a full time Research Assistant to work in the area of microbial ecology. The successful candidate will play a key role in the Biology and Built Environment (BioBE) Center (http://biobe.uoregon.edu/), …
Bioinformatics/Microbial Ecology postdoctoral position (for application details go here) Jessica Green and Brendan Bohannan are currently seeking a bioinformatics postdoctoral researcher to explore fundamental questions in microbial ecology and evolution. Applicants should have a PhD with extensive training using bioinformatics to understand the ecology and/or evolution of complex biological communities, and strong writing skills. The ideal candidate will have …