Sequencing of PCR-amplified marker regions (e.g. 16S, ITS) for characterization of sample microbial ecology is a widely-used tool in Microbiology of the Built Environmenta (MoBE) investigations. Due to the large amount of data produced by these methods, sequences are typically clustered into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on sequence similarity to simplify downstream processing. However, …
There is an interesting article in the News Observer of relevance to microBEnet: NC startup develops a way to turn sand into bricks with bacteria instead of heat | Science/Technology | NewsObserver.com. There are parts I am a bit skeptical of but the article tells the story of Ginger Kreig Dosier and her company “bioMASON” …
I have gotten many outside requests for the following information – what places (companies, Universities, government agencies, etc) provide contract services for rRNA PCR and sequencing? I know that uBiome will do this (full disclosure – I am on their SAB). The UC Davis Host-Microbe Systems Biology Core will do this (more disclosure – I am the …
So earlier this week I wrote an article at Slate called “I would rather lick a toilet seat than cell phone”. Which was a really unfortunate title since I was trying to emphasize that toilet seats are surprisingly clean and the general point of the article was about microbial scare stories. I did not mean …
I haven’t posted in awhile about Project MERCCURI but we’ve been plugging along preparing all of our candidate bacteria to fly to the space station. This process turned out to be much much more work that we anticipated. In the end we grew up many hundreds of strains from events around the country in order …
New paper out of possible interest to those studying the microbiology of the built environment: Frontiers | Beneficial effects of plant-associated microbes on indoor microbiomes and human health? | Frontiers in Plant-Microbe Interaction. The paper makes some arguments regarding possible connections between indoor plant microbiomes and human health. I am posting this here without commentary in …
Sometimes blogging on microBEnet feels a bit like a MadLib. There are certain recurring themes that fit the model well. For example: __________ (microbe) was recently found to do _______________ (cool thing)… IN SPAAAAACE! This has implications for future manned spaceflight missions. So here we go for today: The fungal pathogen Candida albicans was recently …
I have my share of gripes about the FDA but this seemed like a piece of welcome news. The FDA is going to look more closely at the issue of antibacterial soap (usually dosed with Triclosan which we’ve written about before, e.g. here). They’re talking about a proposed rule that would: “…require manufacturers to provide …
One of our pet peeves are the oft-repeated microbiology stories in the media that consist of “OMG we found bacteria on your chair/house/keyboard/dishwasher/cell phone/toys/books/doorknobs/dusters/vacuum cleaners/”. There are three issues with this kind of story; firstly that bacteria are everywhere so no shockers about finding them on your cell phone. Secondly, most of these stories focus …
It’s becoming increasingly well-established that microbes behave differently in microgravity than on Earth… that’s one of the justifications for our own Project MERCCURI. Some previous work has focused on the ability of microbes to survive higher-than-normal levels of antibiotics when grown in space, though the mechanism for this is not at all understood. This article …