Great collection of free tools for microbiome analysis at the DACC #microBEnet

There is an excellent collection of tools and protocols for various microbiome analyses (genomics, metagenomics, rRNA) available at the Human Microbiome Project DACC site.  This includes downloadable tools, links to online web servers, and PDFs of various protocols.  Definitely worth checking out if you need some tools for sequence analysis.

@NYTimes has editorial on hospital acquired infections #microBEnet

The New York Times from yesterday has an editorial discussing hospital acquired infections: Hospitals Shouldn’t Make You Sicker – NYTimes.com. They discuss some new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine as well as some efforts by the Obama Administration.  While there is a lot of research on hospital acquired infections, one thing the Times …

Leave it to a story about Playboy hot tubs to call attention microbes in the built environment #microBEnet

Well, we posted about this story before – Legionella bacteria popped up at a party at the playboy mansion in February.  And now apparently the source of the Legionella bacteria has been traced to … hot tubs (see Playboy Mansion illness traced to hot tub bacteria – Yahoo! News).  Also of note – the epidemiologists used …

Introducing citeulike group on microbiology of the built environment (w/ instructions) #microBEnet

For those interested in anything to do with microbiology of the built environment, we have created a citeulike group on this topic.  If you are not familiar with citeulike, it is in essence a social reference management system where people can share and organize references (and even papers on top of the references in some …

Reminder – Indoor Air 2011 coming up June 5-10 Austin TX #microBEnet #gonnarock

Just a quick reminder.  The 12th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate will take place June 5-10 in Austin, TX.  It looks to be very good.  MicroBEnet is working with the organizers to plan a few sessions on “Microbiology of the Built Environment”.  Stay tuned for more details.  Until then, check out the …

Meeting preview: Bioaerosols Sept. 6-9, Saratoga, NY #microBEnet

A future meeting worth checking out for those interesting in microbiology of the built environment: Bioaerosol.org.  Help September 6-9 2011 in Saratoga Springs NY.   It is the “6th International Scientific Conference on Bioaerosols, Fungi, Bacteria, Mycotoxins in Indoor and Outdoor Environments and Human Health.” Among the areas of focus will be Natural disaster, flooding, water …

Interesting blog post/paper from Tara Smith at Aetiology #microBEnet

Interesting blog post and paper from Tara Smith.  Her lab did some characterization of samples from kids and workers in childcare settings.  As part of their work they found some interesting varieties of Staphylococcus aureus.  For more detail see her post here: New paper: Staphylococcus aureus ST398 in a childcare worker : Aetiology.  If you have …

Richard Branson getting into microbial diversity (partly) #microBEnet

Richard Branson is planning a deep sea exploration project that will include sampling of microbial diversity with Katrina Edwards and Doug Bartlett and others.  For more information see here: Richard Branson launches Virgin Oceanic: deep-sea exploring submarines – Boing Boing. Perhaps we can convince him to also use his planes and spaceships to sample airborn …