This last winter, Gwynne Mhuireach at the University of Oregon taught a really interesting course entitled “Human Health and the Design of the Urban Microbiome”. She posted a description of the final “design charrette” here on microBEnet awhile back. I just asked her if she’d be willing to share her course materials for others interested …
We at the Berkeley Indoor Microbial Ecology Research Consortium (BIMERC) are thrilled to have received a renewal grant from the Sloan Foundation to understand the microbial ecology of the built environment as mediated by interactions among organisms, particulate matter, and volatile and non-volatile chemicals. This grant gives us an opportunity to expand on our collaborative work that combines …
Microbes and citizen science Video: Citizen Science and Mapping the Microbiome – Eric J. Topol interviews Jessica Richman – Medscape (OA) In this One-on-One, Medscape editor-in-chief Eric Topol talks with Jessica Richman about the value of citizen science as well as her company, uBiome, which provides microbiome analyses to consumers and plans to begin providing …
June 21 was International Swab Day for the MetaSUB project. MetaSUB stands for “Metagenomics and Metadesign of the Subways and Urban Biomes”, an initiative in which experts together with citizens will study the microbial ecosystems of public transportation systems from all over the world. From the MetaSUB website: By developing and testing standards for the …
Floor dust is an important source of human exposure to microbes due to dust resuspension, especially from carpeted floors. Sources of microbes in floor dust are known to include outdoor air, tracked-in soil, growth on materials, and shedding from occupants or pets, but we wanted to know if growth may also contribute to these microbial …
In the past, we have lamented the poor representation of microbes in natural history museums. And so I must mention that there’s a wonderful microbiome exhibit currently on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The Secret World Inside You, is a microbe related exhibit co-curated by Susan Perkins and Rob DeSalle, curators at the AMNH. The exhibition …
CMB Summer Course on Microbial Ecology @ SIM 20th — 25th November, 2016 at The Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS) Sydney, Australia This course provides an intensive training for scientists interested in the ecology of microorganisms within a range of environments, offering students practical hands-on experience in: Experimental/ sample design and statistical analysis Training …
Microbes and disinfection Antibacterial Activity of Blue Light against Nosocomial Wound Pathogens Growing Planktonically and as Mature Biofilms – Fenella D. Halstead – Applied and Environmental Microbiology (OA) (…) Here we report the findings of a multicenter in vitro study performed to assess the antimicrobial activity of 400-nm blue light against bacteria in both planktonic and biofilm …
Coming next week June 20-21 Meeting #2 of the NAS study on Microbiomes of the Built Environment. Meeting is free to attend in person or online and the agenda includes some amazing people so it should be worth checking out. Some more detail from their website is below: The study’s second public meeting will be held …
This is a story of my first involvement pushing a publication that wanted to be University owned “all rights reserved” to becoming one released under a Creative Commons license. I’m not sure that the arcane details will be of interest to many people, but I think there’s an important lesson here about sticking to your …