Flint may not be alone

The Guardian is reporting that lead contamination may be a problem “in every major city east of the Mississippi,” and that, as in Flint, contamination may be deliberately covered up by local water utilities through a loosely organized program of test gaming. Lead isn’t very soluble in water. If you want your tests to come …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, January 18, 2016

New papers from the past week on the interactions between humans, buildings, and microbes. Microbes in buildings  Comprehensive analysis of the skin fungal microbiota of astronauts during a half-year stay at the International Space Station – Takashi Sugita – Medical Mycology ($$) The International Space Station (ISS) is a huge manned construct located approximately 400 km …

Standards for Microbiome Measurements Workshop: Register by Feb 5th

(Update:  This is probably at the NIST campus in MD… though it doesn’t actually say on their website) NIST is hosting an interesting sounding workshop on “Standards for Microbiome Measurements“.  The workshop will be held on April 4-5th 2016 (presumably on the NIST campus in Boulder, CO).  Information about the workshop below: Purpose: This NIST-NIAID workshop will seek …

Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak in Flint, Michigan

(Update:  after posting this I found that actual experts have proposed a different hypothesis) So the recent Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak in Flint, Michigan has been getting quite a bit of press recently.   For example in the last few days here are pieces from The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and CNN. The very short version of …

Microbial Ecosystem Ecologist at Colorado State University

Position Announcement Colorado State University Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability POSITION: Assistant Professor, Microbial Ecosystem Ecology DESCRIPTION: Tenure track, 9-month academic faculty position The Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University (CSU) invites applications for a tenure track faculty position in Microbial Ecosystem Ecology at the rank of assistant professor. We …

Making tables in LaTeX

I’m working on a manuscript where we analyze OTU co-occurrence patterns using network analyses as well as the traditional approaches (ordination, alpha diversity, etc.). This means that we have to include some equations in our methods and so for the first time, I am using Authorea and LaTeX. I am getting used to working with the …

Post doc opportunity: urban methane dynamics

Of possible interest: Dear Colleagues- Please forward this to lists within your institution and to individuals who may be interested: We seek an outstanding individual to contribute to a collaboration between Google, the Environmental Defense Fund and Colorado State University that is having direct impact on the amount of methane being emitted from cities. In …

Announcement of VERVE Net on protocols.io — a forum for discussing methods in virus ecology

Posting this which I received by email: Colleagues, We are thrilled to announce the launch of VERVE Net (https://www.protocols.io/g/verve-net), an on-line platform that equips the virus ecology community with a means to easily run, modify, publish and discuss laboratory, field and bioinformatic protocols. The forum also provides new ways to navigate the literature (a publication …