Innovation and a dollop of creativity has allowed researchers to make laboratory luxuries a reality in the field. Nowadays, you can do almost anything even in the most remote of areas. For example, the ability to sequence DNA in the field will be possible in the not so distant future. That said, many projects are …
A recent news article covers a new company called Cambrian Innovation and their product, a microbial mix that turns brewery waste into clean water and energy. Two California breweries are currently using the product. Energy is produced by burning the methane produced by the microbes as they metabolize waste from the beer brewing process. The water …
Submitted to me by Rob Knight. Announcement: Sloan Microbiology of the Built Environment Data Analysis Workshop (secrets of QIIME, VAMPS and QIITA) April 4-5, 2016 University of California, San Diego Application Deadline — February 15, 2016 — mitchellsogin@gmail.com This workshop, staffed by the developers of QIIME, VAMPS and QIITA, invite participants from the Microbiology of …
Sometimes efforts to be environmentally friendly can give rise to microbial challenges. This was nicely described by Katie Dahlhausen in her recent post about water quality about green buildings. Other examples include observations that Legionella pneumophila can be contracted from shower heads and the use of low flow shower heads and lower water temperatures may increase its transmission. Likewise, wastewater (e.g., Environmental and …
Just got done looking at this paper which I found by searching Google Scholar for “indoor bacteria”. PLOS ONE: 16S rRNA Amplicon Sequencing Demonstrates that Indoor-Reared Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) Harbor a Core Subset of Bacteria Normally Associated with the Wild Host A MiSeq multiplexed 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the gut microbiota of wild and indoor-reared …
Just a quick note to save the date for the 5th Annual Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference to be hosted at CU Boulder from June 1st to June 3rd, 2016. I missed the 4th meeting but the first three were a great opportunity to hear a mix of talks from the various disciples in …
Lots of cool new papers to share. Unfortunately, many are behind paywalls. Humans in hospitals Towards an antimicrobial ‘microglove’ – Ewoud Reilman – Scientific Reports (OA) Healthcare workers frequently experience difficulties in complying strictly to hand disinfection protocols. This study was therefore aimed at the development of a hand rub with antimicrobial activity that forms …
A terrifying, yet not surprising article was published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases about mcr-1. For those who aren’t familiar with it, mcr-1 is a gene associated with antibiotic resistance to colistin, a type of polymyxin antibiotic used to treat infections that are already resistant to several other types of antibiotics. News sources have …
Here are some new papers of interest. Separate treatment of hospital and urban wastewaters: A real scale comparison of effluents and their effect on microbial communities – Teofana Chonova, François Keck, Jérôme Labanowski, Bernard Montuelle, Frédéric Rimet, Agnès Bouchez – Science of the Total Environment (not OA) Hospital wastewaters (HWW) contain wider spectrum and higher quantity of pharmaceuticals …
I confess I have not read this yet but it seems like it may be of interest to some out there in the microbial communities community: REAGO: Reconstructing 16S rRNA genes in metagenomic data.