Invasion of the Built Environment by a Microbiologist

So – I thought some people here would be interested in this.  As someone who has been involved in the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program in “Microbiology of the Built Environment” for many years, I have been trying to get more involved with the built environment crowd.  And I have not always been exceptionally successful …

More Fresh Air in Classrooms Means Fewer Absences « Berkeley Lab News Center

(Author’s note, this article is a bit out of date but I just found this draft and am posting it because I think it’s still an interesting study) Trying to get outside my microbiology comfort zone and post some more about building science.  A recent study finding that more fresh air in classrooms correlated with …

An important read on “the future for women in the built environment and land”

Amanda Clack, RICS President Elect tells Womanthology why diversity is a strategy and a source of competitive advantage, not an issue Just got done reading this: Surveying the future for women in the built environment and land: Diversity is a strategy and a source of competitive advantage, not an issue – Amanda Clack, RICS President Elect …

Microbial communities and biodeterioration of Auschwitz buildings

A new open access paper in Frontiers in Microbiology looked at the microbial communities found on buildings of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. I’m currently travelling, so I only have time to post the abstract here.  One Hundred Years by The Cure, a song about war and destruction, seemed a good choice for this post. …

What do moisture measurements tell us?

(Note:  This post was composed in March 2014 but somehow never got published) No environmental measurement is arguably more critical to understanding the indoor environmental factors relevant to the presence of fungi or the potential survival of infectious airborne agents than the moisture measurements. Characterization of the presence of moisture on surfaces, also known as …

Microbiome informed design – air quality, avoiding filtering, and lichens

This is one of those stories / articles / posts that simultaneously fascinates me and freaks me out a bit and for which I fluctuate wildly between those two points of view: bioME – RSA Human By Nature Entry on Behance By Candice de Aguiar Her basic design idea here is to allow for more microbial diversity …

Working in an Icy Fortress

New York Times and a lot of other news outlets are reporting recently on this article about gender bias in thermostat settings. The authors set out to conduct a small-scale study to find out if there’s any weight to anecdotes about women freezing in offices while men are perfectly comfortable in the same space. The …