Determining if life exists or ever existed beyond Earth is one of the most interesting scientific questions. Reports on numerous habitable planets have increased the speculations about potential extra-terrestrial life. However, these theoretically life-supporting planets are far beyond human’s reach – except Mars. In order to explore if there ever was life on Mars, the …
On December 12-13, the National Academies’ Forum on Microbial Threats, in collaboration with the Board on Life Sciences, will host a 1.5-day workshop examining “Urbanization and Slums: New Transmission Pathways of Infectious Diseases in the Built Environment.” This workshop was developed with input from the experts and staff that produced the National Academy of Sciences …
This may be of interest: Fungal Communities Including Plant Pathogens in Near Surface Air Are Similar across Northwestern Europe Nicolaisen M, West JS, Sapkota R, Canning GGM, Schoen C and Justesen AF (2017) Fungal Communities Including Plant Pathogens in Near Surface Air Are Similar across Northwestern Europe. Front. Microbiol. 8:1729. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01729 Information on the …
At the recent NAS MOBE meeting there was some discussion of some potential ethical concerns associated with one of the projects discussed (work of Eric Alm where he was collecting samples from urban water systems and trying to infer information about communities and residents). OK #MOBE17 and others out there – I am getting …
For those interested in microbiology of the built environment this paper seems definitely worth checking out: Indoor microbiota in severely moisture damaged homes and the impact of interventions. Jayaprakash B, Adams RI, Kirjavainen P, Karvonen A, Vepsäläinen A, Valkonen M, Järvi K, Sulyok M, Pekkanen J, Hyvärinen A, Täubel M. Microbiome. 2017 Oct 13; 5(1):138 Abstract …
An update on this story Managing Legionella in Water Systems Nominate Experts for an Upcoming Consensus Project The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will undertake a project on the management of Legionella in water systems. An ad hoc committee will review the state of science with respect to Legionella contamination of water systems and issue a report that will: describe the microbial …
Hi MoBE blog, I just wanted to share a piece that I recently wrote for a Special Issue on the journal Microbial Biotechnology. The Special issue presents a collection articles about “The contribution of microbial biotechnology to sustainable development goals”, and the title of my article is “Microbial communities as biosensors for monitoring urban …
Made a summary via Storify of Tweets for Day2 of the MOBE17 meeting. [View the story “#MOBE17 Day 2” on Storify] Since Storify is disappearing soon, we have converted this Storify into a Wakelet and are embedding it here
I made a summary via Storify of Tweets relating to Day1 of the MOBE17 Microbiomes of the Built Environment 2017 meeting. [View the story “#MOBE17 run up & Day 1 including talk by @edyong209” on Storify]
Quick post here — prepping for #MoBE17 meeting and found this new paper. It seems like it is worth a look: City-scale distribution and dispersal routes of mycobiome in residences: Microbiome. 2017 Oct 4;5(1):131. doi: 10.1186/s40168-017-0346-7. Abstract BACKGROUND: Pathogenic and allergenic bacteria and fungi within the indoors can bring detrimental health effects on the occupants. We …