Twitter chat on “Microbiology of Built Environments” AAM report Thu May 19 10-11 AM EST

There will be a Twitter chat on Thursday of relevance. Thursday May 19 10-11 AM EST Run by @ASMicrobiology. Follow this hashtag #ASMChats   Twitter chat Thu 10-11 AM EST run by @ASMicrobiology re: AAM report on Microbes & Built Environment https://t.co/UgzrheJcWM #ASMChats – Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) May 17, 2016 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js And an upcoming twitter …

FAQ on Microbiology of Built Environments from the American Academy of Microbiology

There is a report out from the American Academy of Microbiology that is based on the “Microbiology of the Built Environment” colloquium they hosted in September 2015.  The report summary is below: Built environments are the structures that humans create to shelter from the outdoors and provide spaces for living, working, playing, and getting places. …

Abstracts for MetaSUB 2016 Meeting in Shanghai, China

Urban Metagenomics International Meeting Coming Soon! We are accepting abstracts and poster proposals for the 2016 MetaSUB Consortium Meeting (Metagenomics and Metadesign of Subways and Urban Biomes) until May 30. For details, please see our EventBrite Page here. The meeting takes place at Fudan University in Shanghai, China on July 1-2. Registration for the International …

CDC and UN Still Not Being Held Accountable for Cholera Outbreak in Haiti

A recent Slate article by Jonathan Katz talks about a map that is displayed at the CDC – as well as the heavy implications of this map. Despite genomic evidence that the UN peacekeepers were the source of cholera in earthquake-devastated Haiti, the CDC and the UN continue to avoid accountability. UN peacekeepers from Nepal failed to set up …

MoBE Early Career Workshop

Last week, Melissa Dsouza and Jack Gilbert at the University of Chicago hosted a Sloan sponsored MoBE Early Career Workshop. I had the pleasure of attending this well organized event and was inspired by this highly intelligent and motivated group of scientists. The future for the MoBE is bright indeed if these scientists are able to find jobs …

Open Science Prize finalists include Open Air Quality and Real-time Pathogen Surveillance. 

The six finalists for the Open Science Prize were announced today.  The Open Science Prize is “The Open Science Prize is a collaboration between the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to unleash the power of open content and data to advance biomedical research and its …

Tesla introduces “Bioweapon Defense Mode”

Tesla Motors showed off some tests of their amusingly-named “Bioweapon Defense Mode” on their blog earlier this week. While the demo is raising some skeptical eyebrows among actual biodefense experts, you don’t need crazy movie-plot scenarios to imagine the utility of a more serious approach to indoor air quality in vehicles — air quality in …

Are Autonomous Sewer Robots Live-Streaming Neighborhood Microbiome Data?

Ok I saw this Tweet and I thought it sounded cool: Autonomous Sewer Robots Live-Stream Neighborhood Microbiome Data – Nickolaus Hines https://t.co/fr8Xfs8XxQ pic.twitter.com/e5mDTGU44Y – Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) May 5, 2016 And definitely worth looking into in more detail.  And, well, after looking I still think it is cool but not quite what the headline suggests. …

From Watersheds to Shower Heads: A Workshop on Legionella Research and Policy

Legionellosis has emerged as a major public health threat related to the built environment, and outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City and Flint, Michigan in 2015 have drawn increased attention to the problem. Cases reported to CDC have increased more than four-fold since 2000 with over 5000 cases reported in 2015; almost all …

Videos of talks from “Microbiomes of the Built Environment: From Research to Application”

On April 11 there was a meeting in Washington DC that was part of an effort from a new study being conducted by the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering on “Microbiomes of the Built Environment”.  Videos and slides from the meeting have now been posted.  I have compiled them below. In addition, I …