I asked the Twittersphere last week for suggestions for hashtags to use for Tweets about microbiology of the built environment Here are some of the answers [View the story “Hashtags for microbiology of the built environment” on Storify] UPDATE: March 25, 2018 Since Storify is disappearing soon we converted the Storify into a “Wakelet” and …
Illustration (from OpenScar.com) an explanation of the beginning of the spread of SARS in Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens apartment complex where the index case was in a building 60 meters away from a building where about 45% of the 300 infected individuals at Amoy Gardens lived. Many of the other infected individuals also lived in …
You can download the database of over 360 publications that report characteristics of the indoor environment along with the microbes found in the studies. Each publication is entered as a record and includes citation, abstract, keywords, organisms, substrates, and environmental conditions as reported by the authors. The database in MS Access format is searchable for …
In researching previous studies conducted on microbes in space for Project MERCURRI, I ran across an interesting microbiology diversity study done on European Spacecraft-Associated (ESA) clean rooms in the Herschel Space Observatory. Historically, clean rooms are supposedly “sterile” environments that are used for the building and maintenance of spacecrafts, as directed by the UN’s Outer Space planetary …
Great two-part interview with Rich Corsi from UT Austin talking about indoor air quality. If you’re the kind of person who stays in your house because you’re worried about the air quality outside… don’t listen to this interview because then you’ll have nowhere left to hide. First segment (starts at 9 minutes, 40 seconds) Second …
A just-published article by Desroches et al, “Extrolites of Wallemia sebi, a very common fungus in the built environment,”in the journal Indoor Air describes a previously unidentified metabolite of Wallemia sebi , a very common fungus in houses worldwide, although relatively more common in north temperate climates. The authors (including David Miller) write that it …
Health care associated infections (HAIs) also known as nosocomial infections occurred in 4.5 out of every 100 hospital admissions in 2002 and contributed to 99,000 deaths (Klevens 2002). In the past many prevention strategies have focused on human based transmission (such as consistent hand washing) ignoring less obvious preventative measures such as those involving a …
Researchers in Italy have found abnormally high levels of infectious microbes in the water from faucets at two hospitals compared to water coming in from the deeper areas of the pipes. One of the reasons is that the water is not meeting the chlorine or temperature requirement needed to eliminate harmful pathogens, such as Acinetobacter …
Not surprisingly, the skin microbiome changes accordingly with human contact, according to this study found through PeerJ. Researchers aimed to study a high contact sport and see how the skin microbiome changes before and after a game. They used roller derby, and as anyone who has watched the movie Whip it! will know, there is a …
The human microbiome and microbes in space are two of the sexiest topics in microbiology today. Together they have attracted the attention of the J. Craig Venter Institute. Hernan Lorenzi is leading a team to study how the composition of the human microbiome changes during long term space exploration. They will be analyzing the microbiome of …