Question of the day. Where do we draw the line in terms of privacy when sampling sewer systems? I have had some major concerns about microbiome studies using sewer system samples in the past. And of course people are trying to use sewer system studies to look at all sorts of other epidemiology related data. …
We will have more about this here at some point but wanted to let people know about it ASAP. Check out the link below for details on a really interesting indoor chemistry project that is part of the a Sloan Foundation program. UT leads unprecedented experiment aimed at identifying the key causes of indoor air pollution. …
New paper of interest: The Airplane Cabin Microbiome | SpringerLink Abstract: Serving over three billion passengers annually, air travel serves as a conduit for infectious disease spread, including emerging infections and pandemics. Over two dozen cases of in-flight transmissions have been documented. To understand these risks, a characterization of the airplane cabin microbiome is necessary. …
This is really fascinating: Source: Team discover how microbes survive clean rooms and contaminate spacecraft Hat tip to Elisabeth Bik for posting about this on Twitter So cool: microbes actually feed on the cleaning products. Also cool: undergraduates as authors. Team discover how microbes survive clean rooms and contaminate spacecraft https://t.co/ox4kMawHko — Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June …
So yesterday morning, Jonathan Eisen and myself headed down to Antioch, CA to sample a pilot wastewater treatment facility. In a couple of hours I went from knowing literally nothing about the process to having some handle on at least the latter stages. Pretty cool microbiology. As I understand the problem at hand, conventional wastewater …
Hotel pools and spas cause a third of pool-linked disease outbreaks Just a quick one here — From NBC: Here’s what’s in your pool this summer
Just a quick post here pointing people to some new papers of potential interest. The papers in are mBio and are from Ian Lipkin’s lab (with others) on bacteria and viruses in mice in New York City papers in mBio Viral Diversity of House Mice in New York City mBio 9:2 march/april 2018; doi:10.1128/mBio.01354-17 New York …
So I’d heard about “self-healing” concrete using chemicals that react with water to seal cracks, I’ve even blogged about self-healing concrete using bacteria embedded into the concrete (back in 2011). And then yesterday I came across research talking about using fungi for this purpose. Regardless of which method ends up working, I think these are …
Just came across this paper today from the University of Illinois, “Drinking water microbiome assembly induced by water stagnation“. Looks like a good study on actual residential tap water systems. Was also happy to see that the press release didn’t dip too much into scare-mongering. Worth a read by folks interested in water systems. Abstract …
I just got pointed to this article today “Ugly Ducklings – the dark side of plastic materials in contact with potable water“, along with the accompanying commentary “About duck, pipes, and microbiomes“. I think this is a fascinating study for a few reasons. Firstly, like probably most parents, I observed and wondered about the biofilms …