New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, June 3, 2017

Microbes indoors DNA metabarcoding to assess indoor fungal communities: Electrostatic dust collectors and Illumina sequencing – Steffi Rocchi – Journal of Microbiological Methods ($39.95) Our study aimed to evaluate metabarcoding and bioinformatic analysis resulting from calibrated samples and samples collected by an electrostatic dust collector (EDC) in dwellings with no moisture problems. Thus, the fungal communities of …

A hairy pacman approach to “microbial dark matter” in drinking water

Got pointed to this paper by Sofia Ahsanuddin of the MetaSub project and thought it might be of interest. Source: Exploring the under-investigated “microbial dark matter” of drinking water treatment plants : Scientific Reports Abstract: Scientists recently reported the unexpected detection of unknown or poorly studied bacterial diversity in groundwater. The ability to uncover this neglected biodiversity …

Kristen DeAngelis slides for “Microbial Diversity” Course

My course slides are updated for 2017 with a new lecture on acellular life. Lecture 01 (3-21-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis Lec02 phylogeny (3-23-2017) from Kristen DeAngelis Lecture 03 (3-28-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis Lecture 20 (4-20-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis Lecture 22 (4-27-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis   Lecture 23 (5-2-2017) acellular life slides …

New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, April 23, 2017

Catching up after a couple of busy weeks. Microbes in the hospital Diversity changes of microbial communities into hospital surface environments – Rika Yano – Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy ($31.50)  Previous works have demonstrated considerable variability in hospital cleanliness in Japan, suggesting that contamination is driven by factors that are currently poorly controlled. We undertook 16S …

This is calling out for a large microbiome study: Salt from icy roads is contaminating North America’s lakes

It seems to me that this is calling out for some large scale comparative microbial community study: Salt from icy roads is contaminating North America’s lakes – The Washington Post Basically, there is evidence that lakes throughout North America have seen a big increase in salt levels connected to salt used to try and deal …

Of possible interest: Special Issue on emerging aquatic microbial and chemical contaminants 

Just a quick post here.  There is a “special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).” that may be of interest.  The issue is on “Emerging Aquatic Microbial and Chemical Contaminants of Concern and Their Impact on Human Health” and it currently has seven papers and apparently more coming. A brief …

#microBEnet News: @kylejbibby receives @NSF CAREER award to study viruses in water

Just found out via Twitter about a cool new grant that was awarded: Congrats to Kyle Bibby @kylejbibby on this NSF grant!#microbenet @SloanFoundation https://t.co/x1slHgygdT — Paula Olsiewski (@polsiewski) March 1, 2017   Through a five-year, $500,000 CAREEER Award from the National Science Foundation, a civil and environmental engineering research group at the University of Pittsburgh’s …

Upcoming National Academies Study on Legionella in Drinking Water Systems

Just got this from the a representative of the National Academy of Sciences who asked me to post here. UPDATED June 13, 2017 (based on email from NAS) Scope of work: An ad hoc committee of The National Academies will review the state of science with respect to Legionella contamination of water systems and issue …