One of my favorite blogs, Hackaday, recently covered a brilliantly detailed build of a mushroom cultivation control system by Kyle Gabriel. Kyle is a microbiology graduate student at Georgia State University studying the interactions of bacteria and pathogenic fungi for his research, and cultivates edible fungi for fun. The gadget monitors temperature and humidity in a sealed room under positive …
I admit, I am intrigued by the use of baby cages in recent history. Under what circumstances is outdoor air better than indoor air – from a microbial exposure perspective – is an ongoing and fascinating question. The image of a baby hanging out a window in a chicken-wire cage graphically encapsulates that debate. Talk of baby cages …
We have recently been awarded a new research program by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation to further develop out understanding of how bacterial, archaeal, viral and fungal communities interact on indoor surfaces. This research will be led by Jack Gilbert (University of Chicago), in collaboration with Chris Henry (UChicago), Brent Stephens (Illinois Institute of Technology), …
Just a quick announcement that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has approved another series of “Microbiology of the Built Environment Postdoctoral Fellowships”. See the 2014 call here. There will be three Fellowships in 2015, and another three in 2016. The actual request for proposals (RFP) will come out and be posted on microBEnet around May …
We will be hosting a screening of “Resistance the film” at UC Davis. April 9, 2015 6: 00 PM (reception from 6:00-6:30) Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility Auditorium Davis, CA The filmmaker Michael Graziano will be there. Reviews have been very positive. See for example Washington Post Slate Vox WIRED See the first two minutes of …
Just a quick note to say that the final version of “Gut Check: The Microbiome” Game has been released here on microBEnet. Here’s the summary from the website: Gut Check is a game for 2-4 players where each player attempts to develop a healthy microbiome while interfering with the microbiomes of their opponents. Give your …
Have you ever wondered what’s in the air of a daycare center, where kids swap microbes every day? A team from Virginia Tech and the University of Pittsburgh is investigating the viral ecology in air of a daycare center using metagenomics. We have collected samples on HVAC filters and are looking for a sequencing core …
Just got pointed (by Laurie Garrett) to this call for proposals from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Addressing Newborn and Infant Gut Health Through Bacteriophage-Mediated Microbiome Engineering. Some key lines from the call: A growing body of evidence suggests that healthy gut function early in life plays a significant role in adult wellbeing. It is further …
This is a short commentary on -omes, in the spirit of reminding. -omes are the collections of all things in a class associated with an instance of another class. For example, all the genes in a single organism is the ‘genome.’ Because of a variety of complexities in the definition of a gene since 1920, …
Although many readers may already know, I’d like to announce that Dr. Rob Knight recently moved his laboratory from the University of Colorado at Boulder to the University of California at San Diego. This has been an exciting move for Rob and those in his group. The laboratory is now physically located in the brand …