Ah, the antibiotic resistance problem again. Yes, we know that antibiotic overuse-both in humans and in agriculture, contributes. This is not surprising. But how does our built environment contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance genes? The built environment is a perfect place for host and environmental microbes to collide and share gene, including antibiotic …
Today a colleague sent me a link to a Genome Biology paper entitled “The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists.” At first glance, it reminded me of Greg Caporaso’s post about Twitter last month. But as I continued to read, the slight truth behind the premise described in the paper fascinated, …
If you’ve been reading our posts, you are quite familiar with our efforts at characterizing the bacterial and fungal communities of the built environment. We’ve described our study design, experimental protocols, and results. One thing we may have left you wondering about, however, is the nuts and bolts behind the analyses we and other MoBe …
Quick posting here for a PhD-track job opening in Eindhoven, Netherlands; “Fungal Growth on porous materials: the roles of the water supply”. The job description is below and contact information can be found on the website (no longer available). Job description Introduction Fungi form a unique group of organisms. As holds for every organism, water …
Have you ever said “I boiled a jar to disinfect it”? Well, you were wrong. You should have used “I boiled a jar to sanitize it”. Disinfectants refer to chemical substances used to kill microbes. Therefore, something has been disinfected only if a chemical was used. Heating or irradiating surfaces are methods of either sterilizing (free …
Gareth Griffith’s Slate article (2012) on endangered microbes told a story that had honestly never occurred to me. Sure, there are endangered species all over the world, and we are all too aware of organizations like the IUCN that classify and aim to preserve such creatures. But none of the organisms on IUCN’s Red List are microbes. …
I’ve been thinking a lot about concrete lately. Mainly, I’ve been thinking about the lack of concrete here in Boulder compared to Houston, where I lived for four years until May this year. As I’m training for a half-marathon, my knees are particularly grateful for the lack of concrete they’ve experienced of late. We’ve also …
In 2011, David Coil posted about one of our most utilized mobile built environments-the cars we drive every day (or maybe not, if we adhere to an environmentally friendly lifestyle). A small study had just come out, in which the authors had attempted to identify the bacteria and molds present in cars in different climates. As …
The Microbiology of the Built Environment Network (http://microBE.net – this website) has made it into the community page at PLoS Biology! Our article has been in the works for some time, and we’re now pleased to announce its official publication: Bik HM, Coil DA, Eisen JA (2014) microBEnet: Lessons Learned from Building an Interdisciplinary Scientific Community …
(update 10:00am, 6-12-14; added a 13th video from UT Austin) (update 10:15am, 6-16-14; new link for the Oregon video since previous version was cropped) Part of the requirement for attendees of the 2014 Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference in Boulder, CO was that each lab submit a 2-minute video describing their research. Amazingly, 12 …