Now for something lighter. The website Science Daily reported on a study at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, to look at mold in houses reported to be haunted. The news announcement reports, “By comparing these samples to samples from places with no reported hauntings, the researchers hope to identify factors unique to the haunted …
Just got sent this article (thanks Paula Olsiewski) “The Passive House in New York” which is an interesting article about the increasingly popular concept of passive houses. As the name suggests, passive houses maintain an appropriate ambient temperature without heating or cooling, mostly through airtights seals, a lot of insulation, and some sort of air exchange …
A new paper “Evolution of the Indoor Biome” is out and should be of interest to many who think about microbes in the built environment and related topics. The paper has quite an incredible collection of authors: NESCent Working Group on the Evolutionary Biology of the Built Environment, Laura J. Martinl, Rachel I. Adams, Ashley …
Really interesting and distressing story in the New York Times a few days about: A Luxury Liner Docks and the Countdowns On by Jad Mouawad. So many parts of this story have microbe-themed angles. Some interesting tidbits (quoted from the story) A treatment system handles all the wastewater generated by the passengers and crew. That system, which …
Wow. This is one of the worst germophobia driven articles I have seen in a long long time: 7 Everyday Items That Are Harboring Germs. Brought to you from GrandParents.Com — by Linda Rodgers — and posted at the Huffington Post. This one is loaded with really just silly stuff like: “But there’s a slew of stuff …
Just got out to Bodega Bay with my family. I am teaching at the Bodega Bay Phylogenetics course tomorrow and we have made it an annual tradition to come out for a few days around the time when I teach at this course. This trip we rented a small house (3 days for the price …
Really nice article from Sarah Zhang at Gizmodo “Not Even Science Could Explain the Bacteria In My Apartment“. In it, she discusses the results of her participation in the Wildlife of Our Home study, the NY metagenomic data, and the fact that we’re still in the “exploration” phase of DNA-based microbial ecology. I think it’s …
I love the idea behind this: And see the associated story in AL.Com by Lee Roop Scientists study the microbiome – the bacteria, viruses and fungi – living in an Alabama high school. Basically this is a partnership between Hudson Alpha and a local school on doing the microbiome of their classroom. Though I would note …
Well, this story is a wee bit disturbing: Deadly bacteria release sparks concern at Louisiana lab. Summary from USA Today: Officials are investigating how a deadly type of bacteria was released from a high-security laboratory at the Tulane National Primate Center in Louisiana. Officials say there is no risk to the public. Many parts of the …
I. Introduction There is an oft-cited hierarchy for data, wherein ideally it should flow: Data –>Information –>Knowledge –>Wisdom (DIKW). Just because you have data, it takes some processing to get quality information, and even good information is not necessarily knowledge, and knowledge often requires context or application to become wisdom. For example, you could have …