There is an article by Carrie Arnold in the new issue of EHP (Environmental Health Perspectives) should be of interest to some people out there: EHP — Rethinking Sterile: The Hospital Microbiome. In the article, Carrie Arnold discusses Jack Gilbert’s hospital microbiome project, hospital acquired infections, DNA based surveys of microbes, and work from the …
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has posted a gallery of satellite measurements of nitrogen dioxide, taken by the Aura spacecraft. The results show a clear, nation-wide decline in this type of air pollution from 2005 to 2011. There are a lot of contributing factors for the reduction. This period includes the beginning of the Great …
Well if you have not yet read Russell Neches post on wooden cheeseboards and the FDA you should. Cheeseboards on the chopping block : Survival on wood and plastic surfaces. I am writing here as a follow up to that to just point out some of the varied coverage of the FDA vs. the …
A few days ago, the FDA began issuing citations to cheese makers in New York State for the use of wooden shelves and boards for aging cheese, a practice that is permissible by state law and has been used for hundreds of years. Not surprisingly, this made a lot of people pretty angry. A Whitehouse.gov …
Back in May we posted about a Gizmodo article entitled “Concrete-Dissolving Bacteria Are Destroying Our Nation’s Sewers”. This article highlighted Sloan-funded work by Mark Hernandez and others that describes some of the biochemistry and microbiology behind concrete corrosion in sewers. A (fee-required) paper describing that work has just come out, with a press release focused …
Just came across this article entitled “Rainwater harvesting tanks enable spread of dangerous pathogens, study shows”. The article describes a fairly straightforward set of findings from rainwater storage tanks in South Africa. Researchers found Legionella, Klebsiella, Giardia, Salmonella, and Yersinia. Not a friendly-sounding list of bugs. However, I have the usual set of issues with …
With a URL asking “is this the most important building in the country?”, I had to check this one out. This article from SmartPlanet describe the “Facility for Low Energy Experiments (FLEXLab)”, housed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in CA. Basically it’s a fancy building that allows designers, architects, builders and others to test various …
OK. I know. Microbes are everywhere. And so we need to get away from sensationalizing another study of “germs” in some environment. But in this case, I confess, I was a bit grossed out: “Kiddie pools are hotspots of bacteria, expert says” from the Visalia Times. A version of the story is also on Medline …
Well I for one am not convinced about the high tech indoor farms being the future of “market gardening”: High-tech farming: The light fantastic | The Economist. Sure, being able to control conditions has many uses. And those pesky seasons and the outdoor world in general is pretty annoying right? This article in the Economist ends …
Just a quick post — some may find this of interest: ‘Dirty’ air in subdivided flats pose health hazards | South China Morning Post. It reports on a study (not quite sure where it was published, if it was) about bacterial counts from air samples from subdivided living units in Hong Kong public housing. And many …