Grr. These types of stories really bug me: British technology set to banish germs in hospitals and homes | City & Business | Finance | Daily Express. It is in theory a news story. But it is pretty much an advertisement for this Odorox building sterilization system with no critical reporting. Here are some claims in …
In a a new study (also covered by Smithsonian.com), researchers placed 572 bags of leaf litter in 20 sites within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and found that rates of decomposition varied by as much as 40%, correlating with the level of radioactive contamination at the site. The authors suggest that this is a worrying development, …
A really interesting aspect of Japan’s most recent and disastrous earthquake and tsunami involves microbial impact on cultural property and documents. Even as a student in microbiology, I never considered how these natural disasters could exacerbate the problem of biodeterioration. A 2013 article by Gu et al summarizes some important information presented at The International …
This interesting article published in “CLEAN- Soil, Air, Water” (behind a paywall) in March 2013 aims to describe an efficient procedure for sampling airborne microbes and fungi in indoor environments. Airborne bacteria and spores commonly induce respiratory systems such as asthma and allergies, so they are an important component of the built environment. Gauzere et …
On March 7, 2014, Ben Johnson wrote an all-encompassing blog post about the microbiome of the classroom’s built environment. (Dr. Jonathan Eisen also mentions Johnson’s article in a blog post a day afterwards.) In his blog post, not only does Johnson describe the different types of microbes living on the walls, desks, and chairs in the classroom, but …
Lots and lots of news stories about the BioBE center and some of their recent work on “microbiomes of classrooms”. Here is a collection of links: Their paper in the new journal “Microbiome”: microbiota in the classroom University of Oregon story: UO center on quest to document indoor microbes, guide healthier buildings | Around the O. Who’s …
When the average person hears the terms “microbiology” and “genetics,” often mental images involving lab coats, complicated chemical reactions, forensic TV shows, and futuristic advancements come to mind. However, just this week, a team of scientists at the University of York published a paper in “Nature Genetics” (Christina Warinner et al, Pathogens and host immunity in …
Just finished reading this review article preprint on PeerJ by Major Ben Kirkup from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Called “Counterinsurgency Doctrine Applied to Infectious Disease” this article reviews the existing literature on the human microbiome, gives some background on military counterinsurgency doctrine, and then applies insights from the latter to the former. …
The 2012, Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion more commonly known as the BP oil spill produced drastic changes in microbial communities, some of which contributed to bioremediation of the areas affected by the spill. According to a recent article (2013) in Environmental Science and Technology, succession of several microbial communities, particularly hydrocarbon-metabolizing bacteria of the …
Great two-part interview with Rich Corsi from UT Austin talking about indoor air quality. If you’re the kind of person who stays in your house because you’re worried about the air quality outside… don’t listen to this interview because then you’ll have nowhere left to hide. First segment (starts at 9 minutes, 40 seconds) Second …