As a microbiologist learning a little bit about building science, I was fascinated to hear early on about how little was actually known about the causative effect of particular microbes on human health in the built environment. I had assumed that we knew a lot about which species of fungi (mold) and bacteria caused problems …
Interesting video from ASM Live about a project sampling for microbes in hotel rooms. Featuring Katie Kirsch from the University of Houston and Jonathan Eisen from UC Davis.
Short post here about an upcoming study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University (in collaboration with Delta Airlines). They are going to examine microbes in the air on commercial aviation flights, as well as sample a number of surfaces on the plane. They’re going to correlate this microbial diversity data …
Just a quick one here. Though people should not focus ONLY on pathogens in buildings it certainly seems that outbreaks of Legionella such as this one: Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak, Scotland: Man Dies In Edinburgh | UK News | Sky News. could be used to call attention to the need to better understand microbiology of the …
Quick post here New post from 80beats on the office microbes study from Scott Kelley that I wrote about a few days ago: What Microbes Are Growing In Your Office? Science Wants to Know | 80beats | Discover Magazine Plus some new news stories about the study Men’s Offices Have More Bacteria, Study Finds The higher …
Crossposting this from my “Tree of Life” blog. First I saw of this story was here: Study: Bacteria fills office break rooms – Local News – Houston, TX – msnbc.com Something sounded off with this. I think it was the fact that it involved “Cleaning products company Kimberly-Clark” that raised some alarm bells. The involvement of …
Just a quick post here about an interesting microbial detective story in the built environment of a whiskey distillery. The researcher profiled in this story was trying to identify a fungus that thrives on the ethanol released from the distillery process. This article from Wired magazine also talks about the concept of “urban extremophiles”, pointing …
Just a short post here about “art meets science”. A project at UC San Diego has created “flashing bacterial signs” (also called “biopixels”) that synchronously flash on and off through controlled fluorescence. Which is pretty cool by itself, and reminds me a bit of the stunt with the Contagion promo. See the original paper here. …
Just a short post about bacteria literally converting the built environment into the natural environment. There are numerous specialized bacteria currently eating the Titanic, including one called Halomonas titanicae. They’re converting the steel and iron into rust and the whole thing may be gone in a few decades. Bad news for history buffs, good news …
This article (Mutant space microbes attack ISS: Munch metal, may crack glass) has some issues (e.g., much of it is anecdotal and hard to tell how scientific or even robust much of the detailed are) but it is a very interesting example of the potential importance of microbes in the built environment. You may not care …