Interesting article in the Scientist on air associated microbes: Atlas of the atmosphere – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences. Worth a look for those interested in indoor air microbiology.
Well, normally I would not want to write about things going on at the Playboy Mansion here, or really anywhere. But this story about a Legionella outbreak seems to have legs (or maybe, flagella). The LA Times has another article about this outbreak discussing in more detail how social media was used to help track …
Just a quick post here – there is more detail on the recent JHU study on bacteria in faucets. Electronic faucets hinder, not help, hospital infection control | Johns Hopkins University – The Gazette.
Not yet published but this study could be of interest: Hands-free faucets harbor germs, Johns Hopkins study says – Los Angeles Times. . Not that surprising mind you but many people do assume that hands free faucets are clean.
DNA sequencing technology, a key tool in characterizing microbes in the environment, just keeps getting cheaper and easier. Right now there are some really nice technologies out there in machines from Illumina/Solexa, Roche/454 and ABI. And coming on the horizon are some new systems that possibly will be either “better” in some way or allow …
Many news sources are reporting on a new study regarding levels of Staphylococcus in meat: (e.g., see Bacteria seen in nearly half of U.S. meat – CNN.com, Study Warns of Tainted Meat, and Almost half of meat in stores may have drug-resistant bacteria). The study, by Lance Price, Paul Keim, and colleagues from TGen reports that …
The New York Times from yesterday has an editorial discussing hospital acquired infections: Hospitals Shouldn’t Make You Sicker – NYTimes.com. They discuss some new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine as well as some efforts by the Obama Administration. While there is a lot of research on hospital acquired infections, one thing the Times …
Well, we posted about this story before – Legionella bacteria popped up at a party at the playboy mansion in February. And now apparently the source of the Legionella bacteria has been traced to … hot tubs (see Playboy Mansion illness traced to hot tub bacteria – Yahoo! News). Also of note – the epidemiologists used …
Richard Branson is planning a deep sea exploration project that will include sampling of microbial diversity with Katrina Edwards and Doug Bartlett and others. For more information see here: Richard Branson launches Virgin Oceanic: deep-sea exploring submarines – Boing Boing. Perhaps we can convince him to also use his planes and spaceships to sample airborn …
Just a quick post about a press release from NIH about a new toxin sniffing robot they have. It could have potential uses in Indoor Microbial surveys. For more information see here.