Sanitation remains a problem in many developing countries across the globe. However, this issue goes much deeper than just delivering clean water to billions of people and treating sewage waste. The Conversation ran an article earlier this month on this topic. They bring up two important aspects of implementing water treatment programs in struggling countries. One …
(Author’s note, this article is a bit out of date but I just found this draft and am posting it because I think it’s still an interesting study) Trying to get outside my microbiology comfort zone and post some more about building science. A recent study finding that more fresh air in classrooms correlated with …
A recent news article from Times of India discusses the dire effects of antibiotic overuse on public health in India. Although we always discuss this problem in terms of what we see in the US, it’s important to realize that antibiotic resistance is a problem everywhere. According to the article, the top three antibiotic using …
Have you heard of probiotics in cosmetics? How about a bacterial mist? A young company called Mother Dirt, with research partner AOBiome, sells a mist containing their now patented strain of Nitrosomonas bacteria (Nitrosomonas D23), an ammonia-oxidizer. The species was cultured from the skin of one of the heads (or arm? leg?) of the company. Here’s how …
According to a recent BBC news article, NASA is doing a Mars simulation project to see if six live human beings can survive being isolated in a dome together. From a MoBE perspective, it would be cool to study this system. It’s completely closed to outside microbes – the people living in this dome have to …
New York Times and a lot of other news outlets are reporting recently on this article about gender bias in thermostat settings. The authors set out to conduct a small-scale study to find out if there’s any weight to anecdotes about women freezing in offices while men are perfectly comfortable in the same space. The …
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is finally cracking down on products that tap into the neurotic tendencies of extreme germophobes. In this recent Consumerist article, Chris Morran discusses the penalties Zadro Health Solutions and Angel Sales had to pay for false advertising of their disinfection products. Without a single lab experiment, we can already deduce …
A big question many scientists have been seeking to answer is if norovirus, a common cause of gastroenteritis, is aerosolized. This could possibly occur when an infected host vomits. A new paper in PLoS one tests just that, using a vomiting machine with a clay face on it and a bacteriophage surrogate for norovirus to simulate the …
As many of you know, parts of Yosemite national Park closed this passed week because of several cases of the plague. For most, the plague comes with the stigma of being an extremely deadly disease. But for others, the plague spells out a quite fascinating story of infectious disease. Secretions by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis …
A number of cooling towers around the Bronx have been found to be the source of a Legionella outbreak. A number of buildings in the area tested positive for contamination, including a drug manufacturer (thankfully the medicine was not contaminated, at least according to the company representatives). Legionella is a waterborne pathogen that can grow in …