An open access article entitled “Evaluation of disinfection efficiency in pet’s hospital by using chlorine dioxide” was recently published in Sustainable Environment Research. In this study, the authors investigated the efficacy of chlorine dioxide in reducing the concentration of bacteria and fungi in bioaerosols in an animal hospital. Chlorine dioxide is an effective disinfectant commonly …
The six finalists for the Open Science Prize were announced today. The Open Science Prize is “The Open Science Prize is a collaboration between the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to unleash the power of open content and data to advance biomedical research and its …
I just read an interesting article where superbug infections were tracked across Europe. Isolates had their whole genome sequenced and then the resulting visualizations were put online for people to see (you can also upload your own data to the site). Not only is this a really useful tool in terms of observing the spread of superbugs, …
This article by Beth Mole is a fairly detailed summary of recent research on the effects of antimicrobial soaps. As we have mentioned before on microBEnet, antimicrobials increase resistance in the environment, wildlife, and people. In addition, the soaps are often not used for long enough to confer a benefit. The article particularly focuses on triclosan and triclocarban, …
Legionellosis has emerged as a major public health threat related to the built environment, and outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City and Flint, Michigan in 2015 have drawn increased attention to the problem. Cases reported to CDC have increased more than four-fold since 2000 with over 5000 cases reported in 2015; almost all …
The electron microscope facility on campus here at UC Davis has been hosting a tabletop scanning electron microscope for the past two weeks. We were invited to bring samples and test it out, no sample preparation required. And so for fun, I brought in a dust bunny from the floor of my house, where I live …
These will almost certainly be of interest to the MoBE community. There is a new paper in mSystems “Geography and Location Are the Primary Drivers of Office Microbiome Composition” by John Chase, Jennifer Fouquier, Mahnaz Zare, Derek L. Sonderegger, Rob Knight, Scott T. Kelley, Jeffrey Siegel, J. Gregory Caporaso. I found out about the paper via …
Sloan has just renewed our funding to build on our foundational research at Virginia Tech that has established general factors broadly shaping the composition of the premise plumbing microbiome! In this next phase we will focus on shifts in water chemistry and temperature, using brain-eating amoebae as a key exemplar (need to protect those brains!). …
In the wake of the Obama administration’s plan to decrease antibiotic usage in livestock, farmers are now trying to find alternatives that have fewer ecological and human health impacts. In an effort to reduce reliance on antibiotics, researchers at Iowa State University are testing if Lactobacillus species found in yogurt might have a similar health effect on livestock as …
So – I am teaching in BIS002C – Biodiversity and the Tree of Life again at UC Davis. And I thought it might be of interest to share (and get feedback on) some of what I am teaching for this course. Quick summary – this is the third course in an Intro Bio series …