Today in “where’s the pathogen?” Can you find Burkholderia on 500 acres with 50 samples?

Well, this story is a wee bit disturbing: Deadly bacteria release sparks concern at Louisiana lab. Summary from USA Today: Officials are investigating how a deadly type of bacteria was released from a high-security laboratory at the Tulane National Primate Center in Louisiana. Officials say there is no risk to the public. Many parts of the …

The Initiative for the Critical Assessment of Metagenome Interpretation (CAMI)

In just over a decade, metagenomics has developed into a powerful and productive method in microbiology and microbial ecology. The ability to retrieve and organize bits and pieces of genomic DNA from any natural context has opened a window into the vast universe of uncultivated microbes. Tremendous progress has been made in computational approaches to …

Genomic data sharing via BitTorrent, part 2 – BioTorrents to BitTorious

As someone who uses sequence data for most of my research,  I am continually happy with the fact that sequencing continues to get cheaper and easier and faster and bigger and better and more and more and more.  Along with such continued advances, sharing the data produced by such sequencing has become somewhat challenging at …

Expanding the breadth of topics covered at microBEnet

Just a quick post here.  Some may have noticed that more of the posts here at microBEnet than say, a year ago, are not focused explicitly about “microbiology of the Built Environment” (MoBE).  They are instead sometimes focused on microbiology, history of microbiology, architecture, methods in microbial ecology, bioinformatics tools, and more.  There is a reason …

Nice resource: BRIK – Building Research Information Knowledgebase

Recently I participated in the Society for Building Science Educators (SBSE) annual retreat (more about this soon).  And at the retreat I saw a fascinating presentation rom Richard L. Hayes who runs helps facilitate something called the Building Research Information Knowledgebase (aka BRIK). BRIK is a “collaborative effort of the American Institute of Architects and the National Institute …

Lessons Learned from Building an Interdisciplinary Scientific Community in the Online Sphere

The Microbiology of the Built Environment Network (http://microBE.net – this website) has made it into the community page at PLoS Biology! Our article has been in the works for some time, and we’re now pleased to announce its official publication: Bik HM, Coil DA, Eisen JA (2014) microBEnet: Lessons Learned from Building an Interdisciplinary Scientific Community …