Really nice collection in the journal RNA for their 20th anniversary. So many interesting things here on the RNA world, RNA ctalysis, RNA structure, RNA function and more. Although all of these papers in some way relate to the work I do on sequencing and analyzing microbial genomes and metagenomes, a few of of particular …
OK that was deceptive of me. This is not a draft paper. But it is a paper about drafts – beer that is: Mapping microbial ecosystems and spoilage-gene flow in breweries highlights patterns of contamination and resistance | eLife. And, well, I am a bit biased since it came from UC Davis colleagues, but it …
A recent paper by Newton et al compares the microbial community composition in human stool to that of the sewage sludge that it inevitably ends up in. And surprise! The communities looked really similar. Sewage species recaptured most of the human stool species, and was essentially a medley of various gut microbes. The really cool part is how the …
This week in eLife, our lab published a study entitled Gut bacteria are rarely shared by co-hospitalized premature infants, regardless of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) development. Spearheaded by a talented Banfield Lab post-doc, Tali Raveh-Sadka, in collaboration with Michael Morowitz’s Lab, the study aimed to find the causative agent in an outbreak of NEC cases that …
Well, normally I would avoid writing about non open access papers here since I like to write about papers all readers can have access to. But I am making an exception here for the entertainment value of the matter. The paper is: Bacterial transfer to beverages during drinking games: ‘beer pong’ – International Journal of Food …
Finally got around to reading “Impacts of Flood Damage on Airborne Bacteria and Fungi in Homes after the 2013 Colorado Front Range Flood” from the labs of Shelly Miller and Noah Fierer. The massive floods in 2013 provided the researchers with an opportunity to examine the lingering effects of flood damage, even post remediation. Ideally …
I. Introduction There is an oft-cited hierarchy for data, wherein ideally it should flow: Data –>Information –>Knowledge –>Wisdom (DIKW). Just because you have data, it takes some processing to get quality information, and even good information is not necessarily knowledge, and knowledge often requires context or application to become wisdom. For example, you could have …
When I jetted off to South America a year and a half ago, my doctor sent me with a bottle of Ciprofloxacin in case of an unfortunate bout of food poisoning. I thought little of it then, but what does it mean when millions of travelers head to developing countries with antibiotics? You guessed it …
Well, the stories just keep coming about antimicrobial agents we can use to kill off some pathogen in our environment. Today’s is about plasma – yes plasma – and how it can deactivate norovirus in the environment: ‘Cold plasma’ kills off norovirus from the BBC. The article discusses a new study in the journal mBio. Some key …
By Amanda Makowiecki 1st Year Mechanical Engineering PhD Student Miller Research Group, University of Colorado Boulder Researchers at the University of Oregon recently published a paper examining the connection between architectural design and microbial diversity in our buildings (Kembel et al. 2014). Although occupancy type was identified as the strongest predictor of microbial variation, several …