A new volume of Studies in Mycology was published recently and is dedicated to the diversity in the fungal genera Aspergillus, Penicillium and Talaromyces, all of which play a significant role indoors. The issue includes 6 papers related to our Indoor Mycota Barcode of Life (IM-BOL) project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program …
Thanks to a recent tweet, I saw a paper I would have surely otherwise missed: A method for sampling microbial aerosols using high altitude balloons in the Journal of Microbiological Methods. A method for sampling microbial aerosols using high altitude balloons w/ @nbryan5 http://t.co/jyXLOjEdP7 — Cameron Thrash (@DrJCThrash) November 11, 2014 The proud LSU Tiger …
For many years I have been worried about how space travel will affect microbiomes – of the space vehicles and of the residents (people, other animals, plants, etc). This is one of the reasons we started Project MERCCURI and get involved in looking at the microbes on the International Space Station. It is also why …
There is a new genome paper out that should be of interest to many thinking about the built environment, microbes and allergens and related topics: The draft genome, transcriptome, and microbiome of Dermatophagoides farinae reveal a broad spectrum of dust mite allergens. Published as an open access paper (yay) in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology …
Note by Jonathan Eisen Last week I saw an interesting new paper in AEM entitled: Indoor-Air Microbiome in an Urban Subway Network: Diversity and Dynamics. I thought it was of relveance of microBEnet so I wrote to the senior author Dr. Patrick Lee from the School of Energy and Environment and the City University of Hong Kong inviting …
The idea for GenomePeek began two years ago when I was working with Karl Klose, Liz Dinsdale, and Rob Edwards to assemble a P. salmonis genome that was being particularly difficult, even though we had 9 gigabases of sequencing. To check whether it was a single isolated genome I pulled out all the 16S reads …
As a biologist with a 3D printer, one of the questions I get most often about 3D printed parts is, “Can you autoclave these things?” As it turns out, no, not really. There are only a handful of thermoplastics that can survive the autoclave process, and most of them are not very good for 3D …
This is a guest post from Nicholas Osborne from the University of Exeter Medical School. I saw a paper of his that seemed very relevant to microBE.net “Indoor fungal diversity and asthma: A meta-analysis and systematic review of risk factors.” (by Sharpe RA, Bearman N, Thornton CR, Husk K1, Osborne NJ). And so I wrote to …
A great new mini review (“The dual role of microbes in corrosion,” Nardy Kip and Johannes A van Vee) discussing the dual role of microbes in corrosion and corrosion inhibition has recently been published in the ISME Journal. Though not OpenAccess, because the article is so relevant to the built environment community, I wanted to …
Well, it looks like the White House is requesting feedback on funding priorities relating to Science and Technology topics. See Federal Register | Strategy for American Innovation. In the summary they write: The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council request public comments to provide input into an upcoming update of …