Great article from Brooke Borel writing for NOVA Online, “Manipulating the Unseen Microbial Ecosystem–The Future of Hospitals?”. This covers some of the background of microbiology in hospitals, discusses work by both the BioBE Center and microBEnet… and of course the Hospital Microbiome Project as well as the NICU study from Jill Banfield’s lab. The article …
Not sure how I feel about this one so I’m going to just throw it out there for discussion. It’s a hand sanitizer built into a hospital door, on the theory that since compliance is apparently problem in hospitals they should make it part of a motion that people are doing anyway (e.g. opening doors). …
Well, most of the news I see about “germs” being found somewhere or other are germophobia in some way or another. I think this is a different case though: Kitchen Cutting Boards Remain a Source of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacteria After Use. Not sure if what they report is particularly unusual but seems disconcerting at first glance. …
Yersinia pestis, Direct Fluorescent Antibody Stain (DFA), 200x Magnification. CDC 2057. Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. “Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers” reported in the Guardian Reportedly it was “pneumonic” rather than “bubonic” as previously thought. Fortunately it was a very, very long time ago, although there have been many …
Not actually Danish chickens. (cc-by-nc river seal)One of the most coveted chores at my high school was to feed our school’s chickens. The chickens provided eggs for the students, faculty, staff and our extensive Meals on Wheels program. I always thought it was the best chore assignment you could ask for; the hen house had …
A quick post here describing a Gizmodo article highlighting some of the Sloan-funded MBE research presented at the recent AAAS Symposium on Microbiomes of the Built Environment. It talks about work by both Mark Hernandez and Amy Pruden on different aspect of plumbing microbiomes.
The built environment includes housing for livestock, which may have consequences for the transmission of zoonotic diseases in our food supply. Different animal housing strategies provide an ideal opportunity to test the effects of crowding and degree of confinement on the microbiology of built environments. In the case of egg-laying chickens, housing strategies include conventional cages, …
Just a quick post here highlighting some preliminary research into a light-activated bactericidal surface that also has some effectiveness even in the dark. The surface is silicon coated with methylene blue, crystal violet, and gold nanoparticles. Sadly the article itself is paywalled (here), but here’s a link to a press release from the University where …
Well, Jane Brody in “The Well” in the New York Times has a story that is a good example of microbiology of the built environment: A Viral Misery That Loves Company. In it she details her own experiences with Norovirus. And she also discusses how this virus spreads readily in the built environment – day care …
(update, 3-25-14. Fixed the link to the article being described and added link to PDF of paper available from Research Gate) I posted an article in the past discussing the benefits of copper as an antimicrobial agent, but the authors had a huge conflict of interest. However, I still found the idea of using copper …