Heard about an interesting paper today (sadly not open access) describing airflow simulations in an aerosol chamber. Basically they showed that if you release bugs from a mannequin, they spread all over the room… up to 3.5 meters away. A worthwhile study, but not something that wasn’t known already. What made this get so much …
The Virginia Tech group has published another paper looking at the impacts of indoor environmental conditions on microbes. In this case, it’s potentially a key clue to the on-going search for an explanation to the seasonality of influenza puzzle. It’s not just airborne humidity but also the droplet. composition that matter. Past efforts to find …
Going for a walk or drive in the country and viewing the fall colors when the leaves turn in the Boston area is a favorite pastime of residents of and visitors to the area. Leaf mold associated with autumn leaves in Massachusetts may have gotten into the indoor environment of the New England Compounding Center …
Quick post here about a study that came out last month “Exploring Bacterial Diversity in Hospital Environments by GS-FLX Titanium Pyrosequencing” by Poza et al in Madrid. These authors used 454 sequencing of 16S to survey bacterial populations in the entrance hall and the ICU of a hospital in Madrid. Not surprisingly, they found lower …
We’ve posted in the past about various Legionella outbreaks including the one in Chicago, the one in Edinborough, and of course the one in the Playboy Mansion. For some reason we didn’t talk about the recent lethal outbreak in Quebec. You can read about it here. The latest update is that the source of Legionella …
Lots of attention to disease transmission and illness related to air travel lately. A new paper in the journal Indoor Air suggests that if passengers would wear N-95 respirators when they fly, they could significantly reduce their risk of infection. You can read the paper “Risk assessment of airborne infectious diseases in aircraft cabins” at …
An article in the Sunday NYT on the Ecology of Disease — paints with a very broad brush that ignores the role of the microbiology of the built (and especially the indoor) environment, where we spend most of our time and most likely acquire most of our diseases. What the article ignores underscores the importance …
Very very interesting article in the Globe and Mail by Alex Hutchinson: Destination — not the flight — more likely to make you sick, study says – The Globe and Mail. The article discusses the issue of people (well, mostly athletes) getting sick when they travel. What is fascinating is that a few lines of evidence indicate …
Every day there are numerous news reports dealing with “mold” and the built environment. It’s usually a mix of scaremongering, cleaning suggestions, and the occasional bit of interesting science. Generally we avoid this topic, since surprisingly little is actually known about what fungal species are actually associated with human health impacts. This story just caught …
A paper from MIT researchers, A Metric of Influential Spreading during Contagion Dynamics through the Air Transportation Network, a study of contagion dynamics shows that airports are among the more hazardous locations on your travel itinerary. Published in PLoS One, the paper is freely downloadable at this link The authors write: “Characterizing the early-time behavior …