Art and microbiology meet again but not in the way you might have expected

Well, I have always told people that we need more mixing of art and science.  In recent years we have seen lots of attempts to do some sort of art inspired by – or even incorporating – microbes.  But this is perhaps the other side of the coin.  Art is significantly influenced by microbes in …

New publications on ribosomal RNA tools (databases, software, etc)

For those doing microbial diversity studies, analysis of rRNA genes via PCR is still a fundamental tool.  And thankfully many people keep maintaining various databases and tools for people to use to carry out analysis of rRNA data.  Here are some new papers of relevance: The SILVA and “All-species Living Tree Project (LTP)” taxonomic frameworks. …

New paper of interest on combining qPCR & sequencing to quantify fungi in aerosols

Nice new paper from Karen Dannemiller et al. (the senior author is Jordan Peccia from Yale): Citation: Dannemiller, K. C., Lang-Yona, N., Yamamoto, N., Rudich, Y., & Peccia, J. (2013). Combining Real-Time PCR and Next-Generation DNA Sequencing to Provide Quantitative Comparisons of Fungal Aerosol Populations. Atmospheric Environment in Press. The abstract is copied below.  Basically, they …

Microbes in the built environment: musical instruments (from Discover)

We try to make sure that our discussions of the microbiology of the “built environment” are very inclusive.  That means in addition to the obvious houses and office buildings we’ve talked about plumbing systems, planes, trains, etc.    But this story is certainly the first time I’ve thought about what is dwelling inside of musical instruments.   …

Researchers explore natural solution to rid household plumbing of dangerous pathogens

Just a quick post to point out an article on phys.org talking about Amy Pruden’s fascinating work on probiotics for plumbing.   Read her microBEnet post about the work here and a related post by Kyle Bibby here. From the phys.org article: “We believe this microbiome can be harnessed to control opportunistic pathogens,” Pruden said. For …

PLOS ONE: Contamination of Public Buses with MRSA in Lisbon, Portugal

Paula Olsiewski recently pointed us to this article entitled “Contamination of Public Buses with MRSA in Lisbon, Portugal: A Possible Transmission Route of Major MRSA Clones within the Community.”  Basically the authors found nosocomial (hospital-acquired) strains of MRSA on a number of public buses and conclude: MRSA contamination of public transport and the transfer of …