(Text below from the conference organizers. -David) The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the University of Colorado are pleased to announce the inaugural conference on the Microbiology of the Built Environment, taking place May 31 and June 1, 2012. This is the first event of a conference series that will convene thought leaders across fields …
(cross-posted with modifications from the Eisen Lab blog) Not enough reference genomes from the built environment? Looking for ways to increase undergraduate participation in research? The marriage of these two concepts seems fairly straightforward. Bring undergraduates into the lab, have them culture microbes from the built environment, then sequence and assemble genomes… one per student. …
At the AAAS Meeting in Vancouver in February there was a session focusing on “The Earth Microbiome Project” and related topics. The session was organized by Jack Gilbert and had a series of talks that may be of interest to those concerned about the microbiology of the built environment. I gave a talk in the …
Here at the intersection of microbial ecology and building science we spend a lot of time talking about “what is known?”… or in most cases “what don’t we know?”. In this sense “we” is considered the sum total of people working on these topics. Until this week, I’d never thought much about “what do non-scientists …
An excellent workshop summary came out today entitled “Challenges in Microbial Sampling in Indoor Environments”. Download the PDF here This workshop was held Feb 14-15 2011 and was a collaboration between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), and Yale University. The purpose of the Challenges in Microbial Sampling …
It is this type of thing that inspires me that a better understanding of microbes in the built environment could be of immense value in many areas: A Trip To The Living City Of The Future | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation. Certainly, we need to do a lot of research into making buildings more …
Just a quick one here. The Home Microbiome Project from Argonne National Lab is featured on the home page of Discover Magazine: Science and Technology News, Science Articles | Discover Magazine. This is part of a feature Discover has linking to SciStarter – a site about citizen science.
Not about microbes but there is an interesting article at Smartplanet on office environments: Office work increases toxicity in bloodstreams? | SmartPlanet. It would be interesting to see whether these people have altered microbial communities in conjunction with increased toxins.
We’ve posted in the past (here, here, here, and here) about some of the interesting work taking place at the BioBE Center regarding microbial community structure in health-care facilities. Today a paper on this topic came out in the ISME Journal. This paper is certainly worth a read for anyone interested in the microbiology of …
There has been a nasty min epidemic at a hospital in Belfast: Bacteria in baby unit traced to sink taps – The Irish Times – Wed, Jan 25, 2012. It appears to have been traced to a water tap. Just a mini reminder that we need to learn more about the biogeography of microbes in …