Just had a quick glance at this: Designing the Microbial Research Commons: Proceedings of an International Workshop. Hal Levin sent me the link and it certainly seems interesting. I am going to have to peruse it a bit more but it seems of relevance to the microBEnet community so I thought I would post about it. …
We’ve posted recently about studies looking at what microbes are present on the scrubs worn by medical professionals and the fact that those are often worn outside the hospital. Not surprisingly many parts of hospitals themselves harbor a range of microbes, some of which are potentially problematic. A recent study looked at what kinds of …
Wow this “story” (which is really an ad) is just so incredibly bad I do not know what to say: Dangerous Bacteria Isolated in Healthcare HVAC Evaporator Coils. I do not even know where to begin with criticism so I will just go step by step through some of the advertisement. 1. Title: Dangerous Bacteria Isolated …
I’ve posted several times in the past about various beneficial uses of bacteria in the built environment, including remediation of art and the idea of probiotics for buildings. Today I saw a story about using beneficial bacteria in cleaning liquid, which supposedly “reduced bad bacteria by 1,000-fold compared with standard cleaning techniques”. Sounds interesting. Where …
Just a follow up on an earlier post about microbes on hospital workers clothing. There is an interesting editorial responding to the news from the recent study that may be of interest: Second Opinion: Bacteria hitchhikes on hospital apparel – Milford, MA – The Milford Daily News. Clearly, we need to think about clothing as …
Just another cross posting here of some links to posts on my “Tree of Life” blog that may be of interest to microBEnet: C-DEBI Research Support > Request for Research Proposals Great paper showing the potential power of comparative and evolutionary genomics in #PLoS Genetics Sharing what I have been learning about sharing audio synched …
The International Society of Exposure Science, ISES, will hold its annual conference October 23-27 in Baltimore. The Society has invited all participants to bring dust samples for its Metals in Dust Samples Study. “A special ISES Metals in House Dust Study will analyze house dust samples supplied by the meeting attendees and report results at …
Year 2030 1: Construct a building 2: Spray bacteria and fungi all around the building 3: Wait a few weeks and then open for business Sound crazy? Not necessarily. This scenario, or something like it, is the kind of application that could theoretically come out of current studies on the microbiology of the built environment. …
Our reference collection of papers on the microbiology of the built environment has a few papers on microbes and art. Microbes have both destructive potential and restorative applications, mostly in regard to frescoes and paintings. However we haven’t talked much about using microbes as art, within the built environment. I had to post this story …
When most people think of the microbiology of the built environment they think of pathogens that hang out in buildings. Here’s a neat story about a helpful bacteria that lives in a very different kind of “built environment”… a uranium mill tailings site. These tailings facilities are where all the waste and excess rock from …