American Society for Microbiology “#asmicrobe” meeting June 1-5

Coming up in June (June 1-5) in New Orleans.  ASM Microbe 2017, the Annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. For more information see https://www.asm.org/index.php/asm-microbe-2017 The meeting should be very good. Hotel deadline is May 17. For sessions on some topics of interest see Antimicrobial Agents and Infectious Diseases Applied and Environmental Science Clinical and …

When a humongous amount of fungus among us is not a good thing …

OK – full blown mushrooms are not microbes.  But they are fungi.  And a lot of fungi are microbial.  So I am ignoring the multicellular nature of these mushrooms here – after all – nobody’s perfect.  Anyway – thought this might be of interest to those thinking about fungi in the built environment. Source: UPDATE: City …

“Superbug” Candida auris fungus emerging in U.S. hospitals

Quick post here just to alert people to this story about a drug resistant Candida auris fungus variety showing up more and more. Of relevance to the microbiology of the built environment crowd is the following quote: The fungus can be passed between people or through the environment from such things as hospital equipment, says Dr. Tom …

Recruiting editors : Citizen Science in Microbiology!

Federico Lauro, Chris Mason and I (and a few others by now) are looking for editors for a Frontiers Special Topic on Citizen Science in Microbiology. It is important to us that we assemble a diverse panel of editors before we start inviting submissions! We are especially interested in making sure that women and people …

Kristen DeAngelis slides for “Microbial Diversity” Course

My course slides are updated for 2017 with a new lecture on acellular life. Lecture 01 (3-21-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis Lec02 phylogeny (3-23-2017) from Kristen DeAngelis Lecture 03 (3-28-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis Lecture 20 (4-20-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis Lecture 22 (4-27-2017) slides from Kristen DeAngelis   Lecture 23 (5-2-2017) acellular life slides …

This is calling out for a large microbiome study: Salt from icy roads is contaminating North America’s lakes

It seems to me that this is calling out for some large scale comparative microbial community study: Salt from icy roads is contaminating North America’s lakes – The Washington Post Basically, there is evidence that lakes throughout North America have seen a big increase in salt levels connected to salt used to try and deal …

WTH is ILR?

WTH is ILR? by Alex Washburne & Jamie Morton Jamie and I have penned a popularization of the isometric log-ratio transform with the intention to allow non-mathematicians to understand the intuition behind what it is, why we use it, and how different methods use the same tool in different ways. The full write-up is available …

Health + Energy Research Consortium

. The Biology and the Built Environment Center (BioBE) and Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory (ESBL) at the University of Oregon, are pleased to announce the launch of the the Health + Energy Research Consortium!  On May 4-5, 2017, in Portland Oregon, we begin our journey to dramatically reduce energy consumption and maximize human health …