New Papers on microbiology of the built environment, November 20, 2015

Lots of cool new papers to share. Unfortunately, many are behind paywalls. Humans in hospitals Towards an antimicrobial ‘microglove’ – Ewoud Reilman – Scientific Reports (OA) Healthcare workers frequently experience difficulties in complying strictly to hand disinfection protocols. This study was therefore aimed at the development of a hand rub with antimicrobial activity that forms …

A New Superbug May Be Upon Us

A terrifying, yet not surprising article was published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases about mcr-1. For those who aren’t familiar with it, mcr-1 is a gene associated with antibiotic resistance to colistin, a type of polymyxin antibiotic used to treat infections that are already resistant to several other types of antibiotics. News sources have …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, November 15, 2015

Here are some new papers of interest. Separate treatment of hospital and urban wastewaters: A real scale comparison of effluents and their effect on microbial communities – Teofana Chonova, François Keck, Jérôme Labanowski, Bernard Montuelle, Frédéric Rimet, Agnès Bouchez – Science of the Total Environment (not OA) Hospital wastewaters (HWW) contain wider spectrum and higher quantity of pharmaceuticals …

Important paper: Intrinsic challenges in ancient microbiome reconstruction using 16S rRNA gene amplification

To date, characterization of ancient oral (dental calculus) and gut (coprolite) microbiota has been primarily accomplished through a metataxonomic approach involving targeted amplification of one or more variable regions in the 16S rRNA gene. For anyone interested in rRNA studies of microbial communities, ancient microbiomes, or analysis of samples with small amounts of DNA this …

Story behind the paper: Porphyrobacter mercurialis, a new species found by #citizenscience and then sent to the #iss

So our first attempt at entering the world of bacterial taxonomy and the description of a new species came out today with the thrilling title of “Porphyrobacter mercurialis sp. nov., isolated from a stadium seat and emended description of the genus Porphyrobacter“. The story leading to this paper took us into  a lot of new …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, November 8, 2015

Here are the papers on the built environment microbiology that I found in the past weeks. For more microbiology papers, please check out my daily blog MicrobiomeDigest. Copper surfaces are associated with significantly lower concentrations of bacteria on selected surfaces within a pediatric intensive care unit – Michael G. Schmidt – American Journal of Infection …

Emily Anthes writes about Wildlife of Your Homes microbiome studies in the New Yorker 

“Every unswept corner of a home tells its own story”. By Bouyoun Kim from the New Yorker Website. Source: What the Dust in Your House Says About You – The New Yorker Nice article in the New Yorker by Emily Anthes about the Home Microbiome studies from the Wildlife of Your Homes project. It has some …

Early career workshop on Microbiology of the built environment

Apply for this innovative, multidisciplinary, and highly integrated research-based workshop aimed at enabling and educating globally distributed early career scientists involved in research associated with the microbiology of the built environment. We will provide researchers with the rare and unique opportunity to shape funding opportunities for research focused on the microbiology of the built environment, …