Looks great: 7th Conference on Beneficial Microbes at UW-Madison 7/8-11

Conference announcement: The 7th Conference on Beneficial Microbes will be held at UW-Madison on July 8-11, 2018. The abstract submission deadline is May 2. https://uwmadison.eventsair.com/QuickEventWebsitePortal/BENEFICIALMICROBES/18 The conference was formerly the “ASM Conference on Beneficial Microbes,” with a long history of combining model and natural systems to understand the ecology and functions of host-associated microbes. When ASM …

Fungi for self-healing concrete

So I’d heard about “self-healing” concrete using chemicals that react with water to seal cracks, I’ve even blogged about self-healing concrete using bacteria embedded into the concrete (back in 2011).  And then yesterday I came across research talking about using fungi for this purpose.   Regardless of which method ends up working, I think these are …

Nectar CURE: Week 1

CUREs, Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences, represent a departure from traditional lecture-based teaching methods. In CUREs, students learn in a much more interactive environment. There is a growing body of literature suggesting CUREs benefit students – and therefore schools – far better than lecture-based teaching (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3). Members and collaborators of Jonathan …

Podcast-Professor Jordan Peccia – Yale University – Building Microbiomes Research to Practice

“A hot topic in the research community is the microbiome of the built environment. This week on IAQ Radio we welcome one of the leading researchers in this area, Dr. Jordan Peccia. His principle areas of research include: (i) human exposure to bacterial and viral pathogens emitted during the land application of sewage sludge, (ii) …

An informative glimpse into the drug factory microbiome: Which bugs coexist with our drugs? The story behind the paper

The story behind: Toward the Drug Factory Microbiome: Microbial Community Variations in Antibiotic-Producing Clean Rooms (OMICS. 2018 Feb;22(2):133-144. doi: 10.1089/omi.2017.0091.) PMID: 28873001 [Preprint] It was in 2013, on my return to Cairo University after a couple of years as a visiting scientist at UCSD, that I met Amal for the first time. Amal was a fresh master’s …

Podcast-Radio Joe Live From The 5th Annual SLOAN Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference – University of Colorado Boulder

This week Radio Joe was live from beautiful Boulder Colorado and Colorado University at the 5th SLOAN Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference. The conference is a gathering of the leading researchers in the world that study the microbiome of the built environment. A diverse group of scientists from around the world have been meeting …

New Report on The Struggle for Water Justice from the UC Davis Center for Regional Change

Of potential interest:: The Struggle for Water Justice from the Center for Regional Change at UC Davis. Summary: The Struggle for Water Justice: Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities in California’s San Joaquin ValleyFebruary 2018 In California, lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a threat to public health and well-being, and violates the state’s newly codified …

Podcast-Mark Hernandez, PhD, PE – Microbiology of the Normal and Water Damaged Buildings

Episode 425 focuses on the microbiology of the normal and water damaged built environment. With respect to environmental investigations, Hernandez’s aerobiology characterization work has focused on large scale disasters including bioaerosols generated by major metropolitan floods.

Another RDP for microbiologists to check out ..

Just came across this paper on bioRXiv. A Measure of Open Data: A Metric and Analysis of Reusable Data Practices in Biomedical Data Resources by Seth Carbon, Robin Champieux, Julie McMurry, Lilly Winfree, Letisha R Wyatt, and Melissa Haendel Abstract Data is the foundation of science, and there is an increasing focus on how data can be reused …