ASM Symposium #241: Microbial Revelations of the Built Environment

Looks like there will be a great symposium on the Microbiology of the Built Environment this year.  The symposium is organized by Filipa Godoy-Vitorino and Sarah Preheim.   Speakers include several Sloan-funded labs  (including Maria Dominguez-Bello, James Meadow, and Mark Hernandez) and it looks to cover a wide range of cool topics.   Check out the video below:

Time for a new #CitizenMicrobiology project – swab all cruise ships

Well, the news just does not get any better / different for cruise ships and microbes.   Despite major efforts (or so they claim) by the cruise industry – people keep spreading Norovirus and other such illnesses aboard cruise ships.  For example, see: Illnesses Aboard California Cruise Ship Nearly Double.  Not sure just what is going …

“Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers”

Yersinia pestis, Direct Fluorescent Antibody Stain (DFA), 200x Magnification. CDC 2057. Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. “Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers” reported in the Guardian Reportedly it was “pneumonic” rather than “bubonic” as previously thought. Fortunately it was a very, very long time ago, although there have been many …

Storify of Tweets, Background, Videos from #AAASMoBE meeting on Microbiomes of the Built Environment

Just a quick post here. The AAAS Meeting on “Microbiomes of the Built Environment” that was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was on Thursday. I have made a “Storification” of the Tweets, Background and Videos from the meeting. I have embedded the Storify below. It can also be accessed directly here. We will be …