The built environment includes housing for livestock, which may have consequences for the transmission of zoonotic diseases in our food supply. Different animal housing strategies provide an ideal opportunity to test the effects of crowding and degree of confinement on the microbiology of built environments. In the case of egg-laying chickens, housing strategies include conventional cages, …
Tomorrow all day there will be a meeting at AAAS HQ on “Microbiomes of the Built Environment“. I will be speaking at the meeting, and this is one of my major research areas, so I am a bit biased, but the meeting is going to be great I think. And it will be webcast live. …
Just a quick post here highlighting some preliminary research into a light-activated bactericidal surface that also has some effectiveness even in the dark. The surface is silicon coated with methylene blue, crystal violet, and gold nanoparticles. Sadly the article itself is paywalled (here), but here’s a link to a press release from the University where …
Well, Jane Brody in “The Well” in the New York Times has a story that is a good example of microbiology of the built environment: A Viral Misery That Loves Company. In it she details her own experiences with Norovirus. And she also discusses how this virus spreads readily in the built environment – day care …
There are a bunch of stories out in relation to work from MIT on “Living Materials” See MIT News Engineers design ‘living materials’ Value Walk MIT Scientists Develop Living Materials Using 3-D Images Of Bacteria Gizmodo MIT’s Living E. Coli Materials Could Provide Self-Aware Surfaces The Register RISE of the LIVING CHAIR: Boffins recruit E coli to build futuristic …
(update, 3-25-14. Fixed the link to the article being described and added link to PDF of paper available from Research Gate) I posted an article in the past discussing the benefits of copper as an antimicrobial agent, but the authors had a huge conflict of interest. However, I still found the idea of using copper …
At a recent meeting of the Sloan Foundation program on Microbiomes of the Built Environment I gave a talk about microBEnet and kind of begged people in the program to send me emails when they had new papers out so we could include them in our reference collection and could blog about them. And one …
Just saw the abstract of this paper: The effects of climbing vegetation on the local microclimate, thermal performance, and air infiltration of four building facade orientations that was published 3/19 in Building and Environment. Authors are Irina Susorova, Parham Azimi and Brent Stephens. I am intrigued from reading the abstract (I don’t have access to the whole paper). …
Jordan Peccia has posted the slides from his tutorial, Molecular methods for bioaerosol analysis on Slideshare. If you would like to get a quick overview of molecular-biology based methods, this is a painless, accessible way to do it. You are encouraged to post your comments and questions after you review the slideshow. We hope to …
Grr. These types of stories really bug me: British technology set to banish germs in hospitals and homes | City & Business | Finance | Daily Express. It is in theory a news story. But it is pretty much an advertisement for this Odorox building sterilization system with no critical reporting. Here are some claims in …