We publish a newsletter every month here at microBEnet. And I thought it would be good to also publish to the blog the various summaries and roundups from the newsletter. Past newsletters are archived here. Here are some of the highlights from this latest newsletter. MicroBEnet Blogs A summary of the recent topics posted on microBE.net …
Bill Walsh of The Healthy Building Network has posted a story on the subject,”the Dirt on Antimicrobials” that covers the health effects concerns from the chemicals themselves but does not address the currently popular subject of the health harm or benefits from the presence of and exposures to the multitude of microbes in, on, and …
These are just awesome: 4 Ventilation Quotes That Will Rock Your IAQ World. Maybe they are familiar to people who work on indoor air quality but I had never heard them . Thanks to the Energy Vanguard Blog for posting these. I particularly like “If there is a pile of manure in a space, do not try …
Some interesting things in this post from Kelly Rae Chi at the Scientist: Metagenomics Mash-Up. It includes a discussion of metagenomics generally and then some metagenomic tools including MEGAN5, Kraken, MG-RAST, Metavir, and HI-C. The section on HI-C discusses the work of Chris Beitel in my lab. If you are doing metagenomic analysis or considering it or …
Quick post here. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a podcast on “Pioneering Ideas” and it covers microbiomes of the built environment this week:1 RWJF Pioneering Ideas Podcast: Episode 5 | Conspiracy Theories, Microbiomes & More – Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They also give a nice plug for microBEnet. From their site: Microbiomes and Design (26:25) — …
Today a colleague sent me a link to a Genome Biology paper entitled “The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists.” At first glance, it reminded me of Greg Caporaso’s post about Twitter last month. But as I continued to read, the slight truth behind the premise described in the paper fascinated, …
Have you ever said “I boiled a jar to disinfect it”? Well, you were wrong. You should have used “I boiled a jar to sanitize it”. Disinfectants refer to chemical substances used to kill microbes. Therefore, something has been disinfected only if a chemical was used. Heating or irradiating surfaces are methods of either sterilizing (free …
Nice post from Shelly Miller on her blog about why she started using and is still using Twitter: Why I Decided to Join Twitter and Send Tweets | Shelly L. Miller. Shelly is an active member of the “microBEnet” community and I posts a lot of useful information about meetings, science, and related topics at …
When we talk about animals in the built environment, we tend to mostly think about our companion animals such as dogs and cats. Of course insects and rodents also live alongside us. And many other animals live in built environments, including farms, zoos and aquariums. I study the microbes associated with cheetahs. In captivity cheetahs …
See here for Part 1 and here for Part 2 both posted in 2013. 27 April 2014. Leiden, the Netherlands Holland in April is orange and green. Following last year’s abdication by the Queen, yesterday was the first King’s Day in decades. The normally stoic Dutch draped themselves in brilliant orange, painted temporary flag tattoos …