I. Introduction There is an oft-cited hierarchy for data, wherein ideally it should flow: Data –>Information –>Knowledge –>Wisdom (DIKW). Just because you have data, it takes some processing to get quality information, and even good information is not necessarily knowledge, and knowledge often requires context or application to become wisdom. For example, you could have …
Well, the stories just keep coming about antimicrobial agents we can use to kill off some pathogen in our environment. Today’s is about plasma – yes plasma – and how it can deactivate norovirus in the environment: ‘Cold plasma’ kills off norovirus from the BBC. The article discusses a new study in the journal mBio. Some key …
There is an abundance of literature on how microbes can obtain antibiotic resistance, but not as much about how antibiotic resistance can spread. Jonathan drew my attention to this article today, which highlights the fact that antibiotic resistance can be spread through the air. While I didn’t find the conclusions all that surprising, I was …
Almost everyone in developed countries uses cosmetics, from body washes to make-up. In the US, the cosmetics industry makes over $56 billion dollars in revenue. As a society, we use a lot of personal care products. And in order for those products to have a useful shelf-life, they contain antimicrobials – no one wants to open their …
Whenever I got sick as a young child, my mom insisted upon opening my windows in the mornings to let fresh air in. She claimed it would help me get better if we let clean air in to flush out the dirty air. To me, it was a nuisance. I had the chills and resented …
Well, I made a list. I had written up text justifying everything on this list but I think it is better to just publish the list and then discuss. Any additional suggestions or comments would be welcome. 1. Microbes are small, mostly 2. Microbes are not simple 3. No microbe alive today is ancient 4. …
The spread of antibiotic resistance traits is an ongoing and important issue that is poorly studied. This PLoS One study by Lerma et al. is the first to use a culture independent approach to characterize antibiotic resistance traits in the total microbiota present in a goat and lamb slaughterhouse. Lerma et al. found that tetracycline resistance genes (tetA and tetB) and Sulfonamide …
Just a quick post here about the spreading of C. difficile among patients who visited healthcare settings but didn’t take antiobiotics. Traditionally C. difficile is thought to infect people whose normal microbiota was disturbed by antibiotics. It’s also the target of most experiments on fecal transplants since those have been shown to be very effective …
Rob Knight, together with science journalist Brendan Buhler, has written a witty synopsis (entitled “Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes”) about the human microbiome and how it affects human life in the form of a TED book, now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. The description from Amazon’s webpage is below: “Allergies, asthma, obesity, …
Infectious diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide, so it is critical that we characterize exposure routes of infectious agents, including those resistant to antibiotics. The source of infectious agents is often attributed to the environment. But, few studies have explored what types of environmental exposure introduce opportunistic microbial pathogens or what actions may …