OK. I know. Microbes are everywhere. And so we need to get away from sensationalizing another study of “germs” in some environment. But in this case, I confess, I was a bit grossed out: “Kiddie pools are hotspots of bacteria, expert says” from the Visalia Times. A version of the story is also on Medline …
The following is the Executive Summary of a report on the AAAS “Microbiomes of the Built Environment Symposium”, March 27th, 2014, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The full report can be found here. The research field of Microbiomes of the Built Environment (MoBE) is relatively new, evolving about ten years ago from …
When the average person hears the terms “microbiology” and “genetics,” often mental images involving lab coats, complicated chemical reactions, forensic TV shows, and futuristic advancements come to mind. However, just this week, a team of scientists at the University of York published a paper in “Nature Genetics” (Christina Warinner et al, Pathogens and host immunity in …
We know that human babies born through vaginal birth are colonized by their mother’s microbes but what about the case of premature infants? A paper published by Jill Banfield and colleagues as part of a Sloan-funded project investigates the connection between microbial communities of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and those of the premature infant gut. Premature infants …
Not surprisingly, the skin microbiome changes accordingly with human contact, according to this study found through PeerJ. Researchers aimed to study a high contact sport and see how the skin microbiome changes before and after a game. They used roller derby, and as anyone who has watched the movie Whip it! will know, there is a …
The human microbiome and microbes in space are two of the sexiest topics in microbiology today. Together they have attracted the attention of the J. Craig Venter Institute. Hernan Lorenzi is leading a team to study how the composition of the human microbiome changes during long term space exploration. They will be analyzing the microbiome of …
Many indoor environmental investigators have attempted to use volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by microbes as an indicator of the presence or potential health relevance of the indoor microbiome. These compounds emitted by microbes are generally referred to as MVOCs. The airborne concentrations of MVOCs is usually too low for characterization by the usual indoor …
First of all, Happy Halloween everyone. I think my costume this year will be a blogger! For those that don’t know me, I’m Brent Stephens, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. I call my research team the Built Environment Research Group …
Italian architect Carlo Ratti, Director of the MIT SENSEable Cities Lab, presents an entertaining Ted Talk “Architecture that senses and responds” on the use of sensors in buildings to monitor occupant behavior and environmental conditions for input to the management of the buildings and other human-made systems. Once we know the critical environmental variables that …
The second new project to receive funding from the Sloan foundation is a project entitled “Analysis of the ICU room environment as a source of microorganisms colonizing the GI tract of premature infants”. This project is being managed by Jill Banfield at UC Berkeley, along with her Co-PIs; Michael Morowitz (University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine) …