June 21 was International Swab Day for the MetaSUB project. MetaSUB stands for “Metagenomics and Metadesign of the Subways and Urban Biomes”, an initiative in which experts together with citizens will study the microbial ecosystems of public transportation systems from all over the world. From the MetaSUB website: By developing and testing standards for the …
Back in September 2014 I was invited to write a book chapter on citizen science in microbiology. After several iterations of the book, the chapter, and the licensing agreement here is the final version. The book came out yesterday, here’s a link to the entire book on Amazon (“The Rightful Place of Science: Citizen Science“) …
Microbes and the city The Metagenomics and Metadesign of the Subways and Urban Biomes (MetaSUB) International Consortium inaugural meeting report – The MetaSUB International Consortium – Microbiome (OA) Also see posts here and here. The Metagenomics and Metadesign of the Subways and Urban Biomes (MetaSUB) International Consortium is a novel, interdisciplinary initiative comprised of experts …
Here’s my report from Day 2 of the Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference in Boulder… the 5th annual and last of its kind! Storify of the tweets from the day below. The opening talk on Day 2 was by Martin Taubel from the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland, “Of house dust and …
Here’s the report from Day 1 of the 5th annual Microbiology of the Built Environment meeting in Boulder, CO. Following my summary of the talks is a Storify of all the tweets from the day. The first talk of the day was by Ulla Haverinen-Shaughnessy from the University of Eastern Finland whose talk was entitled …
In the context of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant to the UNITE database to improve the support for fungi in the built environment, a workshop centered on public fungal ITS (barcode) sequences from the built environment was organized in Gothenburg, Sweden on May 23-24, 2016. Specifically, the ~40 physical and remote workshop participants sought …
Over the last several years our lab has spent a fair bit of effort on collecting and sequencing genomes of bacteria from the built environment. Genome sequences are useful for a number of reasons including facilitating metagenomics and understanding the actual metabolic capacity of particular microbes. In particular we hope that genome sequences will facilitate …
There is a report out from the American Academy of Microbiology that is based on the “Microbiology of the Built Environment” colloquium they hosted in September 2015. The report summary is below: Built environments are the structures that humans create to shelter from the outdoors and provide spaces for living, working, playing, and getting places. …
During the winter term at University of Oregon, I led a design-oriented microbiome course for graduate and undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines (Architecture, Environmental Studies, Landscape Architecture, and Planning). Just for the record, these design students were VERY enthusiastic to learn about microbiome science, although they were somewhat disconcerted to find out how …
Workshop in Conservation and Gene Expression. September 19-23, 2016, Asilomar, CA Genomic variation has been a recent focus in conservation of rare and endangered species. However, the immediate response to environmental challenges will likely be determined by gene expression, which will constrain the efficacy of response and the likelihood of population persistence. Nonetheless, gene …