Guest Blog Post by Dr. Nick Clements, PhD Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Colorado Boulder, Miller Research Group In the event of a disaster, hospitals must have plans in place for receiving a surge of patients with a variety of possible infectious diseases or conditions. Pandemic-causing infectious diseases, such as the viruses that caused the SARS …
While recent studies of the microbiology of the built environment (MoBE) have greatly increased our understanding of microbial community structure and composition on surfaces and in air within the spaces in which we live and work, most have been driven and led primarily by microbiologists with the building science community playing a supporting role. Perhaps as …
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 …
Just a quick note that the late-breaking poster deadline for the annual American Associattion for Aerosol Research (AAAR) conference is Monday, July 21st. This conference will run from October 20-24, in Orlando Florida. Here’s the description of the conference from the website: On behalf of the AAAR 33rd Annual Conference organizers, I am excited to …
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has posted a gallery of satellite measurements of nitrogen dioxide, taken by the Aura spacecraft. The results show a clear, nation-wide decline in this type of air pollution from 2005 to 2011. There are a lot of contributing factors for the reduction. This period includes the beginning of the Great …
A group of us from Jonathan Eisen’s lab attended the General Meeting for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) last month in Boston. A major highlight of the conference was “We Are Not Alone: Microbial Revelations of the Built Environment,” a symposium that was organized by the Junior Advisory Group that is made up of postdocs and …
Back in May we posted about a Gizmodo article entitled “Concrete-Dissolving Bacteria Are Destroying Our Nation’s Sewers”. This article highlighted Sloan-funded work by Mark Hernandez and others that describes some of the biochemistry and microbiology behind concrete corrosion in sewers. A (fee-required) paper describing that work has just come out, with a press release focused …
In response to Hal Levin’s comment on my previous post: Thank you ISIAQ for the “Vocabulary of the Indoor Air Sciences” I am starting to put together some definitions and background information on the terminology of microbial ecology studies. Please suggest any / all terms that you think would be useful to define and I will …
I’m proud to announce that the sample collection for the building science component of Project MERCCURI is complete! In early May, Koichi Wakata from JAXA (Japan’s space exploration agency) collected swabs swabs of surfaces aboard the International Space Station. Back in June last year, Jenna, Wendy and I went to the Johnson Space Center in …
This seems like a very interesting award: Applications Open for the 2015 SAH Award for Film and Video. The Society for Architectural Historians is seeking nominations for “the most distinguished work of film or video on the history of the built environment.” The first SAH Award for Film and Video was presented last year at …