Last week Jenna Lang, Russell Neches, and myself headed over to the Sacramento King’s basketball arena to collect samples before the game as part of project MERCCURI (a.k.a Microbes in Spaaaaace!). Our goals were: 1)To get culture samples, of which one representative will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) for the “microbial playoffs”. 2)To …
For information on Project MERCCURI, please visit our new website at www.spacemicrobes.org (This page no longer maintained, see above) For this portion of the MERCCURI project we will collect microbes at sporting and other public events around the country and compete them against each other, both on Earth and on the International Space Station (ISS) …
(cross-posted from our static page on the project which will be updated as we move forward) Project MERCCURI is a collaboration of microBEnet with the Science Cheerleaders, Nanoracks, NASA, and SciStarter.com. There are three components to the project: 1) Collecting microbial swab samples from the International Space Station (ISS) and examining the microbial communities therein …
QIIME Workshop, May 2 – 4, 2013 May 2, 1:00 – 5:00 May 3, 9:00 – 5:00 May 4, 9:00 – 5:00 Registration for the QIIME workshop is now open. Space is strictly limited to 32 participants. If you are interested in attending, complete the application form by March 22, 2013 (no exceptions). Details …
Note from Jonathan Eisen. This is a guest post from Srijak Bhatnagar a microbiology graduate student at UC Davis. Some of the best conferences arguably are the small one. Instead of the grand size and rapid pace, these warm gatherings over a period of few days allows for budding researchers like me to listen to …
Going through the list of Microbiology Blogs we have curated at microBEnet and going to try to feature one of them every day or so. And just going to do this in semi-alphabetic order. Today’s blog: BioBE Center Authors: Multiple Summary of the BioBE Center (from their website): Although humans in the developed world spend 90% of their lives …
We recently wrote about moldy documents in French archives and a higher incidence of asthma among workers who handled documents than others working in the same spaces but not handling them. See our previous post: “Hands off the moldy docs (for your own good?)” Now we find researchers reported that bacteria can also be transferred …
Rob Dunn of North Carolina State University has written a charming and fascinating piece on the microbes that inhabit our belly buttons. You can find it here on the Scientific American blog site (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/11/07/after-two-years-scientists-still-cant-solve-belly-button-mystery-continue-navel-gazing/). I strongly recommend it for the skill of his writing as well as the extremely interesting insights into the microbes in …
The Sloan Foundation has just announced funding for another two projects, we’ll be posting details here. The first project is called the “Hospital Microbiome Study” and will be managed by Jack Gilbert (University of Chicago) and Captain Benjamin Kirkup at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Check out the project website here.
Lots of attention to disease transmission and illness related to air travel lately. A new paper in the journal Indoor Air suggests that if passengers would wear N-95 respirators when they fly, they could significantly reduce their risk of infection. You can read the paper “Risk assessment of airborne infectious diseases in aircraft cabins” at …