A recent open access paper from the BioBE Center at University of Oregon explored the differences between airborne bacteria collected in parks and parking lots. Entitled “Urban greenness influences airborne bacterial community composition” and published in Science of the Total Environment, this interdisciplinary study combined research methods from microbiology and landscape architecture to answer the …
Just a quick post about the fact that researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are sending radiation resistant (even radiation-loving) fungi for some experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). They are looking for changes that occur in microgravity after growth for 14 days on the ISS with respect to ground control strains. Very …
Our latest Project MERCCURI paper came out last week and so I figured I’d do a quick post about it here since it’s a good fit for the microbiology of the built environment. In short, we collected a number of bacterial strains from built environments on earth and sent them to the space station to …
Let’s face it, when microbiologists get together over beers 9/10 times the conversation ends up about poop. Or maybe that’s just among the ones I know? Feces provides the critical window into the important world of the gut microbiome, a large percentage of the biomass in feces is microbial and who doesn’t love fecal transplants? …
A blog post from the Scottish Wildlife Trust by Ed Taylor discusses the importance of greenspace in Scotland’s suburban and urban areas. It’s part of a “50 for the Future” series that suggests 50 things that should occur in Scotland over the next 50 years to benefit both people and wildlife. As suburban areas are …
Just got done looking at this paper which I found by searching Google Scholar for “indoor bacteria”. PLOS ONE: 16S rRNA Amplicon Sequencing Demonstrates that Indoor-Reared Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) Harbor a Core Subset of Bacteria Normally Associated with the Wild Host A MiSeq multiplexed 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the gut microbiota of wild and indoor-reared …
Other than the now-discredited claim that there are 10 times more microbial cells than human cells on the body, this is quite an interesting post about the ongoing human microbiome research on the International Space Station (ISS). Obviously something we’re very interested in from our own work in this area. Bugs are winning out, and …
An article at Space.Com discusses a new push to make sure that spacecraft do not inadvertently contaminate the places they are visiting (e.g., Mars). What microbes are on space vehicles and how to make sure the parts that are sent to other planets are “clean” or “sterile” is an interesting and active area of research. …
We’ve posted previously about the results of the microbial playoffs in space (microbenet post here, and project website here). And while it’s fun to compare the growth of a microbe representing the Raiders to one representing the 49ers (Raiders won that one)… there’s a more serious question being asked here. We wanted to know what …