Quick post here. Check out the story from ABC news (Australia, that is): Indoor ecology – RN Future Tense – 24 November 2011. Their summary: We’re used to hearing about threats to our outdoor environment. But we rarely think about some of the challenges that we face in our indoor environment. A growing number of …
What is microBEnet? The microbiology of the Built Environment network, or microBEnet, is a project funded by a grant from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Program on the Indoor Environment. The main goals of the microBEnet project are to: Catalyze communication and collaboration among researchers funded in the Sloan Program on the Indoor Environment. Reach out …
Year 2030 1: Construct a building 2: Spray bacteria and fungi all around the building 3: Wait a few weeks and then open for business Sound crazy? Not necessarily. This scenario, or something like it, is the kind of application that could theoretically come out of current studies on the microbiology of the built environment. …
When people hear “microbiology of the built environment” they tend to think first of buildings. But the built environment includes so much more, ranging from transportation (cars/planes/space shuttles) to swimming pools to highway bridges. The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) has a test facility where they study biofuels. They recently presented some results …
Here are some quick notes from my trip to Austin Texas for the Indoor Air 2011 meeting. About the meeting: I got involved in helping organize a session at this conference as part of my microBEnet project. More on the planning and the meeting later but here are some quick notes just to get them …
There is an interesting new (and open access) paper out: Geographic Distribution of Environmental Relative Moldiness Index Molds in USA Homes. Before the Indoor Air 2011 meeting I just returned from, I would not have understood as much of what is discussed in the paper as I do now. But I think the paper does a …
Summary/Key Points Microbes are found everywhere and are important everywhere. “Microbial Ecology” studies the interactions of microbes with each other as well as with their environment. It is important to attempt to study microbes as part of the community in which they are found and not just in isolation. Advances in DNA sequencing technology have …
When people hear “microbiology of the built environment” they tend to focus on buildings. But the built environment also includes things like trains, cars, planes, even the space station where some cool microbiology work has taken place. When looking for work on the microbiology of these environments I came across a small, non-peer reviewed study …
Ed Yong in his blog discusses a recent article he wrote for Wired UK: The real story about space bacteria | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine. Some aspects of the story are very interesting. What I want to call attention to here is that NASA (and other space agencies) should be VERY interested in …
microBEnet is funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of their program on the Microbiology of the Built Environment. A conversation with Paula Olsiewski, program director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program on the Microbiology of the Built Environment What is the Foundation’s program on the Microbiology of the Built Environment? …