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? …
Richard Branson is planning a deep sea exploration project that will include sampling of microbial diversity with Katrina Edwards and Doug Bartlett and others. For more information see here: Richard Branson launches Virgin Oceanic: deep-sea exploring submarines – Boing Boing. Perhaps we can convince him to also use his planes and spaceships to sample airborn …
National Academy of Sciences Climate Change, the Indoor Environment, and Health (2011) Sequence-Based Classification of Select Agents: A Brighter Line (2010) Antibiotic Resistance: Implications for Global Health and Novel Intervention Strategies: Workshop Summary (2010) Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation: A Tribute to the Life and Scientific Legacies of Joshua Lederberg (2009) The New Science of Metagenomics: …
Just a quick post on a workshop of possible interest: Building Design and Engineering Approaches to Airborne Infection Control. The workshop is August 1-12 in Boston, MA. It is organized by the Harvard School of Public Health. The overview from the website says: “A significant bottleneck in the implementation of precautions against airborne transmission of …