New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, September 10, 2016

Studying the 5 second rule, antibiotic resistance genes in indoor dust and sewers, Legionella in the air, and water treatment. Microbes on the floor Longer Contact Times Increase Cross-Contamination of Enterobacter aerogenes from Surfaces to Food — Robyn C. Miranda — Applied and Environmental Microbiology ($25 for 1 day) Bacterial cross-contamination from surfaces to food can …

New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, August 27, 2016

Microbes found in ambulances Not surprisingly, bacteria could be detected after swabbing surfaces in ambulances. Detection and characterization of surface microbial contamination in emergency ambulances – Aketza Varona-Barquin – American Journal of Infection Control ($35.95) A cross-sectional study was performed in 10 emergency basic life support ambulances operating in Bilbao, Spain, to assess surface bacterial …

New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, August 20, 2016

Microbes indoors Effects of Microbial Aerosol in Poultry House on Meat Ducks’ Immune Function – Guanliu Yu – Frontiers in Microbiology (OA) The aim of this study was to evaluate effects of microbial aerosols on immune function of ducks and shed light on the establishment of microbial aerosol concentration standards for poultry. A total of 1800 …

Journal Club: Antibiotic Resistance Higher in Airborne Bacteria Around Conventional Cattle Farms

This recently published closed access paper by Sancheza, et al claims that levels of antibiotic resistance genes and antibiotic resistant bacteria are higher in outdoor air samples downwind of conventional cattle farms compared to organic cattle farms as shown with 3 different methods. This comes as little surprise, as it wasn’t until December 2013 that the …

A Musing on Microbial Community Disruptions

In light of the Cold Fire that started yesterday evening in the central valley of California, I started to wonder,  ‘what happens to microbes?!’ I found myself in a literature click hole of fantastic papers that studied how fire impacted soil microbial communities in several different ecosystems. What surprised me most is how fast researchers …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, June 12, 2016

Microbes in the house Fungal and bacterial growth in floor dust at elevated relative humidity levels — Karen C. Dannemiller — Indoor Air ($6 to rent, $38 to own) Under sustained, elevated building moisture conditions, bacterial and fungal growth occurs. The goal of this study was to characterize microbial growth in floor dust at variable …

Citizen Microbiology Book Chapter: Lessons Learned

Back in September 2014 I was invited to write a book chapter on citizen science in microbiology.  After several iterations of the book, the chapter, and the licensing agreement here is the final version.  The book came out yesterday, here’s a link to the entire book on Amazon (“The Rightful Place of Science: Citizen Science“)  …

Science Friday on New Superbugs

As posted in this blog last week, an article was published in the ASM Journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy on May 26 that describes the first discovery in the United States of mcr-1 gene, responsible for colistin resistance, in E. coli in a patient with a urinary tract infection. Colistin is considered an antibiotic of last resort because, …

Microbiology of the Built Environment: Day 2

Here’s my report from Day 2 of the Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference in Boulder… the 5th annual and last of its kind!  Storify of the tweets from the day below. The opening talk on Day 2 was by Martin Taubel from the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland, “Of house dust and …

Global Grand Challenges projects on antimicrobial resistance

The winners of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Grand Challenges Round 16 were announced recently. Among the challenge topics included in this round of competition was Novel Approaches to Characterizing and Tracking the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance. The Gates Foundation made six awards in this topic area: Christopher Mason of Cornell University (USA) will generate a global …