Happy Mother’s Day! Here are your new papers on microbes of the built environment. Microbes in the house Assessment of Bacterial Communities in Thirteen Species of Laboratory-Cultured Domestic Mites (Acari: Acaridida) – Jan Hubert – Journal of Economic Entomology (WTH $39 for 1 day) House dust mites (HDMs) and stored-product mites (SPMs) of various species …
This article by Beth Mole is a fairly detailed summary of recent research on the effects of antimicrobial soaps. As we have mentioned before on microBEnet, antimicrobials increase resistance in the environment, wildlife, and people. In addition, the soaps are often not used for long enough to confer a benefit. The article particularly focuses on triclosan and triclocarban, …
In the wake of the Obama administration’s plan to decrease antibiotic usage in livestock, farmers are now trying to find alternatives that have fewer ecological and human health impacts. In an effort to reduce reliance on antibiotics, researchers at Iowa State University are testing if Lactobacillus species found in yogurt might have a similar health effect on livestock as …
Your weekly update with new papers on the microbiology of the built environment, and the effect of humans on microbial communities in a broader sense. Microbes in the house Microbial analyses of airborne dust collected from dormitory rooms predict the sex of occupants – Julia C Luongo – Indoor Air ($38 for PDF, $6 to …
Your weekend update: Microbes and drinking water Diversity of ribosomal 16S DNA- and RNA-based bacterial community in an office building drinking water system – Jenni Inkinen – Journal of Applied Microbiology (See also their 2014 Water Research paper about same system) Next-generation sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA genes (rDNA) and ribosomal RNA (rRNA) was used to characterize …
There is a new paper in AEM of interest: Characterization of biofilms developing on hospital shower hoses and implications for nosocomial infections by Maria J. Soto-Giron, Luis M. Rodriguez, Chengwei Luob, Michael Elkd, Hodon Ryu, Jill Hoelle, Jorge W. Santo Domingo and Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis They used 16S rRNA gene sequencing of cultured isolates, and metagenomic sequencing, to characterize the microbes living in hospital shower hoses. …
Here at microBEnet we are big fans of citizen science… focusing not surprisingly on citizen microbiology projects. We’ve hosted several workshops and conference sessions on the topic as well as running a couple of projects ourselves. Personally I think engaging people through the process of actually doing science is incredibly valuable and I hope the …
The Los Angeles Times posted an article yesterday on “Deadly superbugs from hospitals get stronger in the sewers and could end up in the Pacific Ocean”. While there is some truth to the matter, it is necessary to approach it with some skepticism. It is well known that antibiotic resistant bacteria are extremely prevalent in …
There are a few news articles that have been coming out (like this one) that draw attention to this recently published paper in ISME Journal, entitled “Iron availability shapes the evolution of bacteriocin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” The big picture of the paper was to study how resistance evolves and to explore the effectiveness of …
There are a bunch of stories starting to come out based on some press and paper releases from the CDC yesterday. One that seems well done is this from CIDRAP: CDC notes progress, threat regarding hospital superbugs | CIDRAP. Today’s CDC report focused on the six most concerning antibiotic-resistant bacteria and found better progress against them …