New papers on microbiology of the built environment, December 12, 2015

Here is a new set of papers that came out in the past week(s) that I posted at MicrobiomeDigest, but that I also wanted to share here. Three of these papers are from BMC’s Microbiome journal, which recently has published several other built environment microbiology papers, so it’s worth checking out. Microbes in buildings Moisture …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, November 30, 2015

A selection of new papers of interest for this readership, collected from my blog MicrobiomeDigest: Microbes in the air Evaluation of the potential for virus dispersal during hand drying: a comparison of three methods – Patrick T. Kimmitt, Keith F. Redway – Journal of Applied Microbiology ($$) Aims: To use a MS2 bacteriophage model to compare three …

Antibiotic resistance genes in “black gold”

Sometimes efforts to be environmentally friendly can give rise to microbial challenges. This was nicely described by Katie Dahlhausen in her recent post about water quality about green buildings. Other examples include observations that Legionella pneumophila can be contracted from shower heads and the use of low flow shower heads and lower water temperatures may increase its transmission. Likewise, wastewater (e.g., Environmental and …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, October 30, 2015

The latest papers on microbiome of buildings and other objects used by humans. Today, we have microbiomes of water reservoirs and plumbing pipes, Brazilian money notes, an Italian cheese factory, and a brewery. For more microbiome papers from other sources (both human-associated or environmental), check out my daily blog MicrobiomeDigest.com. Impact of Water Chemistry, Pipe …

Recent papers on microbiology of the built environment: Microbes in pipes

New papers on microbes in water treatment plants and pipes. Microbes in pipes Revealing the microbial community structure of clogging materials in dewatering wells differing in physico-chemical parameters in an open-cast mining area – Juanjuan Wang – Water Research Iron rich deposits cause clogging the pumps and pipes of dewatering wells in open-cast mines, interfering …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, September 6, 2015

Here are the microbiology of the built environment papers that were already featured on my MicrobiomeDigest blog this week, all in one handy edition. The first paper is about dust, so Siouxsie & The Banshees – Cities In Dust would match perfectly. The ecology of microscopic life in household dust – Albert Barberán – Proceedings B …

New papers and articles on microbiology of the built environment, August 17, 2015

Science papers about mosquitoes in urban parks and purses as fomites, and popular press articles about dirty menus in restaurants and filtering bacteria with book pages. Here is a good song to match the latter two: Turn the Page by Metallica. Diversity and abundance of mosquitoes (Diptera:Culicidae) in an urban park: Larval habitats and temporal variation – Antônio …

Recent Papers on microbiology of the built environment, August 3, 2015

Recent papers about microbiology of the built environment and water treatment. Two of them are about fish, so here is a 70s classic rock song in a modern version, to go with this post: Barracuda by Heart and Fergie. Open Access: Temporal and Spatial Stability of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Bacteria in Aquarium Biofilters –  Bagchi, Siegfried E. Vlaeminck, …

“Drinking water microbiology – from measurement to management”

Finally got around to reading this paper “Drinking water microbiology – from measurement to management”.  Seems like the number of culture-independent studies on drinking water keeps going up, it’s been a popular blog topic here in the last year.  This review paper does a good job of summarizing the current state of knowledge, even including …

Managing microbial migrations in drinking water systems.

Every day, diverse microbial communities with cell levels of 106-108 cells/liter migrate from drinking water treatment plants through a complex network of pipes in drinking water distribution systems and into our built environment. Managing this mass migration is critical from multiple perspectives. Some of these microorganisms can make consumers ill, some can contribute to pipe …