Human space exploration beyond Earth and Moon is a declared goal of NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and other space-faring agencies, with human Mars mission envisioned in the near future. One of the major challenges of the mission is protecting the human crew from illness and infection caused by harmful biological contaminants. To evaluate these challenges in …
Just a quick post here that all the information (including slides and videos) from a really interesting CASIS sponsored workshop are online. The topic relates to the most extreme built environment to date… the International Space Station. The workshop was called “Exploring the Microbiome/Immunome and Disease on the International Space Station” and took place back …
Just a quick post about the fact that researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are sending radiation resistant (even radiation-loving) fungi for some experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). They are looking for changes that occur in microgravity after growth for 14 days on the ISS with respect to ground control strains. Very …
Our latest Project MERCCURI paper came out last week and so I figured I’d do a quick post about it here since it’s a good fit for the microbiology of the built environment. In short, we collected a number of bacterial strains from built environments on earth and sent them to the space station to …
Your weekly update of the literature on microbes of the built environment sensu lato. Microbes in the house Rhinitis, Ocular, Throat and Dermal Symptoms, Headache and Tiredness among Students in Schools from Johor Bahru, Malaysia: Associations with Fungal DNA and Mycotoxins in Classroom Dust – Dan Norbäck – PLOS ONE (OA) There are few studies …
New papers from the past week on the interactions between humans, buildings, and microbes. Microbes in buildings Comprehensive analysis of the skin fungal microbiota of astronauts during a half-year stay at the International Space Station – Takashi Sugita – Medical Mycology ($$) The International Space Station (ISS) is a huge manned construct located approximately 400 km …