OK. So money has microbes on it. Not surprising. And when people find out such information they frequently go overboard in the germophobia. See for example these stories from over the years 1999: Filthy Lucre – Paper Money As A Vector Of Disease 2010: Dirty money 1: Expect germs 2010: How Bad Are Germs on Money 2012: …
A few years ago I wrote a post where I tried to compile a list of names of reporters who did a good job on stories on microbiology related topics. Source: The Tree of Life: Compiling a list of reporters who cover #microbiology stories well; suggestions wanted Well, I would like to revisit that. So here …
Really interesting and distressing story in the New York Times a few days about: A Luxury Liner Docks and the Countdowns On by Jad Mouawad. So many parts of this story have microbe-themed angles. Some interesting tidbits (quoted from the story) A treatment system handles all the wastewater generated by the passengers and crew. That system, which …
I. Introduction There is an oft-cited hierarchy for data, wherein ideally it should flow: Data –>Information –>Knowledge –>Wisdom (DIKW). Just because you have data, it takes some processing to get quality information, and even good information is not necessarily knowledge, and knowledge often requires context or application to become wisdom. For example, you could have …
It seems that any time a holiday comes around in the US, the press starts to ramp up the writing of stories about evil microbes that are lurking all around us. And Halloween appears to be no exception. I am now planning on referring to this attitude as “microbophobia” rather than “germophobia” because to some …
OK. I know. Microbes are everywhere. And so we need to get away from sensationalizing another study of “germs” in some environment. But in this case, I confess, I was a bit grossed out: “Kiddie pools are hotspots of bacteria, expert says” from the Visalia Times. A version of the story is also on Medline …
Just a quick post — some may find this of interest: ‘Dirty’ air in subdivided flats pose health hazards | South China Morning Post. It reports on a study (not quite sure where it was published, if it was) about bacterial counts from air samples from subdivided living units in Hong Kong public housing. And many …
Just a quick link fest here. Lots of buzz going around about various microbiology of the built environment papers. Here are some news stories / blog posts of relevance: Brooke Borel at PopSci: Building Design Influences Bacterial Growth | Popular Science. Me on microBEnet: Studying — not wantonly killing — the microbes around us and the rise …
Wow. Jessica Green is certainly helping spread the word about microbes in buildings. There is an article in smartplanet from Aug 6 about her work: Ecologists, designers explore new ‘architecture-biology interface’ | SmartPlanet. The article discusses her recent Ted talk and some of her work at the BioBE Center.
Just a quick one here. The Google News archive has all sorts of interesting stuff in there. Much of it is not fully free / in the open but it is still interesting. For example, – check out this article reporting the first association of a bacterial association with “Legion disease”: St. Petersburg Times – Google …