Microbes from the built environment finally head to space, #spacemicrobes

After 1.5 years of collection events, culturing, identification, and selection of candidates our space microbes experiment finally is in orbit.  Our 48 microbes, collected from a variety of built environments on earth, are now whipping around the planet.  The rocket took off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral at 3:25pm EST yesterday.  In a …

Educator Guide for Project MERCCURI (#spacemicrobes)

From the start, Project MERCCURI has involved classrooms and students in the process of citizen science.  Many of our samples were collected by students and the microbes going into space from JPL were voted on by a number of high-school classrooms. Now we have a “Project MERCCURI Educator’s Guide” which contains a detailed overview of …

Studying – not wantonly killing – the microbes around us and the rise of the “microbiology of the built environment”

Imagine you have a camera with a special “anti-macro” lens.  This lens scrubs from any image all plants and animals and other “macro” organisms.  And this lens also highlights  the remaining living things – the microorganisms – anywhere in the frame (including those that were in or on the macro organisms removed from the image). …

Methinks the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could use a microbial ecologist on staph staff

ESPN reports that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers management has arranged to have one of their facilities “treated” due to presence of MRSA: Tampa Bay Buccaneers treat facility to prevent MRSA outbreak – ESPN.  Seems like this would be a good case study for a team of microbial ecologists with experience in sporting facilities.  Calling Project MERCCURI. …