So this was a very interesting paper to be involved in. On the one hand all our lab really did was to facilitate some genome sequencing and help with the assemblies, validation of those assemblies, and some genomics work. Standard fare for the lab. But… these were over 100 Legionella pneumophila isolates collected from either …
A few days ago I posted the first few lines of an adaptation of a poem: The love song of J. Romaine Lettuce: Lettuce go then, E. coli, While evenly spread out your counts are high Make a patient etherized upon a table; Lettuce go, through certain half-soiled sheets, The muttering retweets … I did …
So yesterday morning, Jonathan Eisen and myself headed down to Antioch, CA to sample a pilot wastewater treatment facility. In a couple of hours I went from knowing literally nothing about the process to having some handle on at least the latter stages. Pretty cool microbiology. As I understand the problem at hand, conventional wastewater …
A recent article in Slate basically said that it is safe to drink most stream water in the backcountry without filtering it. Turns out, this is not true. A few articles have come out discussing issues with the science reported in the Slate article. This one by Christie Wilcox is really good and worth a …
This is a pretty big deal. Nick Lyon is the highest-ranking state official to be charged in the crisis. Source: Flint Water Crisis: Michigan Health Chief Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter : NPR The director of the Department of HHS in Michigan, Nick Lyon, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in relation to the Flint, MI …
This new paper may be of interest: Source: Disparate Antibiotic Resistance Gene Quantities Revealed across 4 Major Cities in California: A Survey in Drinking Water, Air, and Soil at 24 Public Parks – ACS Omega (ACS Publications) Abstract: Widespread prevalence of multidrug and pandrug-resistant bacteria has prompted substantial concern over the global dissemination of antibiotic …
Just a quick post here. There is a “special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).” that may be of interest. The issue is on “Emerging Aquatic Microbial and Chemical Contaminants of Concern and Their Impact on Human Health” and it currently has seven papers and apparently more coming. A brief …
Just found out via Twitter about a cool new grant that was awarded: Congrats to Kyle Bibby @kylejbibby on this NSF grant!#microbenet @SloanFoundation https://t.co/x1slHgygdT — Paula Olsiewski (@polsiewski) March 1, 2017 Through a five-year, $500,000 CAREEER Award from the National Science Foundation, a civil and environmental engineering research group at the University of Pittsburgh’s …
Just got this from the a representative of the National Academy of Sciences who asked me to post here. UPDATED June 13, 2017 (based on email from NAS) Scope of work: An ad hoc committee of The National Academies will review the state of science with respect to Legionella contamination of water systems and issue …
I know – I know – it is all the rage right now to lament how we are not getting exposed to enough microbes and how that is damaging our immune system and such. And certainly, that is partly true. And we are definitely overusing antimicrobials in all sorts of situations (e.g., see my posts …