The two greatest scientific breakthroughs of twentieth century, if we measure by increased life expectancy, were improvements in our ability to kill microorganisms (drinking water disinfection and the invention of antibiotics). Perhaps as a remnant of these advances, it seems to me that the average citizen has a largely abiotic mindset, seeing microorganisms as agents …
Hats off to Tuesday’s New York Times article, “A Quest for Even Safer Drinking Water,” for daring to bring microbiology to the people. The article sheds light several key reasons we can no longer afford to ignore the vast microbial diversity that exists within the drinking water environment, among them are opportunistic pathogens and antibiotic …
Very interesting article by Peter Andrey Smith: A Quest for Even Safer Drinking Water – NYTimes.com. It tells the tale of Norm Pace and his lab’s field work to study the microbial diversity of municipal drinking water systems. The work is part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program on Microbiology of the Built Environment and …
This new paper might fall under the category of “things you don’t want to think about.” After reading this study by Buse et al., I now ponder what’s in my drinking water every time I fill up a glass from the tap: Buse HY, Lu J, Struewing IT, Ashbolt NJ. (2013) Eukaryotic diversity in premise …
Definitely worth a look for those interested in water systems and in microbiology of the built environment: Microbes in Pipes: The Microbiology of the Water Distribution System, January 2013. From the American Academy of Microbiology.
All you germaphobes, you might not want to read this: Boosting bacteria in drinking water may improve health – health – 10 August 2012 – New Scientist. Or the post here at the microBEnet blog a few days ago from David Coil about this same topic. The article discusses a paper from Lutgarde Raskin’s group at …
A quick post here on something that’s about as close to my pet topic of “probiotics for buildings” as I’ve ever seen. This group works on wastewater treatment, starting with the fact that a lot of bacteria makes it from the filtration process into drinking water. They studied the “drinking water microbiome” in a treatment …
Beyond recent posts about Legionella, we don’t talk a lot about the built environment of municipal water systems, although Norm Pace and his group at CU Boulder have done extensive work on the topic in recent years. Therefore I thought I’d better point to this study, published a couple of weeks ago in Environmental Health …