A new, and scary, fungus among us #MoBE #Candida

Fascinating, scary and really important read from Maryn McKenna in Wired: The Strange and Curious Case of the Deadly Superbug Yeast By the normal standards of outbreak, Candida auris signals a mind-bending shift—and it’s forcing researchers draw on some of medicine’s oldest practices to rethink treatment.   The article tells the tale of Candida auris a fungus that …

New #MoBE paper of interest: Exploring temporal patterns of bacterial and fungal DNA accumulation on a ventilation system filter 

This new #OpenAccess paper may be of interest to those out there thinking about microbes in the built environment. : Luhung I, Wu Y, Xu S, Yamamoto N, Wei-Chung Chang V, Nazaroff WW (2018) Exploring temporal patterns of bacterial and fungal DNA accumulation on a ventilation system filter for a Singapore university library. PLoS ONE …

Cool exhibit at Harvard: “Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight.”

Neat article in the Harvard Gazette about an awesome-sounding exhibit, “Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight.”.  Put together by Roberto Kolter and Scott Chimileski, the exhibit highlights microbial life… particularly the discoveries of microbial ecology over the last couple of decades.  Looks like a cool blend of science and art.

Fungi for self-healing concrete

So I’d heard about “self-healing” concrete using chemicals that react with water to seal cracks, I’ve even blogged about self-healing concrete using bacteria embedded into the concrete (back in 2011).  And then yesterday I came across research talking about using fungi for this purpose.   Regardless of which method ends up working, I think these are …

The Bath Toy Microbiome

I just got pointed to this article today “Ugly Ducklings – the dark side of plastic materials in contact with potable water“, along with the accompanying commentary “About duck, pipes, and microbiomes“.  I think this is a fascinating study for a few reasons.  Firstly, like probably most parents, I observed and wondered about the biofilms …

Two new papers exploring the characteristics of infant microbial exposures

Early-life microbial exposure has been recognized to have a crucial role in immune development. Exposure in the actual infant breathing zone (BZ), influenced by the resuspension of floor dust, however, is little explored. Two recently published papers tackle this issue by assessing infant exposure to biological particulate matter (fluorescent biological aerosol particles, FBAPs) and microbial …

New paper: Taxonomic annotation of public fungal ITS sequences from the built environment – a report from an April 10–11, 2017 workshop (Aberdeen, UK)

The report (and the data) from our Sloan-funded taxonomic annotation workshop on fungi in the built environment was just published in MycoKeys: https://mycokeys.pensoft.net/article/20887/list/4/ Abstract Recent DNA-based studies have shown that the built environment is surprisingly rich in fungi. These indoor fungi – whether transient visitors or more persistent residents – may hold clues to the rising …