Like a cat on a hot tin roof: the microbiome of solar panels

When we think of the built environment, we usually only include the indoor surfaces and air. A new study (preprint) posted last week on BioRxiv went through the roof, and looked at the microbes living on solar panels. A highly diverse, desert-like microbial biocenosis on solar panels in a Mediterranean city – Pedro Dorado-Morales, Cristina Vilanova, Juli …

Interesting news story by @MatthewHerper in @Forbes on the @IonTorrent DNA sequencing system #microBEnet

DNA sequencing technology, a key tool in characterizing microbes in the environment, just keeps getting cheaper and easier.  Right now there are some really nice technologies out there in machines from Illumina/Solexa, Roche/454 and ABI.  And coming on the horizon are some new systems that possibly will be either “better” in some way or allow …