New papers on microbiology of the built environment, February 6, 2016

Your weekly update of the literature on microbes of the built environment sensu lato. Microbes in the house Rhinitis, Ocular, Throat and Dermal Symptoms, Headache and Tiredness among Students in Schools from Johor Bahru, Malaysia: Associations with Fungal DNA and Mycotoxins in Classroom Dust – Dan Norbäck – PLOS ONE (OA) There are few studies …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, January 18, 2016

New papers from the past week on the interactions between humans, buildings, and microbes. Microbes in buildings  Comprehensive analysis of the skin fungal microbiota of astronauts during a half-year stay at the International Space Station – Takashi Sugita – Medical Mycology ($$) The International Space Station (ISS) is a huge manned construct located approximately 400 km …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, November 15, 2015

Here are some new papers of interest. Separate treatment of hospital and urban wastewaters: A real scale comparison of effluents and their effect on microbial communities – Teofana Chonova, François Keck, Jérôme Labanowski, Bernard Montuelle, Frédéric Rimet, Agnès Bouchez – Science of the Total Environment (not OA) Hospital wastewaters (HWW) contain wider spectrum and higher quantity of pharmaceuticals …

And the winners of the #spacemicrobes Microbial Playoffs are…

NOTE (3-12-15):  THESE RESULTS ARE INCORRECT.   We have left them here for comparison.   A blog post describing the problem is here and the correct information can be found here. We’ve finished analyzing all the data from the “Microbial Playoffs” part of Project MERCCURI (described here).   Each microbe that was chosen to fly to the International …

The Astronaut Microbiome

The human microbiome and microbes in space are two of the sexiest topics in microbiology today. Together they have attracted the attention of the J. Craig Venter Institute. Hernan Lorenzi is leading a team to study how the composition of the human microbiome changes during long term space exploration. They will be analyzing the microbiome of …