For those doing microbial diversity studies, analysis of rRNA genes via PCR is still a fundamental tool. And thankfully many people keep maintaining various databases and tools for people to use to carry out analysis of rRNA data. Here are some new papers of relevance: The SILVA and “All-species Living Tree Project (LTP)” taxonomic frameworks. …
Nothing to add here. Really the title of this story says it all… I’ve been hoping to post more often about food microbiology so here we go.
Nice new paper from Karen Dannemiller et al. (the senior author is Jordan Peccia from Yale): Citation: Dannemiller, K. C., Lang-Yona, N., Yamamoto, N., Rudich, Y., & Peccia, J. (2013). Combining Real-Time PCR and Next-Generation DNA Sequencing to Provide Quantitative Comparisons of Fungal Aerosol Populations. Atmospheric Environment in Press. The abstract is copied below. Basically, they …
Nice video from NPR about the human microbiome that is worth taking a look at
OK – I confess. I have worked on microbiology of the built environment now for 4+ years and I have never thought about what might be found on library books. Never. And then I was pointed to this: Fifty Shades of Grey goes viral — literally | Books | theguardian.com. And I am now intrigued (not …
We try to make sure that our discussions of the microbiology of the “built environment” are very inclusive. That means in addition to the obvious houses and office buildings we’ve talked about plumbing systems, planes, trains, etc. But this story is certainly the first time I’ve thought about what is dwelling inside of musical instruments. …
Just a quick post to point out an article on phys.org talking about Amy Pruden’s fascinating work on probiotics for plumbing. Read her microBEnet post about the work here and a related post by Kyle Bibby here. From the phys.org article: “We believe this microbiome can be harnessed to control opportunistic pathogens,” Pruden said. For …
A nice little video featuring Jenna and Jonathan talking about Project MERCCURI:
Paula Olsiewski recently pointed us to this article entitled “Contamination of Public Buses with MRSA in Lisbon, Portugal: A Possible Transmission Route of Major MRSA Clones within the Community.” Basically the authors found nosocomial (hospital-acquired) strains of MRSA on a number of public buses and conclude: MRSA contamination of public transport and the transfer of …
The Today Show did a follow up piece after we identified a couple of bacteria collected on their set, one of which will go up to the International Space Station in February (see the first piece here). I tried to craft the message here that microbes are everywhere and most of them are harmless or …