More on microbes and art: Mold attack on frescoes and stone walls of Gradac monastery

For those interested in microbes and art, here is an article for you: Mold attack on frescoes and stone walls of Gradac monastery The PDF of the article is available here. Basically they looked at biofilms and molds on stone frescoes because of the possibility that they may lead to deterioration of the frescoes.

Forget about snakes on a plane – how about viruses on a plane? #flu #influenza

Interesting new article in Time Magazine’s healthland: A New Study Shows That Sitting Close to a Sick Person on a Flight Can Make You Sick – – TIME Healthland. The article is based on a new paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases: Transmission of Influenza on International Flights, May 2009 which basically examines transmission dynamics of flu within …

Fun w/ Google Scholar: found interesting Master’s thesis on airborne microbes and biosolids

A potentially very interesting master’s thesis has just shown up in my weekly automated searches of Google Scholar: OhioLINK ETD: Lindelof, Kara. The work is titled “Contribution of Biosolids-derived Bioaerosols to the Airborne Microbial Population” and it is by Kara Lidelof at the University of Toledo.  And it is available for free (they say Open Access …

New report on climate change and possible effects on the indoor environment, particularly green buildings

During Indoor Air 2011 there was a lot of buzz about this report which came out halfway through the meeting.  The full title is “Climate Change, the Indoor Environment, and Health (2011)”. This 246-page report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Acadamies goes into great detail about the various ways that climate change …

Biogeography of molds in homes in the US #ERMI; relevant to #IndoorAir2011; #Standards

There is an interesting new (and open access) paper out: Geographic Distribution of Environmental Relative Moldiness Index Molds in USA Homes.  Before the Indoor Air 2011 meeting I just returned from, I would not have understood as much of what is discussed in the paper as I do now.  But I think the paper does a …

New books coming out on #metagenomics; >130 chapters; but not TMI

For those interested in microbial diversity and/or metagenomics there are two volumes that are coming out soon that are of interest: Handbook of Molecular Microbial Ecology I: Metagenomics and Complementary Approaches. Handbook of Molecular Microbial Ecology II: Metagenomics in Different Habitats Edited by Frans J. de Bruijn these two volumes are the most comprehensive coverage …

Where is metagenomic analysis heading? Hopefully in directions suggested in this paper.

Just a quick post here.  I have been reading this paper: Toward molecular trait-based ecology through integration of biogeochemical, geographical and metagenomic data by Jeroen Raes et al. in Molecular Systems Biology.  This integration they try to pull off in the paper is to me where we need to move as a field (i.e., microbial …

From the ASM mBio blog mBiosphere: Strep pneumoniae survival on surfaces

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) is really doing a great job of moving into new forms of science communication.  For example, ASM has a relatively new journal mBIO that is sort of akin to PLoS One – it is an open access and relatively rapid publication journal.  And mBIO is starting to take off. …

A conference abstract that leaves me wanting more: microbes in the indoor air of high speed trains

Found a meeting abstract that intrigued me:Distribution of Airborne Bacteria and Fungi in the Korean High Speed Train Indoor.  The abstract is below: Background/Aims: It is known that the airborne bacteria and fungi can be the cause of a variety of infectious diseases as well as allergic and toxic effects. The purpose of this study …