New Sloan-funded program in the built environment: Microbial diversity in 1,000 homes across the United States

Another just-approved project in the built environment.   This project led by Noah Fierer (CU Boulder), Shelly Miller (CU Boulder) and Rob Dunn (North Carolina State) will look at the factors structuring bacterial and fungal diversity in 1,000 homes across the United States. We propose the first continental-scale study testing how and why house-associated microbial communities …

Yes, Virginia, you “emit” microbes when you walk into a room

Glad to see this paper on emission of bacteria by people is now available under Wiley’s “Open Access” option: Size-resolved emission rates of airborne bacteria and fungi in an occupied classroom – Qian – 2012 I am particularly glad since this one got a lot of media coverage and I think it is VERY important for …

“Microbial Home” by Philips takes a futuristic, holistic, positive look at microbes in the home

As with our recent musings on probiotics for buildings, sometimes it’s fun and productive to think about the distant future in the microbiology of the built environment. And Royal Philips Electronics (Netherlands) has done just that with their futuristic “Microbial Home” project.  I’m not saying every one of their ideas will work, or that I’m …

A bit about IM-BOL: The Indoor Mycota Barcode of Life for #microBEnet

Just got a nice description of the IM-BOL “Indoor Mycota Barcode of Life” project from the PI Keith Seifert.  This is one of the newly funded projects that are part of the Sloan Foundation’s Indoor Environment program.  I am posting the description on microBEnet here: https://www.microbe.net/im-bol-the-indoor-mycota-barcode-of-life/.  We are working on having pages for each of the …

Postdoctoral fellowships in fungal taxonomy and genomics; one focused on fungi from dust #microBEnet

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS IN FUNGAL TAXONOMY AND GENOMICS. Keith Seifert is looking for two post-docs, one interested in the identification of microfungi, and the other interested in participating in a genome project, for two-year positions in Ottawa, Canada. The first position is funded by the A.P. Sloan Foundation. A large and diverse collection of 6000-7000 strains isolated by …

Is your dishwasher trying to kill you? Maybe, but no evidence of that from this work

A new paper coming out in the journal Fungal Biology is getting a lot of press.  The paper is: Dishwashers — A man-made ecological niche accommodating human opportunistic fungal pathogens Normally, I try to avoid writing up blog posts relating to papers that are not at least freely available online so that anyone out there can …

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.

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 …