Jessica Green: Are we filtering the wrong microbes?

http://www.ted.com Should we keep the outdoors out of hospitals? Ecologist and TED Fellow Jessica Green has found that mechanical ventilation does get rid of many types of microbes, but the wrong kinds: the ones left in the hospital are much more likely to be pathogens.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• TED
• TEDTalks
• TEDGlobal
• TEDFellows
• Jessica Green
• Health
• Microbiology
• Science
• hostpitals
• microbes
• pathogens
• ventilation
• mechanical ventilation
• ecology
• filter
• filtering
• buildings

[Vortex42]

@Digitized Self - If you can't understand that graph, I can't help you. It's a small sample, but it leads to a very clear and obvious conclusion. Larger data set? Yes - no problem - worth doing... But even this small test showed a working system. There were enough samples done to see a clear stratification on the axes, dependent on the altered factor in each sample.

[kikosemmek]

@DigitizedSelf agreed. However I typically give TED the benefit of the doubt when it comes to me wanting more data and more clarification, because the prestige involved in just getting to be in that conference tells you that the research must have been great to start with. It's maybe that she simply did not have the time allocated to her for a more full presentation or w/e. It's always good to look up these people's names regardless :)

[rodswebdesign]

This is a great video

[SuperDogbrown]

love the work here

[sprattysy]

interesting video and very informative

[MrJonkelp]

love the video really good

[Sic7777]

Houses made of yoghurt. Just what I always needed.

[aarongrooves]

I felt like she was just getting started, then it ended. I really wanted to hear more. How disappointing.

[Eucalypticus]

discussion has gone a long way otherwise too. You seem an interesting and likeable person, so this was not distasteful. Take care.

[Eucalypticus]

The reason I began commenting is because I felt that a derisive comment, whose effect was amplified by others, unjustly called her work into question. Worse yet, those who were not familiar with mathematical analyses might not question this in the slightest and take for granted that her work was flawed. I think a greater than 10% dislike count at this point would be 'correlated' to this.

These were my motives. The comment is gone. This..

[Eucalypticus]

..and/or an analysis of statistical significance. While useful, they would not make or break the greater purpose of this presentation. The only purpose of introducing TD is to support the idea that these bacteria would not spontaneously organize themselves, that other causality exists, and that her conclusion is not at all unreasonable. The work is likely published. It is reasonable to assume that work of this caliber did not use methods that would introduce gross uncertainties in measurement.