Quantitative evaluation of bacteria released by bathers in a marine water.

Enterococci, a common fecal indicator, and Staphylococcus aureus, a common skin pathogen, can be shed by bathers affecting the quality of recreational waters and resulting in possible human health impacts. Due to limited information available concerning human shedding of these microbes, this study focused on estimating the amounts of enterococci and S. aureus shed by bathers directly off their skin and indirectly via sand adhered to skin.

Reagentless detection and classification of individual bioaerosol particles in seconds.

The rapid chemical analysis of individual cells is an analytical capability that will profoundly impact many fields including bioaerosol detection for biodefense and cellular diagnostics for clinical medicine. This article describes a mass spectrometry-based analytical technique for the real-time and reagentless characterization of individual airborne cells without sample preparation. We characterize the mass spectral signature of individual Bacillus spores and demonstrate the ability to distinguish two Bacillus spore species, B.