Berkeley Lab Technology Could Help Areas Flooded by Katrina

DNA ‘Phylochip’ Scans for Thousands of Disease-Causing Microbes
The flood waters that filled the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are now heavily populated with bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing microbes that could pose a grave risk to residents long after the waters have been cleared. An experimental technology developed by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) holds promise for use in situations like this to provide a comprehensive picture of bacterial presence in the air, soil and water and enable authorities to track how that presence changes over time.