BLACKSBURG, Va., March 26 -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University issued the following news release:
New research from Virginia Tech digs deeper into American soil to find where soil-borne pathogens may be hiding and how they spread.
Recently published in GeoHealth, the study examined soil samples from across the United States to identify where disease-causing microbes occur and how environmental conditions may influence human exposure. The study represents one of the first to examine natural reservoirs of pathogen communities in soil at a national scale.
"At the most basic level, bacteria that can make us sick can naturally exist in soil," said Emily Matthews, a Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering and lea...