Variations of anthropogenic CO2 in urban area deduced by radiocarbon concentration in modern tree rings

Radiocarbon concentration in the atmosphere is significantly lower in areas where man-made emissions of carbon dioxide occur. This phenomenon is known as Suess effect, and is caused by the contamination of clean air with non-radioactive carbon from fossil fuel combustion. The effect is more strongly observed in industrial and densely populated urban areas. Measurements of carbon isotope concentrations in a study area can be compared to those from areas of clear air in order to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuel combustion by using a simple mathematical model. This can be calculated using the simple mathematical model. The result of the mathematical model followed in this study suggests that the use of annual rings of trees to obtain the secular variations of ¹⁴C concentration of atmospheric CO₂ can be useful and efficient for environmental monitoring and modeling of the carbon distribution in local scale.     

Prenatal diagnosis of a mosaic supernumerary marker iso (8p) (tetrasomy 8p): discordance between chorionic villi culture and amniotic fluid karyotypes

We describe the first case of mosaic supernumerary marker iso (8p) displaying a karyotype discordance between chorionic villi (CV) and amniotic fluid (AF) cultures during prenatal cytogenetic diagnosis. In the first trimester, cytogenetic analysis after chorionic villi sampling (CVS) was normal in all metaphases in the short-term cytotrophoblast cell culture, but an undefined supernumerary marker was detected in 60% of mesenchymal cells in the long-term CV culture. Informed of the mosaicism, the couple selected amniotic fluid sampling as a second-trimester confirmatory diagnostic procedure. The supernumerary marker was absent in all of the 25 available AF cells metaphases. The prospective parents received genetic counselling and were informed that the discordance could be interpreted as a placental confined mosaicism or as a true foetal mosaicism with low percentage of affected cells. The couple opted to continue the pregnancy. In the second month of life, the child had abnormal development with severe psychomotor delay and frequent episodes of epilepsy. Postnatal cytogenetic extensive re-evaluation discovered that the previously detected supernumerary marker was indeed an isochromosome (8p) rearrangement present at low frequency in 5% of the blood lymphocytes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Greenhouse gas fluxes and mitigation potential for managed lands in the Russian Federation

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - This work aims to assess the dynamics of net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, as well as analyse the mitigation potential for...