Keep swimming but stop peeing in the pools

正Swimming is excellent exercise and offers many health benefits.However,the"chlorine smell"in swimming pools may be a turn-off for some people.Although this smell is often thought to be of chlorine,it actually comes from volatile compounds that are produced from unintended reactions between disinfectants(e.g.,chlorine)and organic matter in     

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the...     

Ecotoxicity of oil sludges and residuals from their washing with surfactants: soil dehydrogenase and ryegrass germination tests

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Oil sludge washing (OSW) with surfactants and co-solvents is used to recover the oil, and this process leaves some residuals (sediments and surfactant...     

Cytotoxicity,redox and immune status in African catfish,Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) and its analogues

The objective of the study was to determine the comparative toxicities and immune dysfunction in the African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) and its two analogues: bisphenol AP (BPAP) and bisphenol P (BPP). Juveniles of C. gariepinus were exposed to sublethal concentrations (70 and 140 μg/L) of BPA, BPAP and BPP for 7, 14 or 21 days after which various endpoints which are indicative of cytotoxicity, oxidative stress and haematological and innate immune parameters were determined in the liver homogenates or blood plasma. The exposure of C. gariepinus to BPA and its analogues caused significant increased activities of lactate dehydrogenase, catalase and superoxide dismutase. The exposed fish had increased levels of DNA fragmentation, lipid peroxidation, white blood cells, nitric oxide and respiratory burst, while the red blood cell counts and the percentage packed cell volume decreased significantly in the exposed fish compared to control. The toxic effects elicited by the bisphenols were both concentration- and duration-dependent. Generally, BPA exerted the most toxic effects on the fish, followed by BPAP, while BPP exerted the least toxic effects to C. gariepinus. Summarily, the findings indicated that BPA and its two analogues studied in the research are capable of causing cytotoxicity, oxidative stress and immune dysfunction in C. gariepinus.

     

Systems vs. metasystems: EMIS at the crossroads

As environmental management responsibilities expand beyond regulations to address business issues such as design for the environment, total cost accounting, and strategic planning, it is tempting to plan for expanded information systems (EMIS) to handle new responsibilities. The author argues that we should pursue exactly the opposite course: shrink the EMIS to the minimum size possible. It would be impossible to feed the self-standing EMIS with all the data it needs—replicas of almost any data tracked by the organization. The EMS and EMIS should be “meta-systems” that store the organization's knowledge about how EH&S relates to various business processes, and what should be measured and reported to assure that EH&S objectives are met. The author provides examples of how companies are creating these EMS “metasystems” by leveraging enterprise systems implemented for accounting, business planning, groupware, maintenance, and process control.     

Understanding the sources and effects of abandoned,lost, and discarded fishing gear on marine turtles in northern Australia

Globally, 6.4 million tons of fishing gear are lost in the oceans annually. This gear (i.e., ghost nets), whether accidently lost, abandoned, or deliberately discarded, threatens marine wildlife as it drifts with prevailing currents and continues to entangle marine organisms indiscriminately. Northern Australia has some of the highest densities of ghost nets in the world, with up to 3 tons washing ashore per kilometer of shoreline annually. This region supports globally significant populations of internationally threatened marine fauna, including 6 of the 7 extant marine turtles. We examined the threat ghost nets pose to marine turtles and assessed whether nets associated with particular fisheries are linked with turtle entanglement by analyzing the capture rates of turtles and potential source fisheries from nearly 9000 nets found on Australia's northern coast. Nets with relatively larger mesh and smaller twine sizes (e.g., pelagic drift nets) had the highest probability of entanglement for marine turtles. Net size was important; larger nets appeared to attract turtles, which further increased their catch rates. Our results point to issues with trawl and drift‐net fisheries, the former due to the large number of nets and fragments found and the latter due to the very high catch rates resulting from the net design. Catch rates for fine‐mesh gill nets can reach as high as 4 turtles/100 m of net length. We estimated that the total number of turtles caught by the 8690 ghost nets we sampled was between 4866 and 14,600, assuming nets drift for 1 year. Ghost nets continue to accumulate on Australia's northern shore due to both legal and illegal fishing; over 13,000 nets have been removed since 2005. This is an important and ongoing transboundary threat to biodiversity in the region that requires attention from the countries surrounding the Arafura and Timor Seas. Entender las Fuentes y Efectos de Equipo de Pesca Abandonado, Perdido y Desechado sobre las Tortugas Marinas del Atlántico Norte     

Promoting the use of BaP as a marker for PAH exposure in UK soils

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous environmental pollutants that frequently accumulate in soils. There is therefore a requirement to determine their levels in contaminated environments for the purposes of determining impacts on human health. PAHs are a suite of individual chemicals, and there is an ongoing debate as to the most appropriate method for assessing the risk to humans from them. Two methods predominate: the surrogate marker approach and the toxic equivalency factor. The former assumes that all chemicals in a mixture have an equivalent toxicity. The toxic equivalency approach estimates the potency of individual chemicals relative to the usually most toxic Benzo(a)pyrene. The surrogate marker approach is believed to overestimate risk and the toxic equivalency factor to underestimate risk. When analysing the risks from soils, the surrogate marker approach is preferred due to its simplicity, but there are concerns because of the potential diversity of the PAH profile across the range of impacted soils. Using two independent data sets containing soils from 274 sites across a diverse range of locations, statistical analysis was undertaken to determine the differences in the composition of carcinogenic PAH between site locations, for example, rural versus industrial. Following principal components analysis, distinct population differences were not seen between site locations in spite of large differences in the total PAH burden between individual sites. Using all data, highly significant correlations were seen between BaP and other carcinogenic PAH with the majority of r ² values > 0.8. Correlations with the European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) summed groups, that is, EFSA2, EFSA4 and EFSA8 had even higher correlations (r ² > 0.95). We therefore conclude that BaP is a suitable surrogate marker to represent mixtures of PAH in soil during risk assessments.     

Manufacture and Biodegradation of Wheat Gluten/Basalt Composite Material

Wheat gluten is a naturally occurring protein polymer. It is biodegradable and very inexpensive (less than $1.00/kg). Nonfood applications of wheat gluten have been explored to develop biodegradable polymers from renewable resources. In this work, gluten was reinforced with unidirectional basalt fibers in a compression molding operation. Biodegradation behavior of wheat gluten/basalt composites was examined by putting specimens into soil of prescribed moisture content. Specimens were removed at various time intervals and tested for mass loss and change in mechanical properties. Both mass and mechanical properties show a steady decline over a soil exposure time of 40 days. However, the basalt composite retained mechanical properties longer. At the same time, the bacterial count on the specimen surfaces increased exponentially. Field emission scanning electron microscope images show smooth fracture surfaces, indicating brittle failure of the wheat gluten. However, there are many small holes in the protein matrix with diameter of order 100 nm. These small inclusions may contribute to the brittleness through stress concentration.     

Establishment of a database of emission factors for atmospheric pollutants from Chinese coal-fired power plants

Field measurements and data investigations were conducted for developing an emission factor database for inventories of atmospheric pollutants from Chinese coal-fired power plants. Gaseous pollutants and particulate matter (PM) of different size fractions were measured using a gas analyzer and an electric low-pressure impactor (ELPI), respectively, for ten units in eight coal-fired power plants across the country. Combining results of field tests and literature surveys, emission factors with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by boiler type, fuel quality, and emission control devices using bootstrap and Monte Carlo simulations. The emission factor of uncontrolled SO₂ from pulverized combustion (PC) boilers burning bituminous or anthracite coal was estimated to be 18.0S kg t^?1 (i.e., 18.0 × the percentage sulfur content of coal, S) with a 95% CI of 17.2S–18.5S. NO_X emission factors for pulverized-coal boilers ranged from 4.0 to 11.2 kg t^?1, with uncertainties of 14–45% for different unit types. The emission factors of uncontrolled PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and total PM emitted by PC boilers were estimated to be 0.4A (where A is the percentage ash content of coal), 1.5A and 6.9A kg t^?1, respectively, with 95% CIs of 0.3A–0.5A, 1.1A–1.9A and 5.8A–7.9A. The analogous PM values for emissions with electrostatic precipitator (ESP) controls were 0.032A (95% CI: 0.021A–0.046A), 0.065A (0.039A–0.092A) and 0.094A (0.0656A–0.132A) kg t^?1, and 0.0147A (0.0092–0.0225A), 0.0210A (0.0129A–0.0317A), and 0.0231A (0.0142A–0.0348A) for those with both ESP and wet flue-gas desulfurization (wet-FGD). SO₂ and NO_X emission factors for Chinese power plants were smaller than those of U.S. EPA AP-42 database, due mainly to lower heating values of coals in China. PM emission factors for units with ESP, however, were generally larger than AP-42 values, because of poorer removal efficiencies of Chinese dust collectors. For units with advanced emission control technologies, more field measurements are needed to reduce emission factor uncertainties.