Antenatal diagnosis and palliative treatment of non-immune hydrops fetalis secondary to fetal parvovirus B19 infection

Hydrops fetalis was diagnosed at 22 weeks. An ultrasound examination demonstrated cardiomegaly and a fetal blood specimen obtained by cordocentesis revealed thrombocytopenia, anaemia, and neutropenia. Fetal paracentesis yielded straw-coloured fluid with electrolytes indicative of a transudate. Non-enveloped icosahedral viral particles approximately 23 mm in diameter were visualized in the ascitic fluid by electron microscopy. Immune electron microscopy confirmed human parvovirus B19. Direct fetal digitalization led to a reduction in umbilical artery resistance, a decline in the abdominal circumference from 20·3 to 17·8 cm, and resolution of the ascites within 72 h. Despite this dramatic response to therapy, fetal death occurred on day 5 of treatment. The initial maternal serum was positive for anti-B19 IgM and IgG antibodies. Electron microscopy of fetal cardiac tissue obtained post-mortem revealed intranuclear viral particles typical of B19, confirming the antenatal diagnosis of myocarditis. This case demonstrates that direct viral identification is applicable to prenatal diagnosis. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of the antenatal diagnosis and palliative treatment of fetal viral infection.     

Phosphorus leaching in sandy outwash soils following potato-processing wastewater application

Land application of wastewater presents potential for ground water pollution if not properly managed. In situ breakthrough tests were conducted using potato (Solanum tuberosum L.)-processing wastewater and a Br tracer to characterize P leaching in seasonally frozen sandy outwash soils. In the first test, P and Br breakthrough were measured in a 7-m deep well following wastewater [2.94 mg L(-1) total P (TP); 280 mg L(-1) Br] application at the site that had 13.1 mg water-extractable P (WEP) kg(-1)and 94.4 mg Bray-1 P kg(-1). Bromide was detected in the well after approximately 0.4 pore volumes, but there was no P break-through after 7 pore volumes. In the second breakthrough test, wastewater containing 3.6 mg L(-1) TP and 259 mg L(-1) Br was applied on 1.5-m deep lysimeters at low (0.8 mg WEP kg(-1); 12.1 mg Bray-1 P kg(-1)) and high soil test P sites (104 mg WEP kg(-1); 585 mg Bray-1 P kg(-1)). Leachate TP concentration during the test remained constant (0.04 mg L(-1)) at the low P sites but increased from approximately 3.5 to 5.6 mg L(-1) at the high P sites. These results indicate no P leaching in low P soils, but leaching in high P soils, thus suggesting that most of the P leached at the high P sites was mainly due to desorption and dissolution of weakly adsorbed P from prior P applications. This was consistent with P transport simulations using the convective-dispersive equation. We conclude that P concentration in land-applied wastewater should be regulated based on soil test-P level plus wastewater P loading.     

Health Effects of Waste Incineration: A Review of Epidemiologic Studies

ABSTRACT

There is an increasing trend toward using incineration to solve the problem of waste management; thus, there are concerns about the potential health impact of waste incineration. A critical review of epidemiologic studies will enhance understanding of the potential health effects of waste incineration and will provide important information regarding what needs to be investigated further. This study reviews the epidemiologic research on the potential health impact of waste incineration. Previous studies are discussed and presented according to their study population, incinerator workers or community residents, and health end points. Several studies showed significant associations between waste incineration and lower male-to-female ratio, twinning, lung cancer, laryngeal cancer, ischemic heart disease, urinary mutagens and pro-mutagens, or blood levels of certain organic compounds and heavy metals. Other studies found no significant effects on respiratory symptoms, pulmonary function,twinning, cleft lip and palate, lung cancer, laryngeal cancer,or esophageal cancer. In conclusion, these epidemiologic studies consistently observed higher body levels of some organic chemicals and heavy metals, and no effects on respiratory symptoms or pulmonary function. The findings for cancer and reproductive outcomes were inconsistent. More hypothesis-testing epidemiologic studies are needed to investigate the potential health effects of waste incineration on incinerator workers and community residents.     

Assessing Sorbents for Mercury Control in Coal-Combustion Flue Gas

Abstract

Sorbent injection for Hg control is one of the most promising technologies for reducing Hg emissions from power-generation facilities, particularly units that do not require wet scrubbers for SO₂ control. Since 1992, EPRI has been assessing the performance of Hg sorbents in pilot-scale systems installed at full-scale facilities. The initial tests were conducted on a 5000-acfm (142-m³/min) pilot baghouse. Screening potential sorbents at this scale required substantial resources for installation and operation and did not provide an opportunity to characterize sor-bents over a wide temperature range.

Data collected in the laboratory and in field tests indicate that sorbents are affected by flue gas composition and temperature. Tests carried out in actual flue gas at a number of power plants also have shown that sorbent performance can be site-specific. In addition, data collected at a field site often are different from data collected in the laboratory, with simulated flue gas mixed to match the major components in the site’s gas. To effectively estimate the costs of Hg sorbent systems at different plants, a measure of sorbent performance in the respective flue gases must be obtained. However, injection testing at multiple facilities with large pilot systems is not practical.

Over the past five years, fixed-bed characterization testing, modeling studies, and bench-scale injection testing have been undertaken to develop a low-cost technique to characterize sorbent performance in actual flue gas and subsequently to project normalized costs for Hg removal prior to full-scale demonstration. This article describes the techniques used and summarizes field-testing results from two plants burning Powder River Basin (PRB) coal for commercial activated carbon and several other sorbent types. Full-scale projections based on the results and data collected on larger-scale systems also are included.     

Linking Climate Trends to Population Dynamics in the Baltic Ringed Seal: Impacts of Historical and Future Winter Temperatures

A global trend of a warming climate may seriously affect species dependent on sea ice. We investigated the impact of climate on the Baltic ringed seals (Phoca hispida botnica), using historical and future climatological time series. Availability of suitable breeding ice is known to affect pup survival. We used detailed information on how winter temperatures affect the extent of breeding ice and a climatological model (RCA3) to project the expected effects on the Baltic ringed seal population. The population comprises of three sub-populations, and our simulations suggest that all of them will experience severely hampered growth rates during the coming 90 years. The projected 30 730 seals at the end of the twenty-first century constitutes only 16 % of the historical population size, and thus reduced ice cover alone will severely limit their growth rate. This adds burden to a species already haunted by other anthropogenic impacts.     

Is adaptive management helping to solve fisheries problems?

Adaptive management has been widely recommended as a way to deal with extreme uncertainty in natural resource and environmental decision making. The core concept in adaptive management is that policy choices should be treated as deliberate, large-scale experiments; hence, policy choice should be treated at least partly as a problem of scientific experimental design. There have now been upwards of 100 case studies where attempts were made to apply adaptive management to issues ranging from restoration of endangered desert fish species to protection of the Great Barrier Reef. Most of these cases have been failures in the sense that no experimental management program was ever implemented, and there have been serious problems with monitoring programs in the handful of cases where an experimental plan was implemented. Most of the failures can be traced to three main institutional problems: i) lack of management resources for the expanded monitoring needed to carry out large-scale experiments; ii) unwillingness by decision makers to admit and embrace uncertainty in making policy choices; and iii) lack of leadership in the form of individuals willing to do all the hard work needed to plan and implement new and complex management programs.     

Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality—of rising system-wide turbulence—calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.