Mountaintop mining under scrutiny

Under Scrutiny

Folic acid under scrutiny

A consideration of the absorption and metabolism of folic acid in human subjects is timely, owing to the recent recommendation by the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition that a mandatory folic acid fortification programme be implemented in the UK. In this issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Wright et al. take us through the processes of absorption and metabolism of...

ContSys under Ontological Scrutiny

EN ISO 13940, commonly known as ContSys, is an international standard that provides a system of concepts to support continuity of care and semantic interoperability of information systems. ContSys provides domain-specific terms, definitions and relationships, but was not developed as an ontology. Nevertheless, we think that it might benefit from the application of more formal, ontological analy...

Isotopic imprints of mountaintop mining contaminants.

Mountaintop mining (MTM) is the primary procedure for surface coal exploration within the central Appalachian region of the eastern United States, and it is known to contaminate streams in local watersheds. In this study, we measured the chemical and isotopic compositions of water samples from MTM-impacted tributaries and streams in the Mud River watershed in West Virginia. We systematically do...

Mountaintop Removal Mining and Catchment Hydrology

Mountaintop mining and valley fill (MTM/VF) coal extraction, practiced in the Central Appalachian region, represents a dramatic landscape-scale disturbance. MTM operations remove as much as 300 m of rock, soil, and vegetation from ridge tops to access deep coal seams and much of this material is placed in adjacent headwater streams altering landcover, drainage network, and topography. In spite ...