1. Amphibian populations residing in or near agricultural areas are often susceptible to pesticide contamination. Recent evidence suggests that the effects of pesticides on amphibians often exceed those estimated in laboratory toxicity tests because other environmental factors (e.g. predators, resource abundance) can influence pesticide toxicity. 2. To examine the effects of an insecticide (car...

Sources of mercury contamination in aquatic systems were studied in a comprehensive literature review. The results show that the most important anthropogenic sources of mercury pollution in aquatic systems are: (1) atmospheric deposition, (2) erosion, (3) urban discharges, (4) agricultural materials, (5) mining, and (6) combustion and industrial discharges. Capping and dredging are two possible...

Trimming procedures are an important part of the sequence analysis pipeline in an EST Sequencing Project. In general, trimming is done in several phases, each one detecting and removing some kind of undesirable artifact, such as low quality sequence, vectors or adapters sequence, and contamination. However, this strategy often results in a phase being unable to recognize its target because part...

The rapid rise of shale gas development through horizontal drilling and high volume hydraulic fracturing has expanded the extraction of hydrocarbon resources in the U.S. The rise of shale gas development has triggered an intense public debate regarding the potential environmental and human health effects from hydraulic fracturing. This paper provides a critical review of the potential risks tha...

BACKGROUND Nuts are one of the main consumed snacks worldwide and a significant component of Iranian's diet. Natural contamination of nuts with fungus is unavoidable and is a major challenge to nuts safety and quality. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this research was to study fungal contamination in commercially available nuts (pistachios, walnuts and peanuts) in the markets of Tabriz, Iran. MAT...

In an attempt to characterize the soundscape in areas of Sendai City, we have studied sound pressure levels at 9 different points differing in degree of urbanization and representing different sound environments. Results indicates that larger sound amplitudes in each site correspond to the nature of its environment. In urban zones with few natural elements, manmade sounds are the most intense, ...

Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a controversial practice used in natural-gas drilling. Fracking makes it much more feasible to free the vast reserves of natural gas locked underground, but the practice comes with concerns that the natural gas boom is proceeding too fast, before we understand the human health impacts. Discussions about fracking and community health typically involve questio...

vast application of the antibiotic drugs in animals without due attention  to withdrawal times necessitates quality control of food stuff in terms of antibiotics' residues. antibiotic residues in food stuff cause bacterial resistance, allergic reactions, toxicity,  carcinogenic effects and change of natural micro flora of intestine in consumers. so, the aim of the present study is detectio...

Polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) synthesize abundant amplification products. Contamination of new PCRs with trace amounts of these products, called carry-over contamination, yields false positive results. Carry-over contamination from some previous PCR can be a significant problem, due both to the abundance of PCR products, and to the ideal structure of the contaminant material for re-amplific...