Water, soil, vegetation, grasshoppers, bird eggs, and bird livers collected at a 23.5-ha (58 acres) grassland irrigated with wastewater from an in situ uranium mine (study area) and a reference site in 1998 were analyzed for selenium and other trace elements. Selenium concentrations in the uranium mine wastewater applied onto the grassland ranged from 340 to 450 microg/L. Selenium in the upper ...

Most persistent organic pollutants, due to their hydrophobic properties, accumulate in aquatic sediments and represent a high risk for sediment quality. To assess the toxicity of hydrophobic pollutants, a novel approach was recently proposed as an alternative to replace, refine and reduce animal experimentation: the medaka embryo-larval sediment contact assay (MELAc). This assay is performed wi...

Korean red pine (Pinus densiflora) is one of the major Pinus species in Korea. Red pine barkis removed prior to the chipping process in the wood industry and discarded aswaste. However, red pine bark contains a considerable amount of naturally occurring phenolics including flavonoids and therefore may have a variety of biological effects. In this study, we investigated if Korean red pine bark e...

Understanding the physiology of epicormic sprout initiation and growth is economically important for arboricultural management. In this experiment, factors influencing the initiation and growth of epicormic sprouts, including light exposure, temperature, trunk growth, date of green pruning, and tissue concentrations of non-structural carbohydrate, were investigated in Prunus persica. Field tria...

AIMS To validate a method of assessment of low hepatic iron concentration based on a biochemical colorimetric assay plus histological scoring. METHODS The within-day and day to day precision of the iron colorimetric assay was determined on frozen rat liver. The coefficient of variation (CV) of iron measurement in two separate samples from the same liver was determined for 21 deparaffinised hu...

Prunella vulgaris L. (Labiatae) contains a variety of structurally diverse natural products, primarily rosmarinic acid (RA), ursolic acid (UA) and oleanolic acid (OA), which possess a wide array of biological properties. In the present study, P. vulgaris was harvested at three developmental stages (vegetative, full-flowering and mature-fruiting stages), dissected into stem and leaf tissues and ...

The fruit of Melastoma sanguineum Sims is an edible and sweet wild fruit. In our previous study, the fruit was found to have a strong antioxidant property. In this study, an ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) method was developed to extract natural antioxidants from the fruit of Melastoma sanguineum Sims, and a response surface methodology was used to optimize the conditions of UAE to maximiz...

This study investigates the influence of extraction system on the extractability of polyphenol compounds and antioxidant activity of various medicinal plants. Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) and total polyphenol content of 25 Bulgarian medicinal plants subjected to water or 80 % acetone extractions were investigated and compared. The type of extragent significantly influenced the effi...

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonistic (Ah-agonistic) effects of 23 sediments from Wenyu River in Beijing, China were evaluated using the H4IIE cell bioassay. Five samples were selected for chemical analysis of most concerned Ah-agonists, i.e. polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), dibenzofurans (PCDFs), biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). All raw sediment extracts i...

The concentrations of nonylphenol (NP), nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPnEOs: n = 1-15) and nonylphenoxy acetic acids (NPmECs: m = 1-10) in river water and sediment were determined seasonally at four sampling sites in the Kamo River, which is a typical urban river and was already known to be polluted by NP. In the water, the concentrations of NP, NPnEOs and NPmECs ranged from 0.13 to 3.65 microg/L, ...