Arsenic is a naturally occurring element, present in soil, ground water and plants. Regions with high geological occurrence of inorganic arsenic have been identified in particular in Asia and other non-European countries. In Europe, environmental arsenic levels are rather low, with the exception of distinct geological or industrial areas. Arsenic is a metalloid, displaying different valences (-...

Chiral p-forms play a central role in supergravity and in string theory [1,2]. In particular, they contribute to the `miraculous" cancellation of the gravitational anomaly in type-IIB supergravity or superstring theory, making these theories quantum-mechanically consistent. The calculation of the gravitational anomaly for chiral p-forms was performed rst in [3] without using a Lagrangian but by...

Cold agricultural regions are getting warmer and experiencing shifts in precipitation patterns, which affect hydrological transport of nutrients through reduced snowpack higher annual proportions summer rainfall. Previous work has demonstrated that the timing phosphorus (P) concentrations is regionally coherent streams northern Great Plains, suggesting a common climatic driver. There been less ...

Characterizing labile P forms in animal manure is a challenge due to their susceptibility to hydrolysis. In this study, we enzymatically characterized P forms in dairy manure (no bedding), collected from a representative dairy farm in New York, by separating into soluble and residual components under mild assay conditions using water and sodium acetate buffer (pH 5.0). About 75% of total manure...

Effects of biodiversity on productivity are more likely to be expressed when there is greater potential for niche complementarity. In soil, chemically complex pools of nutrient resources should provide more opportunities for niche complementarity than chemically simple pools. Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal genotypes can exhibit substantial variation in nutrient acquisition traits and are key comp...

Inorganic N is available to plants from the soil as ammonium [Formula: see text] and nitrate [Formula: see text]. We studied how wheat grown hydroponically to senescence in controlled environmental chambers is affected by N form ([Formula: see text] vs. [Formula: see text]) and CO(2) concentration ("subambient," "ambient," and "elevated") in terms of biomass, yield, and nutrient accumulation an...

The use of a BINOL-derived phosphate as a chiral anionic phase-transfer catalyst in a nonpolar solvent allows the enantioselective fluorination of enamides using Selectfluor as the fluorinating reagent. We demonstrate that a wide range of stable and synthetically versatile α-(fluoro)benzoylimines can be readily accessed with high enantioselectivity. These compounds have the potential to be read...

Phosphorus (P) is one of the most important elements used in fertilizing soils tropical regions due to low efficiency phosphate fertilization. This work aimed fractionate inorganic P (Pi) different mineralogical compositions and relate these fractions with their respective buffer capacity (PBC) indicators. The were characterized physically, chemically mineralogically. Additionally, we evaluated...

Transgenic tobacco plants engineered with bacterial merA and merB genes via the chloroplast genome were investigated to study the uptake, translocation of different forms of mercury (Hg) from roots to shoots, and their volatilization. Untransformed plants, regardless of the form of Hg supplied, reached a saturation point at 200 microM of phenylmercuric acetate (PMA) or HgCl2, accumulating Hg co...

The morphologies of biological materials, from body shapes to membranes within cells, are typically curvaceous and flexible, in contrast to the angular, facetted shapes of inorganic matter. An alternative dichotomy has it that biomolecules typically assemble into aperiodic structures in vivo, in contrast to inorganic crystals. This paper explores the evolution of our understanding of structures...