BACKGROUND Cannabis sativa L. is one of the illicit drug bearing plants. Cannabis products are the most widely trafficked drugs worldwide. The highest levels of cannabis production in the world take place in the African continent. A small volume of cannabis is produced in rural areas of Ethiopia, of which a small portion is exported to neighboring countries and the majority is consumed at home....

Misra [1] has strong reservations on our finding of Archean crustal signatures in the Lonar crater impact breccia. Our inference was based on textural, mineralogical, trace element and Nd, Sr, Pb isotopic analyses of the target basalts and the impact breccia rocks of the crater [2], whereas Misra's arguments are based on the non-in situ nature of some of the impact breccia samples of the crater...

The Water Framework Directives aims a reduction in concentration of hazardous substances in the marine environment. Consequently, there is a need to distinguish between anthropogenically influenced metal concentrations from natural background levels. To better achieve this goal in the Portuguese coast, dissolved and particulate trace metal (TM) concentrations along the Portuguese coast were det...

The paper reports the results of measurements of trace elements concentrations in surface water samples collected at the lowland retention reservoirs of Stare Miasto and Kowalskie (Poland). The samples were collected once a month from October 2011 to November 2012. Al, As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sb, V, and Zn were determined in water samples using the inductively coupled plasma with ma...

Many of the trace elements which have essential roles in animals, such as zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn) and copper (Cu), are required for the growth, development and maintenance of healthy bones (Rucker, 1988; Leach, 1988). Of the remaining trace or ultratrace elements, which by definition are normally present at low concentrations in animal tissues, some have a toxic effect on bone such as lead (P...

Modified composite electrodes have gained considerable interest in the detection of heavy metal ions due to their excellent sensitivity, selectivity, stability, and rapid response. Generally, these sensors consist binder, conductive substance, modifier. This study examined into performance a novel modified electrode that used graphite–bleaching earth (BE-MCPE) performed while detecting trace am...

Alluvial soils can store a wide range of metal contaminants originating from point and diffuse sources. The biological health of these soils is important as they act as an interface between terrestrial and aquatic environments, therefore playing an important role in maintaining the quality of surface waters. The aim of this work was to examine the lability, solubility and bioavailability of Pb,...

Many outstanding problems in solid-Earth science relate to the geodynamical explanation of geochemical observations. Currently, extensive geochemical databases of surface observations exist, but satisfying explanations of underlying mantle processes are lacking. One way to address these problems is through numerical modelling of mantle convection while tracking chemical information throughout t...

Soybean plants and Rhizobium japonicum 122 DES, a hydrogen uptake-positive strain, were cultured in media purified to remove Ni. Supplemental Ni had no significant effect on the dry matter or total N content of plants. However, the addition of Ni to both nitrate-grown and symbiotically grown plants resulted in a 7- to 10-fold increase in urease activity (urea amidohydrolase, EC 3.5.1.5) in leav...