*Correspondence: Bruno S. Nunes, Departamento de Biologia, Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar (CESAM), Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] Sardina pilchardus is a marine species common in the North Atlantic Ocean, and is subjected to diffuse anthropogenic chemical contamination and seasonal fluctuations in biotic and abio...

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a mycotoxin commonly present in cereals, grapes, coffee, spices, and cocoa. Even though the main objective of the food and feed chain processors and distributors is to avoid the extended contamination of plant-derived foods and animal feeds with mycotoxins, until now, complete OTA removal from foods and feedstuffs is not feasible. Prevention through pre-harvest management ...

Continental aquatic systems from rivers to the coastal zone are considered within two perspectives: (i) as a major link between the atmosphere, pedosphere, biosphere and oceans within the Earth system with its Holocene dynamics, and (ii) as water and aquatic biota resources progressively used and transformed by humans. Human pressures have now reached a state where the continental aquatic syste...

Contamination of food and individuals by food workers has been identified as an important contributing factor during foodborne illness investigations. Physical and chemical barriers to prevent microbial contamination of food are hurdles that block or reduce the transfer of pathogens to the food surface from the hands of a food worker, from other foods, or from the environment. In food service o...

A method is described for direct analysis of lead in blood utilizing the carbon rod atomizer. Aliquots of whole blood are analyzed without pre-treatment. Resuits are comparable to those for a similar non-flame technique in which whole blood samples were prediluted with “Triton X-100.” The small sample volumes required and the minimal sample preparation further diminish the possibility of spurio...

BACKGROUND Problems related to food security in Russian Arctic (dietary imbalance, predominance of carbohydrates, shortage of milk products, vegetables and fruits, deficit of vitamins and microelements, chemical, infectious and parasitic food contamination) have been defined in the literature. But no standard protocol of food security assessment has been used in the majority of studies. OBJEC...

Building a spacecraft and equipping it with a variety of sophisticated experiments is no easy task. Planning for a launch may begin five years or more in advance. Thousands of specialists take an active role in the planning, design, fabrication, testing, check-out, launch, and data-handling phase of the project. Parts of the structure, if not entire experiments, are designed and produced all ov...

In a recent Brief Communication, Calafat et al. expressed concern that epidemiological studies inappropriately assess exposure to nonpersistent chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates by measuring chemical concentrations in serum and tissues. They assert that urine is the most scientifically valid matrix and that accurate measurement of other matrices is difficult due to contaminatio...

There are many definitions of the term contamination. Jefferis (2002 p. 75) provided the simple definition Bcontamination is a chemical, a living organism or energy in the wrong place.^ Paraphrasing this definition, contamination is the presence of an unwelcome component in a material, physical body, place, or other entity. In the natural environment, contamination implies that an exotic consti...

In a recent Brief Communication, Calafat et al. expressed concern that epidemiological studies inappropriately assess exposure to nonpersistent chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates by measuring chemical concentrations in serum and tissues. They assert that urine is the most scientifically valid matrix and that accurate measurement of other matrices is difficult due to contaminatio...