Global contamination and toxic effects of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been an emerging environmental issue and have received considerable attention during the past four decades. Although the extent of contamination by POPs has been dominant in industrialized nations, an increasing number of recent investigations have highlighted the role of the Asia-Pacific region as a potential s...

Editorials 160 Landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) continue to kill, injure and destroy lives and livelihoods. They cause an estimated 11 to 12 casualties daily and are not confined to a single part of the world. The six countries with the highest landmine and ERW casualties in 2011 – Afghanistan, Cambodia, Colombia, Myanmar, Pakistan and South Sudan – belonged to different regions. 1...

BACKGROUND Many patients suffer from recurrent Staphylococcus aureus infections, but there are few data examining recurrence predictors. METHODS We followed adults and children after treatment for S. aureus skin infections and their household contacts in Los Angeles and Chicago. We surveyed subjects for S. aureus body colonization, household fomite contamination, and behavioral and clinical f...

This article is the second of a three-part series that investigates the application of the ventilation equations to designing and testing cleanrooms. This part is concerned with the decay equation. The recovery test, described in ISO 14644-3 (2005) is discussed, and improvements recommended. The application of the decay equation to the ‘clean up’ requirement given in the EU GGMP (2008) is also ...

The flow of transgenes into landraces and wild relatives is an important biosafety concern. The case of transgene flow into local maize varieties in Mexico (the center of origin of maize) has been intensively debated over the past 15 years, including legal, political, and environmental disputes fanned by the existence of a significant scientific controversy over the methods used for the detecti...

One Health involves the multifaceted environment-animal-human web: nevertheless, the role of toxicological issues has yet to be fully explored in this context. Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) contamination of feeds is a risk for the health of several farm animals, including fishes; milk is the only food of animal origin where a significant feed-food carry over may occur. The main AFB1-related compound pres...

Environmental effects on health are associated with several factors: absent or inadequate environmental health services, such as water supply, sanitation, solid and hazardous waste management and shelter; environmental degradation, such as pollution of air, water and soil, and food contamination; global environmental problems, such as reduction of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems thro...

There is an increasing interest in modeling groundwater contamination, particularly geogenic contaminant, on a large scale both from the researcher’s as well as policy maker’s point of view. However, modeling large scale groundwater contamination is very challenging due to the incomplete understanding of geochemical and hydrological processes in the aquifer. Despite the incomplete understanding...

In recent years much evidence has been gathered on climate change and its impact on different sectors and systems. Global warming is one of the main threats to sustainable development and, consequently, one of the most significant environmental challenges in the last decades affecting the economy, health and social welfare. It is necessary, therefore, to identify evidence of the impact of globa...

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...