Pathogenic bacteria acquire transition metals for cell viability and persistence of infection in competition with host nutritional defenses. The human host employs a variety of mechanisms to stress the invading pathogen with both cytotoxic metal ions and oxidative and nitrosative insults while withholding essential transition metals from the bacterium. For example, the S100 family protein calpr...

Geophagia is the craving for non-food substances and commonly practiced among pregnant women and children. Consumption of geophagic clay samples can have serious implications on the health of the consumers as a result of the presence of toxic metals such as Pb, As, Hg and Cd. This study sought to determine the levels of heavy metals in the studied geophagic clay samples and to determine the pot...

A method used to determine Pb in unknown matrices by isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) was previously published by NIST [1]. IDMS is considered the most accurate method for total blood metals analyses, mainly because it eliminates the blood’s matrix effect [2, 3]. However, the IDMS method is relatively expensive, and cannot be used for mono-isotopic metals such as Mn or As. Alternativel...

For electrical conductance in polycrystalline metallic films and wires, the reflection coefficient of electrons at grain boundaries is explored and found to be proportional to the square root of the melting points of metals. As validated by available experimental results, this exploration enables classical models to take an essential role in theoretically predicting the electrical conductance o...

Precise ablation of metals using tightly focused femtosecond laser pulses with intensities close to the damage threshold can yield sub-wavelength, nanometer-sized holes or craters. These structures in metals can exhibit plasmonic effects, thereby affecting the interactions involved. We numerically simulate light propagation inside such holes and model the ablation process. We show that surface ...

abstract heavy metals uptake and their distribution in plants are different. in addition to the genetic factors, environmental factors such as interactions of heavy metals with essential elements are very important on the amount of heavy metals uptake. in this study, the effects of iron and manganese on accumulation of cadmium in shoot and root of sunflower and corn in different concentration o...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND The consumption of dietary supplements is widely spread and on the rise. These dietary supplements are generally used without prescriptions, proper counseling or any awareness of their health risk. The current study aimed at analyzing the metals in 33 samples of imported dietary supplements highly consumed by the Lebanese population, using 3 different techniques, to ens...

Background: Biosynthesis and metabolism of phytochemicals in medicinal and aromatic plants are vigorously affected by different abiotic elicitors including chemicals. Objective: This experiment was designed to investigate the effects of three levels of copper sulfate (Cu: 0, 5, 25 mg kg-1) and zinc sulfate (Zn: 0, 10, 50 mg kg-1) and their combinations on yield, chemical compositions of esse...