Since the antiquity, and on an empirical basis, man has accumulated experience on the benefits and risks of minerals (such as, special clay, mud and sand) and other mineral resources (such as, salt, sea water, spring water, underground water, volcanic emissions and dust) on human health. Man and minerals are chemical systems sharing a common composition, comprising major, minor and trace chemic...

More than half a century ago, Irish physicist John Desmond Bernal and Swiss geochemist Victor M. Goldschmidt independently proposed that clay minerals may have played an important role in prebiotic synthesis (Bernal 1949; Goldschmidt 1952). I concur that mineral catalysis must have had a central role in prebiotic synthesis because most uncatalyzed reactions start from simple precursors like hyd...

In spite of all efforts to prevent formation of mycotoxins significant contaminations still occur. Contaminated grain or feed ingredients may encounter livestock health problems or poor animal performance because they can have chronic and acute effects on animals. By now, the worldwide most applied method to protect animals against mycotoxin-related diseases and to avoid carryover of mycotoxins...

Evidence for an “RNA world,” an episode of life on Earth during which RNA was the only genetically encoded component of biological catalysts, is found in the ribosome (1), catalytic RNA molecules (2), and contemporary metabolism (3). That RNA could form spontaneously and persist under prebiotic conditions has been doubted, however (4, 5). Ribose and its sister pentoses (arabinose, xylose, and l...

The salt of milk constitutes a small part of milk (8-9 g.L(-1)); this fraction contains calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium for the main cations and inorganic phosphate, citrate and chloride for the main anions. In milk, these ions are more or less associated between themselves and with proteins. Depending on the type of ion, they are diffusible (cases of sodium, potassium and chloride) or...

Mdssbauer parameters are reported for the phosphate minerals triplite, zwieselite, triploidite, and wolfeite. Analysis of the absorption data confirms the existence of non-equivalent ferrous ions. The broadening of the resonance peaks is rationalized on the basis of a microscopic disorder due to half-occupied fluorine sites in the fluoride minerals and to sets of closelv related metal sites in ...

The trace mineral nutrition of grazing cattle is complicated by several factors among which are the impacts of trace mineral antagonists in grazed forage and the reliance on predictable, uniform intake of free-choice mineral supplements. Numerous options are available to assist in the management of trace mineral nutrition of grazing cattle. In recent years, significant research efforts have bee...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the characteristics of US children who are dietary supplement users. OBJECTIVE We described the prevalence and predictors of and reasons for giving children dietary supplements. DESIGN The study included children <18 y of age who participated in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine supplement of the National Health Interview Survey of 2007 whose proxie...

Requirements have been published for 13 different minerals in beef cattle diets. Other minerals such as chlorine, chromium, molybdenum, and nickel are known to be essential for beef cattle; however, there is currently not enough data available to accurately determine requirements. For some of the required minerals, requirements vary depending on cow size and stage of production. This variabilit...

Identification of clay minerals based on chemometric analysis of measured infrared (IR) spectra was suggested. IR spectra were collected using the diffuse reflection technique. Discriminant analysis and principal component analysis were used as chemometric methods. Four statistical models were created for separation and identification of clay minerals. More than 50 samples of various clay miner...