The development of antibiotic and pesticide resistance is often presented as a modern example of evolution by mutations and as clear evidence for Darwinism. A literature review found that most examples of the acquisition of resistance are not due to mutations, but in nearly all cases are a result of complex, built-in genetic and molecular biological defence systems. The extant literature indica...

This review presents methods for the assessment of acute and chronic risk from pesticide residues in food. Multiple pesticide residues can often be found in food. Currently, there is no internationally accepted procedure for the assessment of cumulative exposure to multiple pesticide residues in food. Therefore, risk assessment is based on toxicological evaluation of single compounds in a food ...

Electrochemical immunosensors have emerged as a highly sensitive and rapid technique for chemical contaminants detection in environmental monitoring, food safety and quality control. This review concentrates on recent advances made in detection and quantification of chemical contaminants such as pesticides and antibiotics residues with electrochemical immunosensors. In this paper, the preparati...

Data generated in the UK have indicated that pesticide residue levels can be highly variable between the individual fruit or vegetables from the same crop or lot in trade. Statistical experiments with these data showed that residues in composite samples, taken according to Codex recommendations, are unlikely to differ by more than a factor of 3-4 from the mean level in the lot. This was corrobo...

The effects of washing with tap and ozone water, ultrasonic cleaning and boiling on 16 pesticide (ten fungicides and six insecticides) residue levels in raw strawberries were investigated at different processing times (1, 2 and 5 min). An analysis of these pesticides was conducted using gas chromatography with nitrogen-phosphorous and electron capture detection (GC-NPD/ECD). The processing fact...

As nanofluidic channels, uniaxially oriented mesoporous-silica is, for the first time, in-situ self-assembled in a microfluidic chip for quick enrichment/extraction of ng L(-1)(ppt)-level organo-phosphorous (OP) pesticide residue from aqueous solution to ethanol. This micro/nano combined pre-treatment chip is essential for following gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) quantitative anal...

To predict rice-farming pesticide concentrations in river water with imprecise model inputs for screening-level analysis, a basin-scale runoff model was developed. The Monte Carlo method was applied to create estimates of input data regarding agricultural work schedules and parameters for pesticide decomposition and sorption in solids and water. The prediction accuracy of the model was evaluate...