Saturated groundwater flow and tracer experiments using fluorescent dye, chloride, and the herbicides mecoprop and simazine were carried out in the laboratory using three large-diameter (0.5 m) undisturbed columns of fractured clayey till. Hydraulic conductivity of the columns ranged from 10 -s m/s in the shallowest column (1 rn depth) to 10 -7 m/s in the deepest column (4 rn depth) and were si...

BACKGROUND Obesity and type-2 diabetes are on the rise and in utero exposure to environmental contaminants is a suspected contributing factor. Our objective was to examine associations between prenatal exposure to potential endocrine disrupting chemicals and markers of fetal metabolic dysfunction. METHODS The Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals Study (MIREC) recruited 2001 wom...

RATIONALE Although amphetamine-type substances (ATS) have been investigated extensively in recent years, scarce data is available on screening tests for piperazine analogues. The need for a universal technique capable of detecting an extensive range of drug compounds becomes increasingly important with the continued emergence of novel drug analogues. METHODS Desorption electrospray ionisation...

Human biomonitoring involves measuring chemical substances, or biomarkers, in people’s blood serum or urine to estimate their exposures. Investigators typically use statistical adjustments to account for variations in urine dilution or serum lipid levels, because failure to adjust for these factors could result in biased estimates and loss of statistical power. In this issue of EHP, researchers...

New technologies, such as metabolomics, can address chemical grouping and read across from a biological perspective. In a virtual case study, we selected MCPP as target substance and MCPA and 2,4-DP as source substances with the goal to waive a 90-day study with MCPP. In order to develop a convincing case to show how biological data can substantiate read across, we used metabolomics on blood sa...

In this study, we investigated the establishment of natural bacterial degraders in a sand filter treating groundwater contaminated with the phenoxypropionate herbicides (RS)-2-(4-chloro-2-methylphenoxy)propanoic acid (MCPP) and (RS)-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)propanoic acid (DCPP) and the associated impurity/catabolite 4-chlorophenoxypropanoic acid (4-CPP). A pilot facility was set up in a contamin...

Angelica urumiensis Mozaff. and Eryngium iranicum Mozaff. are described as new species from Iran. Aphanopleura trachysperma Boiss. and Pastinaca sativa L. subsp. urens (Req. ex Gordon) Čelak are reported as new records from Iran.

BACKGROUND The only antidepressant drugs that are effective in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are those that effectively block the reuptake of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT). In humans, positron emission tomography studies have implicated the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in the mediation of OCD symptoms. In animals, administration of selective serotonin reuptake inhib...

STUDY QUESTION Are urinary phthalate concentrations associated with altered semen quality parameters among males recruited from the general population? SUMMARY ANSWER Urinary levels of metabolites of phthalate diesters are associated with lower total sperm counts, larger sperm head sizes, and higher percentages of morphologically abnormal sperm. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY High dose experiments i...