It might be useful to start by stating arguments for the positive image of, or even prejudice about, Croatia as a country with some key and untapped advantages in comparison with other countries. Can we consider as founded the claims that this country has a preserved and relatively clean environment – air, land, water, soil, flora and fauna – an advantageous geo-strategic location and creative,...

Cropland abandonment is globally widespread and has strong repercussions for regional food security and the environment. Statistics suggest that one of the hotspots of abandoned cropland is located in the drylands of the Aral Sea Basin (ASB), which covers parts of post-Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran. To date, the exact spatial and temporal extents of abandoned cropland remain unclear...

A survey of the current field over the South Scotia Ridge, obtained with a lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (LADCP), is presented. There is a pattern of northward (southward) flow on the western (eastern) side of each of four deep passages in the ridge, which is supported by tracer measurements. The net full-depth LADCP-referenced geostrophic transport over the ridge is 2277 Sv (1 Sv=1...

BACKGROUND Balneology and spa therapy, although not accepted as well-established treatment modalities in dermatology, are used throughout the world. The therapeutic properties for skin and rheumatic diseases of the Dead Sea area may be attributed to unique climatic characteristics and unique natural resources. The mechanisms by which a broad spectrum of diseases are alleviated by spa therapy ma...

BACKGROUND The efficacy of spa therapy in ankylosing spondylitis has not been investigated extensively. OBJECTIVE To study the efficacy of balneotherapy and climatic therapy (climatotherapy) at the Dead Sea area in patients with ankylosing spondylitis. METHODS In a single-blind randomized controlled study, 28 patients suffering from ankylosing spondylitis were allocated into two groups of 1...

The biological extinction that occurred at the Permian-Triassic boundary represents the most extensive loss of species of any known event of the past 550 million years. There have been a wide variety of explanations offered for this extinction. In the present paper, a number of the more popular recent hypotheses are evaluated in terms of predictions that they make, or that they imply, concernin...

Disinfection by ozonation of sea-water may reduce the risk of transmission of nodavirus, a major fish pathogen, via Atlantic halibut Hippoglossus hippoglossus eggs. In the present study, eggs at 4 d prior to hatching were exposed to nodavirus and then to ozonated sea-water using different concentrations (0.3 to 10 mg l-1) and exposure times (0.5 to 10 min). None of the larvae from virus-exposed...