BACKGROUND Criminal offenders have a fundamental goal not to leave any traces at the crime scene. Some may suppose that items recovered underwater will have no forensic value, therefore, they try to destroy the traces by throwing items in water. These traces are subjected to the destructive environmental effects. This can represent a challenge for forensic experts investigating fingerprints. ...

The word ―sustainability‖ is often used in business in the belief that the current ways of doing things will be able to be continued with only minor changes to balance economic development with related environmental and social issues. There are, however, immense challenges that threaten the very sustainability of our global society, let alone individual businesses or developments. A few of the ...

As there is no scientific reason to discriminate between chemicals and radioactive substances in terms of environmental risk assessment methodology (ERA), it is now generally recognised (Garnier-Laplace et al., 2006) that the classical ERA method (EC, 2003) may be applied to both of these substances. This is of particular interest in the case of uranium that presents a double ecotoxicity, chemi...

Nutrient pollution and associated eutrophication of freshwaters threaten the ecological integrity and the services provided to humans by lakes. We examined how human residential development influenced the level of lake eutrophication in the Seattle, WA, USA, region. We surveyed 30 lakes and measured 3 indicators of eutrophication: concentrations of chlorophyll-a and phosphorus, and the proporti...

Physicochemical variability in estuarine systems plays an important role in estuarine processes and in the lifecycles of estuarine organisms. In particular, seasonality of freshwater inflow to estuaries may be important in various aspects of fish lifecycles. This study aimed to further understand these relationships by studying the movements of a top-level estuarine predator in response to phys...

The rectal glands of elasmobranchs perform the function of salt-excreting organs. These glands are smaller and show regressive changes in specimens of the bull shark, Carcharhinus leucas found in fresh-water environment, compared with specimens of this and other species from a marine habitat.

INTRODUCTION Access to safe drinking water is essential to human life and wellbeing, and is a key public health issue. However, many communities in rural and regional parts of Australia are unable to access drinking water that meets national standards for protecting human health. The aim of this research was to identify the key issues in and barriers to the provision and management of safe drin...

Recent investigations of water balance in sea snakes demonstrated that amphibious sea kraits (Laticauda spp.) dehydrate in seawater and require fresh water to restore deficits in body water. Here, we report similar findings for Pelamis platurus, a viviparous, pelagic, entirely marine species of hydrophiine ("true") sea snake. We sampled snakes at Golfo de Papagayo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica and de...

Very few regions of the planet possess abundant fresh water and access to adequate fresh water resources can be expected to worsen as a result of population growth and industrial demands for water. Liquid effluents containing toxic substances are generated by a variety of chemistry-related industrial processes, as well as by a number of common household or agricultural applications. The inadequ...