U.S. Environmental Protection Agency methods for analysis of water for Cryptosporidium and Giardia stipulate maximum sample holding times which are not always practical to comply with. A spiking experiment indicated that holding times of up to 2 weeks had no significant effect on recovery of these parasites from 10-liter samples of raw water in plastic carboys.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease usually acquired by contact with water contaminated with urine of infected animals. However, few molecular methods have been used to monitor or quantify pathogenic Leptospira in environmental water samples. Here we optimized a DNA extraction method for the quantification of leptospires using a previously described Taqman-based qPCR method targeting lipL32, a ...

Drinking and environmental water samples contain a diverse array of constituents that can interfere with molecular testing techniques, especially when large volumes of water are concentrated to the small volumes needed for effective molecular analysis. In this study, a suite of enteric viruses, bacteria, and protozoan parasites were seeded into concentrated source water and finished drinking wa...

Changes in the ventilation of the southern oceans over the past few decades are examined using ocean measurements of CFC-12 and model simulations. Analysis of CFC-12 measurements made between the late 1980s and late 2000s reveal large-scale coherent changes in the ventilation, with a decrease in the age of subtropical Subantarctic Mode Waters (SAMW) and an increase in the age of Circumpolar Dee...

Cetacean strandings elicit much community and scientific interest, but few quantitative analyses have successfully identified environmental correlates to these phenomena. Data spanning 1920-2002, involving a total of 639 stranding events and 39 taxa groups from southeast Australia, were found to demonstrate a clear 11-13- year periodicity in the number of events through time. These data positiv...

Advances in offshore wind farm (OWF) technology have recently led to their construction in coastal waters that are deep enough to be seasonally stratified. As tidal currents move past the OWF foundation structures they generate a turbulent wake that will contribute to a mixing of the stratified water column. In this study we show that the mixing generated in this way may have a significant impa...

During the early Pliocene, 5 to 3 million years ago, globally averaged temperatures were substantially higher than they are today, even though the external factors that determine climate were essentially the same. In the tropics, El Niño was continual (or "permanent") rather than intermittent. The appearance of northern continental glaciers, and of cold surface waters in oceanic upwelling zones...

thechah nimeh reservoirs of sistan is as one of the main water sources of zabol city used for drinking, agriculture, industry and livestock purposes. this study aimed to determine the contribution of the natural and concentration factors of heavy metals such as cd, pb and cu in sediment of chah nimeh of sistan. the concentrations of heavy metals in surface sediments were studied in six stations...

BACKGROUND The protozoan parasites Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia are known to occur widely in both raw and drinking waters. They are two of the causative agents of waterborne outbreaks of gastroenteritis throughout the world. In the present study, a PCR assay and FA were developed for detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cyst in environmental samples. METHODS We have detected C...

/ This paper reviews the state of the environment in Ghana and explores the potential for the use of institutional, legal, and economic instruments in environmental management in the specific context of this developing country.The environmental situation in Ghana is characterized by desertification, land degradation, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate water supply in the northern regio...