Political Ecology

Researchers from the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham have discovered the mechanisms that allow the common soil bacterium Desulfovibrio desulfuricans to recover the precious metal palladium from industrial waste sources.Palladium is one of the platinum group metals (PGMs) which are among the most precious resources on earth. They possess a wide variety [...]

A reduced level of DNA methylation has recently been described in both Zn-exposed and non-exposed offspring of Daphnia magna exposed to Zn. The hypothesis examined in this study is that DNA hypomethylation has an effect on gene transcription. A second hypothesis is that accumulative epigenetic effects can affect gene transcription in non-exposed offspring from parents [...]

It has been previously demonstrated that vitellogenin (VTG) – a precursor egg yolk protein – is produced in male fish exposed to estrogenic compounds in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent. However, little attention has been given to examine whether any patterns of male VTG production exists across fish species on a global scale. We hypothesized [...]

In previous studies we detected lower species richness and lower Hg sensitivity of the bacteria present in egested guts of Porcellio scaber (Crustacea, Isopoda) from chronically Hg polluted than from unpolluted environment. Basis for such results were further investigated by sequencing of 16S rRNA genes of mercury-resistant (Hgr) isolates and clone libraries. We observed up [...]

In this study of wastewater treatment plants in three Canadian cities, selected illicit drugs, including cocaine and its major metabolite, benzoylecgonine (BE), amphetamine, methamphetamine and ecstasy (i.e. MDMA) were detected in untreated wastewater. Cocaine was the most widely used illicit drug at a median level for the 3 cities of 15.7 doses per day per [...]

Here we show that combustion sources, including waste incinerators, metallurgical processes, power-heating systems and so on, are also important emitters of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) to the atmosphere. Geometric mean PBDE concentrations in the stack flue gases of the combustion sources ranged from 8.07 to 469 ng/Nm3. The sinter plants (24.7 mg/h), electric arc furnaces [...]

Results: The probable daily intake (PDI) of MeHg for an adult population based on 60 kg body weight (bw was considerably higher in Wanshan than in the other three locations. With an average PDI of 0.096 µg/kg bw/day (range, 0.015–0.45 µg/kg bw/day), approximately 34% of the inhabitants in Wanshan exceeded the reference dose of 0.1 [...]