4 years after a tsunami caused devastation and a nuclear disaster in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, life is far from restored for the local residents evacuated from the area. Justin McCurry reports.

The transgenerational consequences of environmental contaminant exposures of aquatic vertebrates have the potential for broad ecological impacts, yet are largely uninvestigated. Bisphenol A (BPA) and 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) are two ubiquitous estrogenic chemicals present in aquatic environments throughout the United States and many other countries.

Original Source

Fungal spores are ubiquitous in the Earth's atmosphere, especially in the environment of tropical rainforests with intense biological activities. To assess the impact of fungi on chemical components of atmospheric aerosols at a Chinese tropical rainforest site, size-segregated fungal spore tracers (i.e. arabitol and mannitol) were measured along with major aerosol components, including carbonaceous species and water-soluble inorganic ions.

Original Source

Latin America has the planet's largest land reserves for agriculture and had the most rapid agricultural expansion during the twenty-first century. A large portion of the expansion replaced forests, as shown by many local and regional studies. However, expansion varied regionally and also replaced other land covers. Further, it is important to distinguish between changes in cropland and pastureland as they produce food at different levels of efficiency and intensity.

Ensuring that the world's food needs are met by 2050 will take a doubling of global food production. To improve agricultural yields on that scale will require a radical rethink of global water-management strategies and policies. Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicentre of this challenge. Ninety-five per cent of sub-Saharan agriculture depends on 'green water': moisture from rain held in the soil. In large parts of the continent, most rain evaporates before it generates 'blue water', or run-off, so little of it recharges rivers, lakes and groundwater.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has estimated that over 40 million people are currently displaced and have variable access to health care in the country in which they reside. Populations displaced by conflict are largely disenfranchised, and high prevalence of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has been documented. NTDs generally affect the least advantaged people in poor societies—populations with little voice or representation.

The researchers present results of a three-year study to determine the fate of imidacloprid residues in hive matrices and to assess chronic sublethal effects on whole honey bee colonies fed supplemental pollen diet containing imidacloprid at 5, 20 and 100 μg/kg over multiple brood cycles. Various endpoints of colony performance and foraging behavior were measured during and after exposure, including winter survival. Imidacloprid residues became diluted or non-detectable within colonies due to the processing of beebread and honey and the rapid metabolism of the chemical.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide records indicate that the land surface has acted as a strong global carbon sink over recent decades, with a substantial fraction of this sink probably located in the tropics, particularly in the Amazon. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the terrestrial carbon sink will evolve as climate and atmospheric composition continue to change. Here we analyse the historical evolution of the biomass dynamics of the Amazon rainforest over three decades using a distributed network of 321 plots.

Antibiotic resistance is a growing international problem. This has led to increasing numbers of serious infections that are very difficult, or sometimes impossible to treat. Increasing resistance involves nearly all bacteria that infect people, including very common ones such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. People with infections caused by resistant isolates have much higher death rates as well as increased complications and suffering.

lthough current programmes to eliminate lymphatic filariasis have made significant progress it may be necessary to use different approaches to achieve the global goal, especially where compliance has been poor and ‘hot spots’ of continued infection exist. In the absence of alternative drugs, the use of higher or more frequent dosing with the existing drugs needs to be explored. We examined the effect of higher and/or more frequent dosing with albendazole with a fixed 300mg dose of diethylcarbamazine in a Wuchereria bancrofti endemic area in Odisha, India.