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  • Moss Hansen posted an update 1 day, 10 hours ago

    As interest in the use of copper-based nanomaterials in agriculture continue to increase, research into their exposure effects must expand from short-term, high exposure studies to long-term studies at realistic concentrations. Long-term studies can better elucidate the implications of copper nanomaterial exposure by allowing plants to mature and adapt to higher copper concentrations. STX-478 research buy In this study, sugarcane plants were grown to maturity in large nursery pots using soils amended with one of the following treatments Kocide 3000 (Cu(OH)2), a nano-sized CuO (nCuO), a bulk-sized CuO (bCuO), copper metal nanoparticles (Cu NP), or CuCl2 at 20, 40, and 60 mg kg-1. After tissue harvesting, copper content in plant tissues, including pressed cane juice, were determined. Chlorophyll content and the activity of reactive oxygen species (ROS) related enzymes, in root tissues, were measured as an indicator of plant health. Elemental analysis revealed significant changes in root copper concentrations only upon application of the highest levels of Kocide 3000, nCuO, and Cu NP. However, translocation of copper to leaf tissues displayed consistent increases with added copper over controls. Plants treated with Kocide 3000 at 60 mg kg-1 experienced a significant 31% decrease in cane juice yield; copper concentrations in the pressed juice of plants treated with Kocide 3000 at 20 and 60 mg kg-1, nCuO at 20 and 60 mg kg-1, bCuO at 20 mg kg-1, CuCl2 at 40 mg kg-1, and Cu NP increased by at least 58%. Chlorophyll content remained comparable to controls, and there was a significant 50 to 68% decrease in superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in plants treated with nCuO, bCuO, Cu NP, and CuCl2. The results indicate that sugarcane plants exposed to the selected copper-based treatments were not adversely affected. V.In a circular economy model the way we use the textiles needs to change at a fundamental level. A circular economy is an alternative to a traditional economy (fabrication, use and dispose) in which we keep resources in a loop for as much time as possible, try to maintain their value while in use, and repurpose for generation of new products at the end of utilization. The value of the global fashion industry is 3000 Billion dollars that accounts for more than 2% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (https//fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics/). In the last two decades not only the textile industry has doubled the production but also an average global annual consumption of textiles has doubled from 7 to 13 kg per person and reached to the threshold of 100 million tonnes of textiles consumption. More than two thirds of the textile goes to landfill at the end of their use and just around 15% is recycled. Various scientific studies confirm that the disposal nature of fast fashion and throwaway culture is resulting in a serious environmental, health, social and economic concern. One of the global environmental challenges arising from micro-plastic and micro-textile waste entering into the oceans that can end up in fish and eventually food chain. Herein, through a systematic literature review, the significance of circular fashion and textile is highlighted and various approaches for reuse, recycle and repurposing of the textiles waste as well as disruptive scientific breakthroughs, innovations and strategies towards a circular textile economy have been discussed. Looking into the future, remarks have been made in regards to tackling the key challenges in recycling of textile materials in different stages of their manufacturing process. Identifying the relative importance of human and environmental drivers on fire occurrence in different regions and scales is critical for a sound fire management. Nevertheless, studies analyzing fire occurrence spatial patterns at multiple scales, covering the regional to national levels at multiple spatial resolutions, both in the fire occurrence drivers and in fire density, are very scarce. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of studies that analyze the spatial stationarity in the relationships of fire occurrence and its drivers at multiple scales. The current study aimed at predicting the spatial patterns of fire occurrence at regional and national levels in Mexico, utilizing geographically weighted regression (GWR) to predict fire density, calculated with two different approaches -regular grid density and kernel density – at spatial resolutions from 5 to 50 km, both in the dependent and in the independent human and environmental candidate variables. A better performance of GWR, both in goodness of fit and residual correlation reduction, was observed for prediction of kernel density as opposed to regular grid density. Our study is, to our best knowledge, the first study utilizing GWR to predict fire kernel density, and the first study to utilize GWR considering multiple scales, both in the dependent and independent variables. GWR models goodness of fit increased with fire kernel density search radius (bandwidths), but saturation in predictive capacity was apparent at 15-20 km for most regions. This suggests that this scale has a good potential for operational use in fire prevention and suppression decision-making as a compromise between predictive capability and spatial detail in fire occurrence predictions. This result might be a consequence of the specific spatial patterns of fire occurrence in Mexico and should be analyzed in future studies replicating this methodology elsewhere. V.Air pollution in the urban environment is widely recognized as one of the most harmful threats for human health. International organizations such as the United Nations and the European Commission are highlighting the potential role of nature in mitigating air pollution and are now funding the implementation of Nature-Based Solutions, especially at the city level. Over the past few decades, the attention of the scientific community has grown around the role of urban forest in air pollution mitigation. Nevertheless, the understanding on Particulate Matter (PM) retention mechanisms by tree leaves is still limited. In this study, twelve tree species were sampled within an urban park of an industrial city. Two techniques were used for leaf analysis Vacuum/Filtration and Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, in order to obtain a quali-quantitative analysis of the different PM size fractions. Results showed that deposited PM loads vary significantly among species. Different leaf traits, including micro and macromorphological characteristics, were observed, measured and ranked, with the final aim to relate them with PM load.

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