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on the nature of the local biogeochemical environment, says Jon Chorover, associate professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Since it is present in a humid, forested system, radionuclide contamination at [the Savannah River site] is subjected to significant interaction with the resident biota and organic matter. . . . Although biology likely plays an important role in contaminant fate throughout the DOE complex, it is paramount at [Savannah River] where the tight coupling between hydrologic dynamics and the activities of plants and microbes strongly impact geochemical cycling. Surficial research also costs less to carry out than research into the deeper subsurface. This is one of the reasons that a subcommittee of BERs Advisory Committee recommended in April 2004 conducting
such research at the Savannah River site, adds Tiedje, who was on the subcommittee charged with studying the issue. Patrinos says he recognizes that surficial science is important for DOE, but he adds that the risk posed by any pollutants depends on their toxicity. At present, DOE has no set timetable for when it may tackle surficial contaminants. Like many of the intractable issues whose timetables were reset by the move to accelerated cleanups, they may not be addressed until 2020 or 2030, Bertsch says. These are just the kinds of difficult issues that rely on the longer-term basic ecological research that managers at the Savannah River site see as very important but that does not fit with BERs mission of basic science, Bertsch says. KELLYN S. BETTS
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Approximately 60% of the earths ecosystem servicesthe term ecologists use for the processes required to support life, including fresh water, soil loss, nutrient cycles, and biodiversityare being degraded or used unsustainably, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report, which was released in late March. The report was put together by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) with the aid of more than 1300 social and natural scientists from 95 countries, the largest body of experts ever assembled to assess knowledge in this area. They collectively warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse over the next 50 years. However, it is still possible to ease the strain on our planet by making significant changes in policies, institutions, behavior, technology, and knowledge, says Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation, one of the major funders of the assessment. To view the report, go to www.millenniumassessment.org.
Researchers found that methylmercury in these fathead minnow eggs comes directly from the mother fishs diet, not from the mercury stored in her body.
Little is known about the toxicological effects of methylmercury on the early developmental stages of fish, explains lead author Chad Hammerschmidt at the University of Connecticut, Groton. However, James Wiener, a fisheries biologist at the University of Wisconsin, says recent studies show that methylmercury in adult fish has adverse effects at lower levels than expected. This new finding suggests that the egg, a handful of cells that undergoes profound neurological changes, might be vulnerable to the developmental effects of methylmercury, a neurotoxin, he adds. The new insight might eventually have practical implications, says author Mark Sandheinrich at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. For example, reservoir managers may be prompted to time water releases to minimize methylmercury levels just before spawning season.
Most plants have natural mechanisms to fend off infection, but David Salt and his colleagues at Purdue University have shown that the alpine flower Thlaspi does not have those mechanisms and instead accumulates metals to resist pathogens, according to research published in Plant Physiology ( 2005 , 137, 10821091). Thlaspi thrives in nickel-containing soil, and this insight may help researchers to develop crops for phytoremediation.
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Hammerschmidt and Sandheinrich fed diets contaminated with methylmercury to young fathead minnows, the lab rats of fish studies. When the fish matured, some were fed a diet spiked with different concentrations of methylmercury. The methylmercury of eggs from minnows that were fed the spiked food reflected the food concentrations, not the minnows body burdens. Some field data support the lab results, says Sandheinrich. The methylmercury budget of Max Lake in Wisconsin dropped in 1991 because of a change in water chemistry. Mean levels of total mercury in the fish carcasses were the same before and after the water change. But methylmercury concentrations in the eggs of fish collected beforehand were almost twice those in eggs collected afterward, he notes. This is the kind of information that investigators couldnt tease out of a field study, says Wiener. Now we know that early life exposure may depend on the abundance of methylmercury in the maternal diet. Methylmercury in lakes systematically varies from peaks to valleys. The timing of spawning could make a difference to whats in the eggs, he adds. In the past, fish were mainly viewed as a pathway for mercury exposure to people and wildlife. Biologists only recently started to study the effects of methylmercury on fish, Wiener points out. Hammerschmidt, Sandheinrich, and their colleagues previously showed that exposure to methylmercury at environmentally relevant levels affects the reproductive success of fish by reducing the production of testosterone and estrogen. Subsequently, this reduces the number of fish that spawn, increases the time it takes them to spawn, and decreases egg production (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 877883; 2003, 37, 43904396). Hammerschmidt cautions that changes in the amount of methylmercury transferred to the eggs will not directly affect the body burden in fish as they grow. This is because egg concentrations are far lower than fish body burdens. For example, eggs contain picogram quantities of methylmercury, whereas oneyear-old fish can accumulate microgram levels. However, the data do show that some important aspects of aquatic systems respond quickly to changes in methylmercury loadings, he says. REBECCA RENNER
Studies of wild river otters, whose fish diets expose them to low levels of methylmercury, indicate that the density of neurotransmitters in the brain may be an early warning of injury.
seen was more a continuous effect, rather than a typical threshold response, says Laurie Chan, corresponding author and associate professor at the Centre for Indigenous Peoples Nutrition and Environment at McGill University (Canada). Chan and his colleagues analyzed the mercury content in the brains of wild river otters trapped in Nova Scotia and Ontario. Because lake characteristics in Nova Scotia favor mercury methylation, otters from this region had significantly higher MeHg burdens than those from Ontario2.78 versus 0.94 micrograms per gram in the cerebal cortex. The higher MeHg levels correlate with lower
minks do not exclusively live on fish. It is very interesting to compare the responses of different species, says Chan. With that in mind, Chan plans to quantify possible neurochemical changes in marine mammals because they can bioaccumulate even higher concentrations of persistent neurotoxicants. Coccinis own studies with rats in the lab also found an increase of cholinergic receptors in the brain and in blood, where lymphocytes also express these receptors, following exposure to MeHg (Environ. Health Perspect. 2000, 108,
2933). Although measurements such as those performed by Chan and colleagues may prove useful as biological markers to assess environmental health, Coccini cautions that careful validation studies and a better understanding of the functional role of changes in receptor densities are still needed. Nevertheless, Chan is convinced that their new data challenge the longheld concept of a fixed-threshold response to MeHg. In the future, we will be in a better position to frame risk-assessment paradigms. ORI SCHIPPER
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For the first time, researchers have found that unrelated species of cyanobacteria produce a toxin associated with neurodegenerative diseases, according to a paper published in the April 5 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( 2005, 102 , 50745078). The researchers say that the ubiquity of cyanobacteria in terrestrial, as well as freshwater, brackish, and marine environments, suggests a potential for widespread human exposure. The researchers found that, given the right conditions, all known types of cyanobacteria produce the neurotoxin -N -methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), which has been found in the brains of people with Alzheimers and a paralytic disease similar to Parkinsons. Because eutrophication and rising global temperatures could trigger increases in the extent and duration of algal blooms in waters worldwide, the researchers recommend monitoring BMAA concentrations in drinking waters contaminated by cyanobacterial blooms.
The Central Leather Research Institutes new technology for dehairing hides results in larger pieces of leather.
Typically, sodium sulfide and lime are used to remove hair from cowhides in the production of leather. The hair is completely degraded by the process, but a sludge is left behind, says Dennis Shelly, the director of the Leather Research Institute at Texas Tech University. This protein-rich sludge is the top pollution problem of the industry
and is a much bigger concern than wastes that contain the chromium used in leather tanning, he says. From a waste-loading perspective, the dehairing issue is a larger magnitude, explains Gary Sayler, director of the University of Tennessee at Knoxvilles Center for Environmental Biotechnology. You must remember that many of the very active countries in tanning are developing countries with much more limited capacity for treatment, let alone advanced waste treatment. CLRIs new enzyme-based technology preserves the hair, and this should significantly decrease the environmental impact of leather processing, Shelly says. If you can save the hair without dissolving it, you will reduce the [chemical] oxygen demand of the waste stream. And thats moving in the right direction, Shelly explains. CLRI says that the process, which uses the commercially available enzyme Biodart, reduces the chemical oxygen demand of the resulting wastewater by 53% and total solids by 26%. Solid waste management [is] the need of the hour in the tanning industry, says Md. Rafiq, director of KKSK Leather Processors, Ltd., an Indian firm that has been field-testing CLRIs new technology and deems it promising. Ever since the [Indian] Supreme Court ordered the closure of more than
The 2005 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement was awarded in April to two scientists whose pioneering work set the stage for climate-change science. C. David Keeling, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has been collecting data since 1958 that show the gradual buildup of CO2. He also developed techniques for measuring atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Lonnie Thompson, a professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University, was the first scientist to study the tiny samples of ancient atmospheres preserved in the glaciers in tropical areas. By collecting these samples, Thompson has documented the rapid pace at which tropical glaciers are disappearing. For more information, go to www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/tylerprize.
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500 tanneries in and around Tamil Nadu [in 1996], the tanners in India are really looking for greener leather processing, says Jonnalagadda Raghava Rao, the papers corresponding author. Development and commercialization of clean and green leather processing is a major thrust of our group, as well as [the] institutes top priority, he adds. Only Chinas leather industry is larger than Indias, Shelly says. He estimates that the leather industry is worth at least $1 trillion worldwide, annually. The new technology helps sidestep some of what Rao calls doundo approaches in leather processing. For example, the conventional approach uses lime to swell hides, then removes the compound to reduce the swelling. CLRIs new enzymatic technology avoids this step. Moreover, it can be coupled with an enzyme-based fiber-opening step so that the process completely avoids undoing steps, Rao says. KKSK Leather Processors is also testing this enzyme-based fiber-opening technology. CRLIs new dehairing process also uses significantly less production waterpractically none, Sayler notes. I believe this is an approach that can be used many places where bulk production proteases are available. These enzymes are cheap and easy to make and are very stable, he says. For all of these reasons, that technology will be easier to put in place than chromium alternatives, he says. An important side benefit of the enzymatic dehairing process is that it leaves more product, increasing the area of the leather by 8% compared with conventional processes, according to Rao. He estimates that tanners could get the equivalent of about U.S.$265 for each metric ton of raw hides they process. An increase of 8% is significant, Shelly agrees. The technology is also likely to be marketable because a growing number of automotive and furniture manufacturers, particularly in Europe, are demanding that leathers be produced using the greenest possible technologies, he says. There are companies, like Mercedes, that require a nonchrome tanned leather, he points out. CLRI is also actively investigating alternatives to the chromium used in conventional tanning, Rao says. The institute has developed a method based on vegetable tannins (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2004, 38, 871879) that they are testing as part of an entirely bio-based method of leather processing, he says. KELLYN S. BETTS