Feature Article

Several studies suggest that exposure to organophosphate insecticides (OP) during pregnancy impairs neurodevelopment in children. The researchers evaluated associations between biomarkers of prenatal and postnatal OP exposure and cognitive function of 6-year-olds in a French longitudinal birth cohort.

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Thioester-containing protein 1 (TEP1) is a key immune factor that determines mosquito resistance to a wide range of pathogens, including malaria parasites. Here we report a new allele-specific function of TEP1 in male fertility.

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Current dietary guidelines recommend eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. However, based on nutrient composition, some particular fruits and vegetables may be more or less beneficial for maintaining or achieving a healthy weight. We hypothesized that greater consumption of fruits and vegetables with a higher fiber content or lower glycemic load would be more strongly associated with a healthy weight.

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Subsurface drainage has been used for more than a century to keep water table at a desired level of salinity and waterlogging control. This paper has been focused on the impact assessment of pilot studies in India and some other countries from 1969 to 2014 . This review article may prove quite useful in deciding the installation of subsurface drainage project depending on main design parameters, such as drain depth and drain spacing, installation area and type of used outlet.

Stoichiometric approaches have been applied to understand the relationship between soil organic matter dynamics and biological nutrient transformations. However, very few studies explicitly considered the effects of agricultural management practices on soil C : N : P ratio. The aim of this study was to assess how different input types and rates would affect the C : N : P molar ratios of bulk soil, organic matter and microbial biomass in cropped soils in the long-term.

Satellite remote sensing of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) can provide valuable information for estimating surface nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. Using an exponentially modified Gaussian (EMG) method and taking into account the effect of wind on observed NO2 distributions, we estimate 3-year moving-average emissions of summertime NOx from 35 US (United States) urban areas directly from NO2 retrievals of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) during 2005–2014.

Future coastal flood risk will be strongly influenced by sea-level rise (SLR) and changes in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones. These two factors are generally considered independently. Here, we assess twenty-first century changes in the coastal hazard for the US East Coast using a flood index (FI) that accounts for changes in flood duration and magnitude driven by SLR and changes in power dissipation index (PDI, an integrated measure of tropical cyclone intensity, frequency and duration).

The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at current rates, this warming will lead to the widespread thawing of permafrost and the release of hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 and billions of tonnes of CH4 into the atmosphere. So far there have been no estimates of the possible extra economic impacts from permafrost emissions of CO2 and CH4.

Landfill disposal of municipal solid waste represents one of the largest anthropogenic global methane emission sources, and recent policy approaches have targeted significant reductions of these emissions to combat climate change in the US. The efficacy of active gas collection systems in the US was examined by analysing performance data, including fire occurrence, from more than 850 landfills. A generalized linear model showed that the operating status of a landfill—open and actively receiving waste or closed—was the most significant predictor of collection system performance.

Reduced surface–deep ocean exchange and enhanced nutrient consumption by phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean have been linked to lower glacial atmospheric CO2. However, identification of the biological and physical conditions involved and the related processes remains incomplete. Here we specify Southern Ocean surface–subsurface contrasts using a new tool, the combined oxygen and silicon isotope measurement of diatom and radiolarian opal, in combination with numerical simulations. Our data do not indicate a permanent glacial halocline related to melt water from icebergs.