… he (the veterinarian) warned, “these cats back here are radioactive.” He meant that literally. The previous day, all five animals received carefully titrated doses of radioactive iodine, designed to destroy the overactive cells that had proliferated in their thyroid glands and flooded their bodies with hormones. These cats are among the millions suffering from hyperthyroidism, one
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Glyphosate has recently been the subject of a number of articles in newspapers and magazines. Three of them in particular caught my attention: “Glyphosate presence in honey raises concerns” in the Canadian weekly The Western Producer [Arnason, 09.03.2017], “Tribunal Monsanto: la firme américaine reconnue coupable d’atteinte aux droits humains (US firm found guilty of human
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What is wrong with the ubiquitous and attractive supermarket tomatoes? For many city dwellers, the delicious taste of a succulent garden tomato is little more than a distant memory. The standard grocery varieties have grown larger and blander. Indeed, the decline in flavour quality of the modern commercial tomato compared to heirloom varieties is
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Les perturbateurs endocriniens, une menace pour le développement du cerveau (Endocrine disrupters, a threat to brain development) is the striking title of an article by Ludmilla Terres that was published in the French newspaper Le Monde, on March 7th this year. I often ask myself whether exposure to chemical compounds affects our brain development; whether
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The European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) population, still very abundant in French Alsace as late as the 1960s, has been reduced to some 450 individuals today. What is the way of life of this small rodent? Why is its habitat collapsing? What challenges are to be faced to preserve Alsatian large hamster populations? The main reason
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Dioxins are harmful persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to which humans are exposed mostly via the consumption of animal products. They can enter the food chain at any stage, including crop fertilization. Fertilizers belong to several categories: synthetic chemicals providing the essential elements (mostly N, P and K) that are required by the crops but also
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Due to the large number of applications of bisphenol-A (BPA), the human exposure routes are multiple. We aimed to review shortly the food and non-food sources of BPA, and to evaluate their contribution to the human exposure. Food sources discussed here include epoxy resins, polycarbonate and other applications, such as paperboard and polyvinylchloride materials. Among
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For reasons of food safety, packaging and food contact materials must be submitted to migration tests. Testing of silicone moulds is often very laborious, since three replicate tests are required to decide about their compliancy. This paper presents a general modelling framework to predict the sample’s compliance or non-compliance using results of the first two
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This overview paper describes a study conducted for the Belgian Federal Public Service of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment during 2006–2007. Home-produced eggs from Belgian private owners of hens were included in a large study aiming to determine concentration levels of various environmental contaminants. By means of the analyses of soil samples and of
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This paper investigates the estimation behavior of six increasingly complex 15N models, for estimating flux rates between phytoplankton and dissolved N pools in aquatic ecosystems. The development of these models over the last 40 years reflects increasing realism in the pools and fluxes that constitute the N cycle. The purpose of this paper is to
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