Employing spider webs for environmental investigation of suspended trace metals in residential and industrial areas

Spider webs were gathered from residential and industrial areas to found the order of heavy suspended metals in the air. The treatment of spider webs were done with nitric acid and digested by atomic absorption spectrophotometer before analysis (AAS). The average value of several heavy metals concentration were observed to be meaningfully great at p < 0.05 in suspended ingredients in industrial zones including, Cadmium (Cd) 0.15 ± 0.05 and Lead (Pb) 0.53 ± 0.09 µgg-1, respectively. The average values of concentration of Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni) and Zinc (Zn) were not meaningfully changed from residential, industrial and control zones. It was observed that, the heavy metals concentration reduces when the web specimens were collected more away from the road.

Magnetic Particles Weight as an Indicator for Heavy Metals Concentration

Due to the ever-increasing population growth, urbanization and industrial activity are essential for meeting the basic needs of households. Together with the resulting traffic load and ineffective waste disposal, these factors are the most important sources of environmental pollution in this century. Therefore, the concentration of contaminants should be regularly monitored to protect ecological and human health. The common analytical methods are time-consuming, expensive, and account for a potential source of contamination. In this study, Spearman correlation coefficient, cluster analysis, PMF model, and spatial analysis indicated that anthropogenic magnetic particle weight (MPW) indicates the heavy metal load originated from anthropogenic activity. Hence, it is introduced as a simple, rapid, and cost-effective method for monitoring heavy metal contamination in soil, dust together with bed and suspended sediment. Whenever limited background knowledge prevents planning a comprehensive environmental investigation, this method can be used as the first step for gaining a general insight towards the present status and organize ranked set sampling design.

Factitious Cushing’s syndrome, hypopituitarism, and self-provoked skin lesions: when the skin mirrors the soul

Summary Factitious Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a very rare form of Münchausen syndrome. Its presentation and course are extremely heterogeneous, and diagnosis is generally challenging. We report the case of a 52-year-old woman who was initially investigated because of the occurrence of cushingoid features. Nevertheless, endocrine work-up showed very low morning plasma ACTH and serum cortisol levels. In addition, it also demonstrated central hypopituitarism and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. Head MRI showed a small pituitary mass. Based on these results, and probably overlooking the initial clinical suspicion, general practitioner (GP) referred the patient to our Endocrine Unit for hypopituitarism. At inspection, moon face, central obesity, and bruising were evident. Multiple ulcerative skin lesions were also concentrated in the right arm and leg. Dermatology evaluation suggested that the lesions were self-provoked. For several days, the patient denied the assumption of corticosteroids, but we finally discovered that the GP’ nurse had prescribed betamethasone without the GP’s knowledge for about 2 years. In conclusion, the surreptitious assumption of corticosteroids is very rare, but the physicians should be aware that pituitary function could be impaired by high doses of corticosteroids, mimicking hypopituitarism. In these patients, a multidisciplinary approach and environmental investigation can be useful to diagnose factitious CS. Learning points Surreptitious assumption of corticosteroids can cause heterogeneous presentation, ranging from Cushing’s syndrome to multiple hypopituitarism. Suppression of ACTH and cortisol levels in a patient with cushingoid features firstly suggests surreptitious assumption of corticosteroids. A multidisciplinary approach can be extremely useful in patients with suspected factitious Cushing’s syndrome. Sometimes, to prove surreptitious assumption of corticosteroids needs environmental investigation.

A community-acquired Legionnaires’ disease outbreak caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 2: an uncommon event, Italy, August to October 2018

In September 2018 in Brescia province, northern Italy, an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease (LD) caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 2 (Lp2) occurred. The 33 cases (two fatal) resided in seven municipalities along the Chiese river. All cases were negative by urinary antigen test (UAT) and most were diagnosed by real-time PCR and serology. In only three cases, respiratory sample cultures were positive, and Lp2 was identified and typed as sequence type (ST)1455. In another three cases, nested sequence-based typing was directly applied to respiratory samples, which provided allelic profiles highly similar to ST1455. An environmental investigation was undertaken immediately and water samples were collected from private homes, municipal water systems, cooling towers and the river. Overall, 533 environmental water samples were analysed and 34 were positive for Lp. Of these, only three samples, all collected from the Chiese river, were Lp2 ST1455. If and how the river water could have been aerosolised causing the LD cases remains unexplained. This outbreak, the first to our knowledge caused by Lp2, highlights the limits of UAT for LD diagnosis, underlining the importance of adopting multiple tests to ensure that serogroups other than serogroup 1, as well as other Legionella species, are identified.

How and why beekeepers participate in the INSIGNIA citizen science honey bee environmental monitoring project

In the “contributory” citizen science project INSIGNIA, beekeepers carried out non-invasive sampling of their own honey bee colonies for an environmental investigation of pesticide residues and pollen plant origin. We surveyed several traits and attitudes of 69 of the volunteering beekeepers from ten countries. We found that their motivation was similar to that found in previous studies of environmental volunteer motivation, with helping the environment and contributing to scientific knowledge being strong motivators. Our results suggest that receiving laboratory analysis results of the samples from their colonies is the most meaningful way of appreciation for beekeepers, but is not their primary reason for participation. A citizen scientist beekeeper in this study spent on average 10.4 working hours on the project during a sampling season. Our study indicates that most of our volunteers would participate in similar future investigations, or would recommend participation to other beekeepers, underlining the potential of beekeepers as citizen scientists in honey bee research.