Cadmium Cd contamination in rice paddy fields constitutes a serious health issue in some parts of China Here we study the potential for remediation of Cd contaminated alkaline paddy soil with low iron Fe and high copper Cu background by altering the concentrations of Fe and Cu in the growing media, which has been only seldom considered We assessed how these two micronutrients Cu and Fe affect the absorption and transport of Cd in rice Adding Cu significantly increased rice biomass and grain yield by reducing root Cd influx and Cd upward transport which, consequently, lowered Cd concentrations in roots, culms and leaves However, excessive Cu also promoted a relatively higher Cd allocation in grains, especially under Fe deficiency, likely because Cu significantly increased the proportion of bioavailable Cd in leaves Contrastingly, Fe did not alleviate the toxic effects of Cd on rice growth and yield, but it significantly reduced Cd transfer towards grains, which might be attributed to a sharp decrease in the proportion of bioavailable Cd in leaves Our results demonstrated that Cd remediation may be achieved through altering Fe and Cu inputs, such that Cd accumulation in rice grains is reducedThis study explores the impacts of climate change on the hydrology of the headwater areas of the Duero River Basin, the largest basin of the Iberian Peninsula To this end, an ensemble of 18 Euro-CORDEX model experiments was gathered for two periods, 1975-2005 and 2021-2100, under two Representative Concentration Pathways RCP45 and RCP85, and were used as the meteorological forcings of the Variable Infiltration Capacity VIC during the hydrological modelling exercise The projected hydrologic changes for the future period were analyzed at annual and seasonal scales using several evaluation metrics, such as the delta changes of the atmospheric and land variables, the runoff and evapotranspiration ratios of the overall water balance, the snowmelt contribution to the total streamflow and the centroid position for the daily hydrograph of the average hydrologic year Annual streamflow reductions of up to 40 were attained in various parts of the basin for the period 2071-2100 under the RCP85 scenario, and resulted from the precipitation decreases in the southern subwatersheds and the combined effect of the precipitation decreases and evapotranspiration increases in the north The runoff and the evapotranspiration ratios evinced a tendency towards an evaporative regime in the north part of the basin and a strengthening of the evaporative response in the south Seasonal streamflow changes were mostly negative and dependent on the season considered, with greater detriments in spring and summer, and less intense ones in autumn and winter The snowmelt contribution to the total streamflow was strongly diminished with decreases reaching -80 in autumn and spring, thus pointing to a change in the snow regime for the Duero mountains Finally, the annual and seasonal changes of the centroid position accounted for the shape changes of the hydrograph, constituting a measure of seasonality and reflecting high correlations degrees with the streamflow delta changesThe strong inter-dependence between terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, mediated by the character of vegetation and landscapes, can have significant impacts to freshwater species A changing climate towards hotter and drier climates is already increasing fire frequencies and severity around the world The platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus is an iconic freshwater Australia species, facing increasing threats since European colonisation and with a distribution which coincides with fire prone areas While some evidence suggest platypuses are resilience to fires, the combination of severe wildfires and reduced water availability may significantly impact platypus populations In this short communication we investigated the effects of fire on platypus populations in two rivers, following an extreme drought, comparing burnt and unburnt in adjacent river catchments, with similar habitat and geomorphology Findings suggests significantly low platypus numbers in burned sites compared to those on the unburnt river, as well as to known densities across the species' range Whether the fires directly impacted platypuses remains undetermined but the timing of the fires as well as an extreme drought likely impacted recruitment as we did not record any juveniles on both rivers Platypuses are increasingly under threat from direct and indirect human developments across much of their range and increased frequency and severity of fires and droughts will further strain the viability of platypus populations, particularly in small streams more likely to dry out Improving the resilience of platypus populations and their freshwater environments to both droughts and fires needs to become a priorityThe aluminum dross AD, which causes numerous problems of its management and disposal to environment is a useful resource to extract alumina This study explains a novel process to extract highly pure alumina Al2O3 from AD at a high extraction rate without producing the residues and exhaust gases  https//wwwselleckchemcom/products/trastuzumabhtml  An experimental set up was designed to perform the grinding of AD for the decomposition of aluminum nitride AlN and the removal of salts Thereby, the desalted dross was used to detect the optimum alkaline NaOH calcination parameters and leaching conditions, as well as the dissolution kinetics of alumina and silica The leaching residues were used to produce Ettringite mineral with calcium-based compounds including CaO and CaSO4 to avoid the problems of solid waste disposal from the leaching process Moreover, to purify the alumina, slightly soluble CaSO4 was added in leaching solution to precipitate silicate and the optimum additive/solution ratio g/mL was determined The aluminum hydroxide AlOH3, precipitated after the carbonization was calcinated at 9000 °C for 2 h to produce γ-alumina The morphological and mineralogical characterizations of AD, γ-Al2O3 and the synthesized Ettringite mineral were studied by X-ray diffraction XRD, field emission scanning electron microscopy FESEM and X-ray fluorescence XRF It was observed that activation temperature of 10000 °C, Na2O/Al2O3 molar ratio of 14, leaching temperature of 600 °C, leaching time of 400 min, and the leaching liquid/solid ratio mL/g of 25/1 were the optimal parameter conditions to extract alumina with the extraction rate at 867 and purity of more than 98 The results of leaching kinetics' study showed that the dissolution of alumina and silica were both controlled by layer diffusion process with the apparent activation energy of 114010 kJ·mol-1 and 20556 kJ·mol-1, respectively