PAHs from coals are ecotoxicologically active

In continuation of the PAHs-from-coals-story, Wiebke Meyer published additional data and findings on the toxic potential of PAHs deriving from different coal types in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

The article titled "Polar polycyclic aromatic compounds from different coal types show varying mutagenic potential, EROD induction and bioavailability depending on coal rank" reports on mutagenicity and dioxin-like activity of coal-derived PAHs. Wiebke found that the toxic properties differ between coal types, and also some are better available to organisms than others, thus might more likely cause adverse effects.

Constant dosing: reliable exposure concepts to reduce "animal" use

Passive dosing is an approach were the partitioning equilibrium of a substance between a solid and a liquid phase is utilised to maintain exposure concentrations in biotesting. This means that test organisms are exposed at defined and constant concentrations, thus reducing experimental variability and uncertainty, which leads to more robust results.

Together with Philipp Mayer and Kilian E.C. Smith, both formerly of NERI in Roskilde, Denmark, and now with Technical University of Denmark and KIST Europe, respectively, we put out a paper "PAH toxicity at aqueous solubility in the fish embryo test with Danio rerio using passive dosing" in Chemosphere reporting on the usage of PDMS cast into glass vials for passive dosing of non-hatched zebrafish embryos (FET biotest). We show for 10 PAHs constant delivery from the PDMS reservoir to the water phase based on equilibrium partitioning, and prove passive dosing applicable in FET. This test design could in future lead to better data and hence reduced use of zebrafish embryos, albeit legally fish larvae up to 120 hours post fertilization are not considered animals. But we are biologists, we care about any organism.

SOLUTIONS - a project with a consortium that solves any problem

Since one year already we are part of the EU-funded collaborative research project "Solutions for present and future emerging pollutants in land and water resources management" (SOLUTIONS). It is one of the largest environmental research projects within the EU and promises nothing less than to find a solution for all substances and mixtures in European water bodies and suggest to the EU commission how future water quality assessment should look like.

Our part in this is to better predict the influence of already existing and "emerging" pollutants through an improved understanding of the effects of environmental burdens on cells and organisms.
For further info on the project in general and the work of our group go to:

http://www.solutions-project.eu/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/SOLUTIONS/442137955889022
https://twitter.com/SOLUTIONS_UFZ
http://www.rwth-aachen.de/go/id/gufw/?lidx=1#aaaaaaaaaaagufx
http://www.aachener-zeitung.de/lokales/region/der-gesundheit-unserer-seen-auf-den-grund-gehen-1.935379 (German)

What is truely unique to the project is the composition of the consortium. The partners are coming not only from all different countries and institutions - what is common to such large endeavours - but they all feature some specific expertise that might come in handy for someone else from the project. There is much less overlap of research fields than in other joint projects, providing a vast selection of different knowledge, tools, methods, equipment, skills, capabilities and the like. Literally we can say that the solution for any problem we encounter within the project lies in the consortium and just has to be asked for. What a good condition for our water bodies.

More of Basel - a communication session focused on projects

Barcelona will host the 25th SETAC Europe annual meeting in 2015. We could celebrate there the forth science communication session in a row at SETAC Europe AMs since Berlin 2012. Quite a run!

As promised earlier, the session "Science communication - Concepts and activities from past and current research projects" will focus on reports on science communication from research projects. This turned out to be very valuable during the Basel session, and we want to hear more of such theoretical brackground translated into practical experience.

As always, the session is open for abstracts until 26 November 2014, 23.59 Brussels time. Abstracts can be submitted via the online submission system. All details on abstract submission can be found here.

I am looking forward to your contribution as an important step forward towards quality science communication of environmental research.

So how about communication now?

The Basel session raised again strong interest. We chaired a lively session with fantastic talks in front of a full-seated room, once more showing how important this topic is for a large number of colleagues. The authors gave practical tips on blogging and social media usage, they dived into the current situation of science communication of environmental research, and they presented approaches on how to properly disseminate activities and results from running research project. This last aspect seemed to us be of wider importance, why we decided to focus our session proposal for the upcoming SETAC Europe annual meeting in Barcelona, Spain, on more of such background and experience.

The session also helped us to further shape a proposal for a SETAC Europe advisory group an science and risk communication, that is currently being prepared and planned to submit this year.

Find a more detailed description of the session and it outcomes in our session brief as a contribution to the June issue of SETAC Globe.

Irony of ivory

Let's say, polls are in, and we didn't make it into government.
There was a deadline when registrations for short courses at the SETAC Basel 2014 conference were counted, and afterwards decisions had to be made for each course whether its worth it to run.
Three courses were offered on communication topics. I really liked reading that. But as large the choices as little was the interest. Our course drew 4 registrations...the others drew one each. As a consequence, all three courses were cancelled.
What a pity! I liked our proposal, for sure, but I would also have loved to attend the other two courses. Simon Pardoe of PublicSpace UK offered "Disseminating publicly-funded science and technology research: challenges, issues and strategies". Most environmental scientists should have been interested. From what I experienced being active for science communication the last years I doubt that many colleagues have sufficient knowledge about this - if any. The SETAC Europe Student Advisory Council (SAC) in person of current acting chair Dragan Jevtic wanted to contribute "Social and Professional Networking Tools for Science Communication". A similar course as a noon time seminar at the SETAC North America 2013 conference in Nashville was a huge success.
So what went wrong? As a "nice piece of irony", to quote Roel Evens of SETAC Europe, we seem to have failed to communicate: the importance of proper communication of scientific findings, the necessity to leave the comfort of our ivory tower, and the fact of 3 courses on science communication available at SETAC Basel. This was for us to learn. We will do better next time.

Here's to identification!

It took me quite a long time to come up with a satisfying logo for the research group."Effect-related Ecotoxicology" doesn't work well as an acronym. Adding "work group" or "reasearch group" or even "team" as initials also just sounded silly. Well, so the best way out is to avoid using an acronym for the logo. The disadvantage of this strategy is that a catchy group acronym aids in identfication of the members with their research ("Hi, I'm Thomas of the REFEC team!"). But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So here's what I have in hand now. Maybe I find something better in the bushes later on.