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The rapid decline of ecosystems on the Earth is deploring.    It is a multifaceted problem and a pillar of the problem is constituted by the overconsumption and mismanagement of plastics. Plastics released to nature crumble into smaller particles that infiltrate into trophic, feeding, chains in ecosystems and accumulate in the members of the system. ...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing public health concern, with the potential to render many of our current antibiotics ineffective.    A recent study draws conclusions on the potential role of livestock waste and treated wastewater as reservoirs for AMR. The study investigated the presence and abundance of AMR genes in livestock waste and treated...

  To evaluate the impact of ports on the biodiversity in their vicinity, a recent study collected coral reef sediment samples from the vicinity of Port Everglades in South Florida, and performed 16S rRNA sequencing on the samples.    CosmosID analyzed the 16S rRNA gene-based microbiome community data to illustrate the impact of port activities...

Nasal swabs and saliva are conventional methods for detection of SARS-CoV-2, but the virus is also present in feces. Therefore, fecal material in wastewater samples could be used to track community dynamics of the virus. To do that, Brumfield et al. (2022) collected wastewater samples from manholes and then processed them for microbial genome sequencing...

Plastic particles < 5 mm are classified as microplastics. Microplastics are present in almost all aquatic ecosystems, from the Arctic to the deep ocean. Moreover, microplastics can migrate between different aquatic environments, such as lakes, seas and oceans. This environmental problem becomes a health concern when the microplastics enter into a new aquatic ecosystem where...