Announcing the Minderoo - Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health.

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Landrigan, P., Raps, H., Symeonides, C., Chiles, T., Cropper, M., Enck, J., Hahn, M., Hixson, R., Kumar, P., Mustapha, A., Park, Y., Spring, M., Stegeman, J., Thompson, R., Wang, Z., Wolff, M., Yousuf, A., & Dunlop, S. Announcing the Minderoo – Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health. Annals of Global Health, 88(1), (2022): 73, https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3916.Plastic is the signature material of our age. In the 75 years since large-scale production began in the aftermath of World War II, plastic has transformed our world, supported many of the most significant advances of modern civilization, and enabled breakthroughs in virtually every field of human endeavor. But plastic also poses great and growing dangers to human health and the environment, harms that fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. The extent and magnitude of these dangers are only beginning to be understood.The funding is from the Minderoo Foundation, the Centre Scientifique de Monaco, and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation

Does Al4H14— cluster anion exist? High-level ab initio study

A comprehensive ab initio investigation using coupled cluster theory with the aug-cc-pVnZ, n = D,T basis sets is carried out to identify distinct structures of the Al4H14— cluster anion and to evaluate its fragmentation stability. Both thermodynamic and mechanistic aspects of the fragmentation reactions are studied. The observation of this so far the most hydrogenated aluminum tetramer was reported in the recent mass spectrometry study of Li et al. (2010) J Chem Phys 132:241103–241104. The four Al4H14— anion structures found are chain-like with the multiple-coordinate Al center and can be viewed approximately as comprising Al2H7— and Al2H7 moieties. Locating computationally some of the Al4H14— minima on the correlated ab initio potential energy surfaces required the triple-zeta quality basis set to describe adequately the Al multi-coordinate bonding. For the two most stable Al4H14— isomers, the mechanism of their low-barrier interconversion is described. The dissociation of Al4H14— into the Al2H7— and Al2H7 units is predicted to require 20-22 (10-13) kcal mol-1 in terms of ΔH (ΔG) estimated at T = 298.15 K and p = 1 atm. However, Al4H14— is found to be a metastable species in the gas phase: the H2 loss from the radical moiety of its most favorable isomer is exothermic by 18 kcal mol-1 in terms of ΔH (298.15 K) and by 25 kcal mol-1 in terms of ΔG(298.15 K), with the enthalpic/free energy barrier involved being less than 1 kcal mol-1. By contrast with alane Al4H14—, only a weakly bound complex between Ga4H12— and H2 has been identified for the gallium analogue using the relativistic effective core potential

The first bite: Imaginaries, promotional publics and the laboratory grown burger

In this paper we analyse a 2013 press conference hosting the world’s first tasting of a laboratory grown hamburger. We explore this as a media event: an exceptional performative moment in which common meanings are mobilised and a connection to a shared centre of reality is offered. We develop our own theoretical contribution – the promotional public – to characterise the affirmative and partial patchwork of carefully selected actors invoked during the burger tasting. Our account draws upon three areas of analysis: interview data with the scientists who developed the burger, media analysis of the streamed press conference itself, and media analysis of the social media tail during and following the event. We argue that the call to witness an experiment is a form of promotion but that such promotional material also offers an address that invokes a public with its attendant tensions.The research leading to this publication has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement number 288971 (EPINET). Neil Stephens’ involvement has also received the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). His work is part of the Research Programme of the ESRC Genomics Network at Cesagen (ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics). Neil Stephens’ work was also supported by the Wellcome Trust (WT096541MA) and a visiting scholarship to CGS Centre for Society and Genomics in The Netherlands, May to July 2011. This support is gratefully acknowledge

Caracterização e análise financeira do processo de extração de óleo de polpa de pequi no Cerrado brasileiro.

Resumo ? O presente estudo realizou caracterização e análise financeira do processo de extração de óleo de polpa de pequi, uma atividade secular de populações tradicionais do Território da Cidadania Alto Rio Pardo (MG). O estudo considerou os custos de insumos e de trabalho das sete etapas do processo produtivo, além da consideração dos riscos de contaminação de ferro no cozimento e na despolpa, mas desconsiderou a comparação entre o lucro obtido por hora de trabalho e o valor da diária de trabalho local, afinal, as relações capitalistas de produção não estão plenamente inseridas na realidade local. Entre as sete etapas analisadas, três apresentaram variações, sendo elas, a colheita (duas variáveis), cozimento (seis variáveis) e despolpa (quatro variáveis), resultando em 48 cenários hipotéticos de processos de extração. Entre eles, quatro combinações são recomendadas ao contexto de vida das famílias rurais locais (colheita na unidade de produção; cozimento no tacho de cobre ou na panela de alumínio; despolpa no engenho manual ou no engenho a motor) e uma combinação é mais adequada ao contexto dos processos agroindustriais coletivos presentes na região (colheita na unidade de produção; cozimento na panela de inox; despolpa no engenho a motor)