Temperature-driven and discharge-driven variability of organic micropollutants in a large urban river and its implications for risk-based monitoring.

Urban rivers are exposed to an increasing load of organic micropollutants from wastewater effluent posing an ecological as well as public health hazard. One-off surveys can capture a snapshot of the pollution profile but fail to reveal the full scale of spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In the present study, 41 micropollutants (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), antihypertensives, antiepileptic, antidiabetic, antibiotics, iodinated contrast media (ICM), corrosion inhibitors, pesticides) were monitored every two weeks for one-year upstream and downstream of the Budapest metropolitan area in Danube River (336 samples total).

Poor Decision Making and Sociability Impairment Following Central Serotonin Reduction in Inducible TPH2-Knockdown Rats.

Serotonin is an essential neuromodulator for mental health and animals' socio-cognitive abilities. However, we previously found that a constitutive depletion of central serotonin did not impair rat cognitive abilities in stand-alone tests. Here, we investigated how a mild and acute decrease in brain serotonin would affect rats' cognitive abilities.

Disinfection of therapeutic water - balancing risks against benefits: case study of Hungarian therapeutic baths on the effects of technological steps and disinfection on therapeutic waters.

Thermal therapeutic pools in most countries are operated in a manner similar to swimming pools: with water circulation, filtration and disinfection. However, in some countries, including Hungary, therapeutic pools are traditionally not treated this way, in order to preserve the therapeutic qualities of the water. However, dilution and frequent water replacement applied in these pools are often insufficient to ensure adequate microbial water quality, posing a risk of infection to the bathers.