Methylmercury is produced in the environment by biological activity-
specifically, by bacteria.
Then we projected how future Methylmercury concentrations could change under different emissions scenarios.
Few health studies, however, have examined impacts of Methylmercury exposure to rice consumers specifically.
We found that
China's future emissions trajectory can have a measurable influence on the country's rice Methylmercury.
Despite its simplicity,
our model was able to reproduce how rice Methylmercury concentrations vary across different Chinese provinces.
Land and
water management activities can strongly influence how Methylmercury is created and transferred to fish, wildlife, and humans.
More recent research, however, has shown that Methylmercury in rice is also elevated in other areas of China.
Its most toxic form, Methylmercury, primarily affects the nervous
and reproductive systems and is particularly harmful during early development.
To understand how mercury from the
atmosphere might be incorporated into rice as Methylmercury, we built a model to simulate mercury in rice paddies.
In North America, human exposure to Methylmercury primarily occurs through the consumption of fish,
which complicates public health guidance because eating fish provides numerous health benefits.
And finally, are subglacial environments conducive to methylating mercury,
and if so is glacial meltwater is a source for Methylmercury in the Arctic marine food web?
When present in waterways, Methylmercury accumulates in fish meat more than in fish oil,
and testing of fish oil supplements show they generally contain little or no mercury.
Regions where rice Methylmercury declined the most under strict policy controls were in central China,
where rice production is high and rice is an important source of Methylmercury exposure.
Studies have calculated that residents in
areas with mercury-contaminated soil consume more Methylmercury than the U.S. EPA's reference dose of 0.1
microgram Methylmercury per kilogram of body weight per day, a level set to protect against adverse health outcomes such as decreased IQ.
Studies have calculated that residents in
areas with mercury-contaminated soil consume more Methylmercury than the US Environmental Protection Agency's reference dose
of 0.1 microgramme Methylmercury per kilogramme of body weight per day, a level set to protect against adverse health outcomes such as decreased IQ.
To better understand the process of Methylmercury accumulation in rice through deposition-
that is, mercury originating from the air that rains out or settles to the land- we constructed a computer model to analyze the relative importance of soil and atmospheric sources of rice Methylmercury.
To better understand the process of Methylmercury accumulation in rice through deposition-
that is, mercury originating from the air that rains out or settles to the land- we constructed a computer model to analyse the relative importance of soil and atmospheric sources of rice Methylmercury.