Texas Latino College Student Attitudes Toward Natural Resources and the Environment

Abstract: Latinos in the United States are an increasing segment of the population and are becoming important stakeholders in the management of natural resources. Although Latinos have been included in attitudinal research on environmental concerns, few studies have focused exclusively on Latino attitudes toward natural resources and the environment. We surveyed Texas college and university students of Mexican descent (n = 635) to determine their environmental concerns. Using the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), we determined an environmental concern score for each respondent and compared this index to several demographic variables. We found that gender, a political candidate's environmental position, mother's education, combined parental income, and, to a lesser degree, the number of grandparents born in the United States and religiosity (church attendance), were important model variables. We hypothesized that acculturation would be an important factor in predicting NEP scores; however, acculturation level was not an important predictor in our study, which we attribute to both the nature of our sample (i.e., highly acculturated college students) and small sample sizes of less-acculturated college students. We recommend that future research consider determining the importance of acculturation in Latino attitudes toward natural resources and the environment.     

Nickel levels in arthropods associated with Ni hyperaccumulator plants from an ultramafic site in New Caledonia

Arthropods (mainly insects) were collected from a forest site that contained at least six species of Ni hyperaccumulators. Whole body Ni analysis was performed for 12 arthropod taxa, two of which were studied at different life cycle stages. We found two Nitolerant insects. The pentatomid heteropteran Utana viridipuncta, feeding on fruits of the Ni hyperaccumulator Hybanthus austrocaledonicus, contained a mean of 2 600 μNi/g in nymphs and 750 μNi/g in adults. The tephritid fly Bactrocera psidii, feeding on pulp of Sebertia acuminata fruits that contained 6 900 μNi/g, contained 420 μNi/g as larvae that had evacuated their guts and significantly less (65 μNi/g) as adults. European honeybees (Apis mellifera) visiting flowers of the Ni hyperaccumulator H. austrocaledonicus contained significantly more Ni (8‐fold more) than those collected from flowers of Myodocarpus fraxinifolius, a non‐hyperaccumulator. Our results show that some insects feed on Ni hyperaccumulator plants and that their feeding mobilizes Ni into local food webs.     

The role of nitric oxide in cancer

Nitric oxide (NO) is a pleiotropic regulator, critical to numerous biological processes, including va-sodilatation, neurotransmission and macrophage-mediated immunity. The family of nitric oxide synthases (NOS) comprises inducible NOS (iNOS), endothelial NOS (eNOS), and neuronal NOS (nNOS). Interestingly, various studies have shown that all three isoforms can be involved in promoting or inhibiting the etiology of cancer. NOS activity has been detected in tumour cells of various histogenetic origins and has been associated with tumour grade, proliferation rate and expression of important signaling components associated with cancer development such as the oestrogen receptor. It appears that high levels of NOS expression (for example, generated by activated macrophages) may be cytostatic or cytotoxic for tumor cells, whereas low level activity can have the opposite effect and promote tumour growth. Paradoxically therefore, NO (and related reactive nitrogen species) may have both genotoxic and angiogenic pro