Adapted an emergency method for measuring strontium levels in milk so that it can be used in routine studies

Strontium (Sr) is an element which in the event of a nuclear accident is the one that is most released into the atmosphere. The chemical behaviour of strontium is similar to that of calcium and can accumulate in the soil, in plants and in animals (in bones, especially). It is an element with two main radioisotopes (90Sr and 89Sr) which have an effective biological life that is relatively high for human beings, and due to its fixation in the bones, ends up giving a dose of radiation over many years.

The way rivers function reflects their ecological status and is rarely explored

The Ecología de ríos/Stream Ecology research group of the UPV/EHU's Department of Plant Biology and Ecology is a group that specialises in the study of the way rivers function; it comprises experts from numerous areas who have combined their knowledge with a broad range of bibliographical information in the context of the European Globaqua Project in which more than 10 European institutions are participating. One outcome of such a broad piece of work is a long article "in which we synthesize and classify all the processes that can be measured in rivers; we explain how the measurements can be made (methods existing in the literature), how these processes respond to various environmental stressors, etc.", explained Daniel von Schiller, one of the authors of the article. It is a "proposal that puts forward a new, highly appropriate working framework for both researchers and managers," he pointed out.