Socio-scientific issues provide a great platform to both engage students in scientific topics and assess their understanding of scientific concepts. Nancy R. Singer, Amy Lannin, Maha Kareem, William Romine, and Katie Kline report on the STEM Literacy Project, a three-year National Science Foundation grant that aimed to improve STEM teachers’ knowledge and integration of literacy in their classrooms. They describe teachers’ professional learning, scenario-based assessments and other strategies they incorporated in their STEM classrooms, and how writing enables students to understand real-world issues.

To asses methylene blue as a cell marker, the cells of the buffy coat were labelled by incubating them in a medium containing a lable [Methylene blue] which is prepared in a concentration of 1%[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] drops were tried at different periods of incubation [+/-,+/-, 1+/-, 1+/-] at 37 C degree. The results showed that monocytes and polymorphs are the main cells involved in the phagocytosis of this dye

Objective: To find out the relationship between the bio-social aspect with cholelithiasis patients and
demographic characteristics in Baghdad city.
Methodology: A purposive (non-probability) sample of (100) patients, from (20-70) years old, who were
selected from patients who were admitted to hospital at preoperative stage, from Gastroenterology and
Hepatology Hospital, Baghdad Teaching Hospital, Al-Yarmook Teaching Hospital, Al-Karama Teaching
Hospital, Teaching Hospital. A descriptive study was carried out from 25th of June 2004 to the end of October
2004.
An assessment form was constructed for the purpose of the study. Test-retest reliability was employed through
computation of Pearson correlation coefficient.

In this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption.  No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficie

Objective Thalassemic patients present with multiple immune abnormalities that may predispose them to oral Candida, however this has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to assess oral candidal colonization in a group of patients with β-thalassemia major both qualitatively and quantitatively. Study design The oral mycologic flora of 50 β-thalassemia major patients and 50 age- and sex-matched control subjects was assessed using the concentrated oral rinse technique. Candida species were identified using the germ tube test and the Vitek yeast identification system. Results Oral Candida was isolated from 37 patients (74%) and 28 healthy subjects (56%; P = .04). The mean candidal count was significantly higher in thalassemic patie

Background: Arylesterase activity of Paraoxonase-1 (ARE-PON-1) exhibits an antioxidant role which protects lipoprotein from oxidation. It is known that ARE-PON-1 antioxidant activity associated with high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) reduces the oxidative damage mediated by low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). The present study was aimed to examine the level of serum ARE-PON1 in Iraqi patients with β-thalassemia minor and its relationship with lipid profile (total cholesterol (TC), HDL-C, very low density lipoprotein (VLDL-C), and LDL-C) and hematologic changes as a part of antioxidant system action. Methods: In the present study, the ARE-PON-1 activity was investigated in serum of patients with β-thalassemia minor. Resu

The aim of this study was to investigate antibiotic amoxicillin removal from syn­thetic pharmaceutical wastewater. Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) was used in photocatalysis treatment method under natural solar irradiation in a tubular reactor. The photocatalytic removal efficiency was evaluated by the reduction in amoxicillin concentration. The effects of antibiotics concentration, TiO₂ dose, irradiation time and the effect of pH were studied. The optimum conditions were found to be irradiation time 5 hr, catalyst dosage 0.6 g/L, flow rate 1 L/min and pH 5. The photocatalytic treatment was able to destruct the amoxicillin in 5 hr and induced an amoxicillin reduction of about 10% with 141.8 kJ/L accumulate

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a disease caused by Leishmania tropica parasite. Current treatments for this parasite are undesirable because of their toxicity, resistance, and high cost. Macrophages are key players against pathogens. Nitric oxide (NO), a molecule produce by immune cells, controls intracellular killing of pathogens during infection. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) demonstrated broad-spectrum activity against various types of infectious diseases. It has the ability to stimulate oxygen species production.  This study aims to analyze the macrophages activation through NO production and estimate the cytotoxicity based on the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release upon exposure to L. tropica and

Coated sand (CS) filter media was investigated to remove phenol and 4-nitrophenol from aqueous solutions in batch experiments. Local sand was subjected to surface modification as impregnated with iron. The influence of process variables represented by solution pH value, contact time, initial concentration and adsorbent dosage on removal efficiency of phenol and 4-nitrophenol onto CS was studied. Batch studies were performed to evaluate the adsorption process, and it was found that the Langmuir isotherm effectively fits the experimental data for the adsorbates better than the Freundlich model with the CS highest adsorption capacity of 0.45 mg/g for 4-nitrophenol and 0.25 mg/g for phenol. The CS was found to adsorb 85% of 4-nitrophenol and