Heavy metal (HM) pollution has long been a significant source of environmental deterioration and a problem for the safety of food. Iraqis prefer rice over any other food, and since heavy metals have a direct impact on health, their traces in rice have drawn particular attention. Before cooking rice, it is usual in Iraq to wash and soak it. Some 55 varieties of imported and local rice were sampled from Erbil city markets in 2022 with the aim of determining the concentration of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb before and after soaking. Standard procedure of acid digestions was applied on the raw and soaked samples. The solutions were analyzed using ICPE-9820 Shimadzu. The mean concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb (in mg/kg) in the rice samples bef

This study was carried out to determine the heavy metal accumulation of Juncus rigidus Desfontaines, 1798 from three different regions of the Basrah Province in Southern of Iraq. Specifically, the concentrations of lead, nickel, and cadmium were determined in the roots, culms and leaves of the plant. The results indicated that the highest accumulation of the heavy metal was recorded in lead (Pb) 12.50± 3.58 mg kg^-1and then in nickel (< 0.30). The lowest value was recorded for cadmium (< 0.05). As well, lead concentrations in J. rigidus varied in different locations and parts of the plant from undetectable in control to 12.66, 19.33, and 9.80 mg kg^-1 in leaves, culm, and roots respective

The measurements of major and trace elements in different brands of milk powder selected from the Iraqis market via the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) Technique have been studied in the present work. The result of the measurements reveals the high concentrations of sodium, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Furthermore, low concentrations of aluminum, silicon, iron, bromine, molybdenum, iodine, barium, titanium, manganese, cobalt, chrome, nickel, copper, zinc and lead were detected. Neutron activation analysis (NAA) and Kjeldahl technique were also employed to determine the concentrations of nitrogen. It was found that the nitrogen concentration was in the range of (1.96 - 3.23) % which is within the permissible li

The study was conducted in the Tigris River in Baghdad during May 2021 until March 2022 to follow the impact of climate change, rising temperatures, and the presence of pollutants on the dynamics of phytoplankton and some physicochemical variables from four sites. The results showed that the climatic conditions during different seasons, in addition to the nature of the sampling sites, have a clear and significant impact on the studied traits and, in turn, affect the phytoplankton community. The highest average temperature (30.67 ˚C) was recorded; the pH values ranged between 8.70 & 6.75; the electrical conductivity (1208.18-770.11 µS/cm ) and the total dissolved solids (TDS) (778.95- 439.49 mg/L) were evaluated. Upon measuring

    Ten species of whiteflies (Hemiptera, Aleyrodidae) representing six genera were studied from a collection from different localities in the middle of Iraq. These species are Acaudaleyrodes rachipora (Singh, 1931); Bemisia afer  (Priesner and Hosny,1934); Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius, 1889); Dialeurodes citri (Ashmead,1885); Dialeurodes kirkaldy (Kotinsky, 1907); Neomaskellia andropogonis Corbett, 1926;  Siphoninus phillyreae (Haliday, 1835); Trialeurodes ricini (Misra, 1924); Trialeurodes vapovariorum (Westwood,1856) and Trialeurodes irakeensis (Al-Malo and Abdul-Rassoul, 2000). Notes are given on their localities, date of c