The University of Atlántico (Spanish: Universidad del Atlántico), also called Uniatlántico, is a public, departmental, coeducational, research university based in the city of Barranquilla, Atlántico, Colombia. It is the largest higher education institution by student population in the colombian caribbean region with 24,113 students, and a faculty of 656 full-time equivalent professors. The university was established by the ordinance No. 24 of 1941 as the Institute of Technology of Atlántico (Spanish: Instituto de Tecnología del Atlántico), under the tutelage of philosopher Julio Enrique Blanco. Then, it changed its name to the present by the ordinance No. 42 of June 15, 1946. The university has three campuses in the city. The main one known as the North Campus, and two satellite campuses known as the Downtown Campus, and the School of Arts. The university offers education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including a diverse range of engineering programs, as well as business management, law, education, fine arts, and several other areas of study..
Microplastic (MP) pollution poses a critical threat to marine ecosystems, yet knowledge of organ-specific accumulation in fish from the Colombian Caribbean remains limited. This study presents the first assessment of MPs in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and gills of three fish species collected from the Caribbean Sea (Magdalena, Colombia) during rainy and dry seasons. MPs were detected in all GIT samples and in 96
This Letter reports measurements of muon-neutrino disappearance and electron-neutrino appearance and the corresponding antineutrino processes between the two NOvA detectors in the NuMI neutrino beam. These measurements use a dataset with double the neutrino mode beam exposure that was previously analyzed, along with improved simulation and analysis techniques. A joint fit to these samples in the three-flavor paradigm results in the most precise single-experiment constraint on the atmospheric neutrino mass splitting, Δ m 32 2 = 2.43 1 − 0.034 + 0.036 ( − 2.47 9 − 0.036 + 0.036 ) × 10 − 3 eV 2 if the mass ordering is normal (inverted). In both orderings, a region close to maximal mixing with sin 2 θ 23 = 0.5 5 − 0.06 + 0.02 is preferred. The NOvA data show a mild preference for the normal mass ordering with a Bayes factor of 2.4 (corresponding to 70% of the posterior probability), indicating that the normal ordering is 2.4 times more probable than the inverted ordering. When incorporating a 2D Δ m 32 2 − sin 2 2 θ 13 constraint based on Daya Bay data, this preference strengthens to a Bayes factor of 6.6 (87%).
Fungal contamination during postharvest storage causes significant food losses, particularly due to Penicillium expansum and Penicillium brevicompactum, highlighting the need for sustainable antifungal alternatives. This study evaluated the antifungal potential of clove essential oil (Syzygium aromaticum) against P. expansum and P. brevicompactum by integrating in vitro assays with in silico analyses. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined, and effects on fungal growth, membrane integrity, and spore germination were assessed. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations were performed to evaluate the affinity and stability of the five most abundant GC-MS compounds that met predefined ProTox-II toxicity criteria (categories 5-6; LD50 ≥ 2000 mg/kg) toward chitin synthase I (CHS I), a key enzyme in chitin biosynthesis. The oil exhibited strong inhibitory activity, with MIC values of 0.156 µL/mL against P. expansum and 0.312 µL/mL against P. brevicompactum, along with significant morphological and physiological alterations. Computational analyses indicated that trans-β-caryophyllene oxide and α-humulene form stable interactions at both the active and an allosteric site of CHS I, supporting a putative dual inhibitory mechanism. These findings highlight clove essential oil as a promising ecological alternative to synthetic fungicides and underscore the value of computational approaches for elucidating antifungal mechanisms in understudied species.
The ubiquitous presence of micro-and nanoplastics (MNPs) in ecosystems has raised increasing concern regarding their transfer through food webs and their occurrence in food animals, particularly cattle and poultry, the most widely consumed animal protein sources worldwide. As emerging, quantifiable components of food matrices, MNPs pose potential risks to food safety and require robust analytical approaches for reliable detection, identification, and quantification in edible tissues. This review compiles and critically evaluates available evidence on the occurrence of MNPs in livestock and poultry meat (n = 146, from 2015 to 2025), with particular emphasis on analytical methodologies, reporting units, and compositional relevance. The environmental pathways of MNPs, from sources and animal exposure to tissue translocation, bioaccumulation, and excretion, are synthesized alongside the analytical workflows used to assess their presence. Overall, the available evidence indicates that MNPs bioaccumulation in livestock can reduce growth performance, alter meat quality attributes, and impair reproductive function, with potential implications for human exposure. By integrating compositional evidence and critically assessing analytical performance across studies, this review frames MNPs as emerging constituents of poultry and livestock-derived foods and highlights the need for standardized, validated methodologies to enhance data comparability, enable exposure assessment, and support future monitoring and guideline development.
Plastics, originally developed as industrial materials, have become pervasive components of Earth's surface systems and are increasingly preserved within sediments worldwide. Here, we synthesize current evidence to conceptualize plastics as geological materials and to assess their significance as sedimentary and stratigraphic signatures of the Anthropocene. We show that plastics behave as sedimentary particles, undergoing transport, sorting, deposition, burial, and reworking alongside mineral and biogenic grains, while exhibiting distinct physical and chemical properties that influence their environmental fate. We present an integrated framework that situates plastics within a plastic-sediment continuum and defines a geological plastic cycle, tracing their pathway from industrial production to environmental dispersal, burial, and early diagenesis. Building on this framework, we propose a three-tier geological classification of plastic-derived materials based on genesis, lithoform, and depositional facies, encompassing hybrid deposits such as plastiglomerates, plasticrusts, pyroplastics, and plastic-enriched soils and strata. Plastics form persistent, datable, and globally distributed sedimentary components that co-occur with other mid-twentieth-century anthropogenic signals. Their productionlinked chronologies and context-dependent preservation support their consideration as complementary stratigraphic indicators of the Anthropocene, alongside other technogenic and geochemical markers.
