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Air pollution has become a significant challenge for both developing and developed nations. due to its close association with numerous fatal diseases such as cancer, respiratory, heart attack, and brain stroke. Over recent years, heterogeneous semiconductor photocatalysis has emerged as an effective approach to air remediation due to the ease of scale-up, ready application in the field, use of solar light and ready availability of a number of different effective photocatalysts. To date, most work in this area has been conducted using UV-absorbing photocatalysts, such as TiO2 and ZnO; However, recent studies have revealed Ag3PO4 as an attractive, visible-light-absorbing alternative, with a bandgap of 2.43 eV. In particular, this material has been shown to be an excellent photocatalyst for the removal of many types of pollutants in the gas phase. However, the widespread application of Ag3PO4 is restricted due to its tendency to undergo photoanodic corrosion and the poor reducing power of its photogenerated conductance band electrons, which are unable to reduce O2 to superoxide •O2−. These limitations are critically evaluated in this review. In addition, recent studies on the modification of Ag3PO4 via combination with the conventional heterojunctions or Z-scheme junctions, as well as the photocatalytic mechanistic pathways for enhanced gas-pollutants removal, are summarized and discussed. Finally, an overview is given on the future developments that are required in order to overcome these challenges and so stimulate further research into this promising field.

Background: Investigations of evolution knowledge and acceptance and their relation are central to evolution education research. Ambiguous results in this field of study demonstrate a variety of measuring issues, for instance differently theorized constructs, or a lack of standardized methods, especially for cross-country comparisons. In particular, meaningful comparisons across European countries, with their varying cultural backgrounds and education systems, are rare, often include only few countries, and lack standardization. To address these deficits, we conducted a standardized European survey, on 9200 first-year university students in 26 European countries utilizing a validated, comprehensive questionnaire, the “Evolution Education Questionnaire”, to assess evolution acceptance and knowledge, as well as influencing factors on evolution acceptance. Results: We found that, despite European countries’ different cultural backgrounds and education systems, European first-year university students generally accept evolution. At the same time, they lack substantial knowledge about it, even if they are enrolled in a biology-related study program. Additionally, we developed a multilevel-model that determines religious faith as the main influencing factor in accepting evolution. According to our model, knowledge about evolution and interest in biological topics also increase acceptance of evolution, but to a much lesser extent than religious faith. The effect of age and sex, as well as the country’s affiliation, students’ denomination, and whether or not a student is enrolled in a biology-related university program, is negligible. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that, despite all their differences, most of the European education systems for upper secondary education lead to acceptance of evolution at least in university students. It appears that, at least in this sample, the differences in knowledge between countries reflect neither the extent to which school curricula cover evolutionary biology nor the percentage of biology-related students in the country samples. Future studies should investigate the role of different European school curricula, identify particularly problematic or underrepresented evolutionary concepts in biology education, and analyze the role of religious faith when teaching evolution. © 2021, The Author(s).

In this study, we have successfully prepared the zinc phosphate Zn3(PO4)2 through aqueous precipitation using PEG (Polyethylene glycol) as surface active agent. The compound was analyzed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-Ray analysis (EDS). The diffraction profiles showed a highly crystallized sample with dimensions of 3 μm. Rietveld refinement confirmed the pure monoclinic C2/c zinc phosphate phase. The SEM images showed platelet faceted morphology with different orientations and a crystal growth mechanism has been proposed. The photocatalytic experiments were carried out using Rhodamine B (RhB) as a model pollutant; the UV–visible spectrometry was used to analyze the evolution of dye degradation. The obtained experimental results showed that the Rhodamine B dye degradation efficiency is significantly dependent on different physico-chemical conditions including catalyst loading, pH and dye concentration. Furthermore, the zinc phosphate photocatalyst was found to be fairly photostable during four regeneration cycles. Finally, a photocatalytic mechanism was proposed based on the active species trapping experiments.

This paper provides an overview of the key research findings gathered and pilot conservation activities initiated over the past five years, with a focus on the two Mediterranean species. As with other initiatives in the framework of the Global Trees Campaign (globaltrees.org) dedicated to saving the world's most threatened woody plants, it highlights the collaborative, multidisciplinary nature of the conservation efforts needed, to secure the values and benefits provided by rare, relict species for future generations

This study puts together genetic data and an approximate bayesian computation (ABC) approach to infer the time at which the tree Geoffroea spinosa colonized the Gala´pagos Islands. The genetic diversity and differentiation between Peru and Gala´pagos population samples, estimated using three chloroplast spacers and six microsatellite loci, reveal significant differences between two mainland regions separated by the Andes mountains (Inter Andean vs. Pacific Coast) as well as a significant genetic differentiation of island populations. Microsatellites identify two distinct geographical clusters, the Gala´pagos and the mainland, and chloroplast markers show a private haplotype in the Gala´pagos. The nuclear distinctiveness of the Inter Andean populations suggests current restricted pollen flow, but chloroplast points to cross-Andean dispersals via seeds, indicating that the Andes might not be an effective biogeographical barrier. The ABC analyses clearly point to the colonization of the Gala´pagos within the last 160 000 years and possibly as recently as 4750 years ago (475 generations). Founder events associated with colonization of the two islands where the species occurs are detected, with Espanola having been colonized after Floreana. We discuss two nonmutually exclusive possibilities for the colonization of the Gala´pagos, recent natural dispersal vs. human introduction.

*INRA, Station de Genetique et Amelioration des Plantes, Route de Saint Cyr, 78026 Versailles Cedex Diffusion du document : INRA, Station de Genetique et Amelioration des Plantes, Route de Saint Cyr, 78026 Versailles Cedex Diplôme : Dr. d'Université

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