Every year bee specialists report detection of larger numbers of bee colonies suffering from colony collapse disorder. One of the suggested causes of colony collapse disorder is the increasing use of neonicotinoid pesticides in farming agriculture. Neonicotinoids like clothianidin, thiacloprid and imidacloprid are effective insect neurotoxins created as a safer alternative to previous insecticides. Neonicotinoid pesticides have many distribution methods including dusting methods and application to soil and root systems; leading to their dispersion in a multitude of matrices. The quantity of these pesticides in water and soil samples needs to be measured to further asses the effect of these pesticides on bees and other species including fish and humans. However, differences in extraction methodology can lead to differences in analyte detection. Water and soil samples are complex matrices to be separated before being assessed through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. Here I present my work in comparing methods for extracting imidacloprid, a specific pesticide in the neonicotinoid category. Results from determining a reliable and accurate method of imidacloprid will help to increase the ability for future research to be conducted on collected environmental samples.

Arsenic is a toxic heavy metal to humans that can cause serious health damages. Exposure to arsenic can cause various health conditions such as skin damage, lung, bladder, kidney and liver cancer, as well as nerve and circulatory problems. Arsenic contamination in water and soil can be naturally sourced from local geology or human sourced from pesticide and preservative uses. Studies have shown that rice will uptake arsenic from water and soil. Rice is a very easily digestible grain which makes it very suitable source of nutrition for children, whom are more susceptible to toxins. Therefore, it is important to develop and continue the study of methods that can help to quantitatively detect arsenic in rice. For this experiment, the objective was to look at a previously published method used to detect arsenic and validate its effectiveness on five store-bought rice samples. The broader implication of this experiment is to validate a method and modify it to gain quantitative data in order to assess whether harmful levels can be detected and to determine background levels of arsenic in rice. Rice was powdered and 1.0 g of rice sample was digested in 10mL of 0.28M nitric acid for 90 minutes at 95°C. The samples were analyzed with ICP-MS to detect arsenic based on its mass. A calibration plot with a correlation coefficient of 0.96278 and a slope of 1856.48 was created. The calibration plot was made from concentration of 1ppb, 5 ppb, 10 ppb, and 50ppb in which all had intensities that were detectable. The detection value of the samples falls in between the calibration intensities. The data that is obtained suggests mean concentration of arsenic range from 1ppb to 30 ppb in 10mL solution of HNO3. This indicates that there is a range of 10 ppb to 300ppb per grams of rice. These data are corroborated by other studies analyzing levels of arsenic in rice.