Contamination

**Types of Contamination:**
– Chemical contamination: Involves impurities in chemicals causing reactions or toxicity.
– Environmental contamination: Similar to pollution, harms humans, organisms, and ecosystems.
– Agricultural contamination: Occurs through contact with genetically modified organisms.
– Food, beverage, and pharmaceutical contamination: Involves harmful intrusions like toxins or pathogens.
– Radioactive contamination: Poses risks in environments requiring nuclear safety and radiation protection.

**Contaminated Evidence:**
– Evidence contamination can lead to wrongful convictions or mistrials in forensic science.
– Contaminated fingerprints, hair, skin, or DNA can distort investigations.
– Contamination can occur from first responders or unrelated sources.
– Contaminated evidence can result in dismissal of crucial evidence.
– Mistrials can happen due to contaminated samples in forensic investigations.

**Contaminated Samples:**
– Accidental introduction of foreign material can distort results in biological sciences.
– Contaminants like living microorganisms can render samples useless.
– Contaminated cell culture lines can dominate samples, affecting outcomes.
– Contamination can distort results in geology, geochemistry, and archaeology.
– Small amounts of foreign material can significantly impact experiment results.

**Food Contaminant Detection Methods:**
– Conventional and novel methods aid in detecting contaminants like cyanidin, lead, microbial toxins, and pesticides.
– Rapid, sensitive, and affordable methods are available for detecting contaminants in food.

**Interplanetary Contamination:**
– Occurs when a planetary body is biologically contaminated by spacecraft.
– Contamination can happen upon arrival at a foreign planetary body or upon return to Earth.
– Space probes can unintentionally introduce biological contaminants.
– Proper protocols are essential to prevent interplanetary contamination and its implications for planetary research.