Soymilk was fermented with Lactobacillus casei, and statistical experimental design was used to investigate factors affecting viable cells of L. casei, including temperature, glucose, niacin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, folic acid and pantothenic acid. Initial screening by Plackett-Burman design revealed that among these factors, temperature, glucose and niacin have significant effects on the growth of L. casei. Further optimization with Box-Behnken design and response surface analysis showed that a second-order polynomial model fits the experimental data appropriately. The optimum conditions for temperature, glucose and niacin were found to be 15.77 °C, 5.23 and 0.63 g/L, respectively. The concentration of viable L. casei cells under these conditions was 8.23 log10 (CFU/mL). The perfect agreement between the observed values and the values predicted by the equation confirms the statistical significance of the model and the model's adequate precision in predicting optimum conditions.

Hair metal level in newborn and mother pairs from Iran is reported. Toxic metals including cadmium (157 vs. 87.5 μg/kg), mercury (246 vs. 198 μg/kg), copper (14,313 vs. 11,776 μg/kg) and aluminum (52,022 vs. 408,207 μg/kg) were higher in newborn hair when compared to their mothers; suggesting that metals maybe discarded in the fetus as a detoxification method. Comparison with available data from Germany and Poland, and Iraq suggests overall similarities and significant differences in the case of the Iraqi subjects. Public protection from mixture toxicity of metals will be facilitated by studies such as ours.