#Vaccinating cows could answer serum shortageby many estimates an Ebola vaccine could be available in humans as early as next year.
SAB Biotherapeutics is a company in South dakota with a small herd of cattle that can produce humanlike antibodies.
Together with SAB Dr. Schnell is applying for a grant that would allow the team to vaccinate the cows with his vaccine in order to produce large quantities of antibodies specific for the three viral strains.
The cows would have harvested their blood plasma every two weeks to produce 30-60 liters of serum every month from one animal--the equivalent of 2000 doses. The vaccinated cows would produce polyvalent antibodies--antibodies that can recognize many
In a Phd project at the National Food Institute Technical University of Denmark the latest technologies within whole genome sequencing were exploited to develop new methods to identify genes which are important for the survival of MRSA in pigs.
MRSA CC398 is found in pig production. MRSA is resistant to the antibiotics with which we normally use for treatment of Staphylococcus infections.
which can identify genes important for the survival of MRSA in pigs. High-throughput approaches can identify those genes in the total gene pool of the bacteria
and has turned out to be particularly successful in colonisation of pigs from where it may transmit to humans.
LA-MRSA ST398 has proven to be particularly successful in colonisation of pigs. By studying which genes are essential for the bacteria in pigs it may be possible for researchers to identify the factors important for the bacterium to colonise on pigs.
We still don't know which specific genetic factors in this MRSA type facilitate the spread from animals to humans.
and the wetlands working group two of the four groups convened by the USDA for the methods development which also included forestry and livestock.
The site will allow users to select their land use (including cropland grassland livestock and agroforestry) enter information about their management practices
The USDA report is the work of 38 experts in GHG estimation in the cropland grazing land livestock and forest management sectors across academia the USDA and other agencies of the federal government.
That incorporates everything associated with non-biomass-burning human activity from coal-fired power plants to automobile emissions from concrete factories to cattle feedlots.
The region is an important area for grazing cattle. In a typical year ranchers annually burn thousands of acres of grassland to reduce the abundance of undesirable trees
and are of a higher forage quality for cattle. By burning when many animals are active fires in the late spring can devastate wildlife.
Snakes turtles prairie chickens and other nesting birds are less likely to be destroyed during fall and winter burns as wildlife is often hibernating underground
Lincoln Nebraska and other cities downwind. Burning over a wider time window would reduce the intensity of the smoke that carries to cities downwind
#Panthers prey on ranchers calves, but amount varies, Florida study findsa two-year panther study at two southwest Florida cattle ranches shows that the endangered cats attack
and kill calves but how often that happens can vary greatly by location and landscape.
which radio-transmitter tags were put on the ears of 409 calves at two ranches both near Immokalee.
But the panthers'comeback has not always been helpful to cattle ranchers. One of the ranches Jacobs studied lost 10 calves
or 5 percent of the herd each year to preying panthers while the other lost only one or half a percent of that herd during the same time span.
Both ranches also lost calves to other causes including eight deaths at one ranch and five at the other not attributed to predators.
although panthers weren't the only predator for calves to contend with. Each ranch also lost at least one ear-tagged calf to a bear attack during the two-year study
while some untagged calves were killed by coyotes and vultures. The ranches'physical geography including open spaces and the proximity of wooded areas in
which the cats can hide and stalk likely have much to do with the different rates she said.
and ranchers perhaps to programs that might pay ranchers to maintain key panther habitat rather than as compensation for difficult-to-track individual calf losses.
The research was often gory with Jacobs multi-county UF/IFAS livestock Extension agent Lindsey Wiggins
or back of the calf's neck was most often the mark of a panther attack she said
Coyote and bear attacks were much more damaging with the calf's body badly bruised
#DNA find reveals new insights into the history of cattle in Europea research team from the University of Basel made a surprising find in a Neolithic settlement at the boarders of Lake Biel in Switzerland:
The DNA of a cattle bone shows genetic traces of the European aurochs and thus adds a further facet to the history of cattle domestication.
The journal Scientific Reports has published the results. The modern cattle is domesticated the descendant of the aurochs a wild species that became extinct in the 17th century.
The aurochs'domestication already began roughly 10000 years ago in the Near east. It is their DNA that reveals their ancestry:
Aurochs of the Near east carry a maternally inherited genetic signature (mtdna) called T haplogroup. Modern cattle still carry this signature
and thus show that they derive from these early domesticated cattle of the Near east. This suggests that with the spreading of early farmers from the Near east to Europa the domesticated cattle was imported to Europe alongside.
Unlike the aurochs of the Near east the local wild aurochs of Europe belonged to the P haplogroup.
So far scientists believed that the female European aurochs did not genetically influence the Near Eastern cattle imported during the Neolithic age (5500-2200 BC.
Small sturdy cows as draft animalsscientists from the University of Basel by accident found a very small metacarpal bone from a Neolithic cattle among other animal bones found in the lake settlement Twann in Switzerland
and analyzed its mtdna. The analysis showed that the bovine bone carried the European aurochs'genetic signature of the P haplogroup.
The bone thus represents the first indisputable evidence that female European aurochs also crossbred with domestic cattle from the Near east.
The bone dated to around 3100 BC is evidence for the earlier crossbreeding between a wild female European aurochs with a domestic bull.
If these were coincidental single events or rather cases of intentional crossbreeding cannot be answered clearly on the basis of our results explains Prof.
JÃ rg Schibler head of the research groups for Integrative Prehistoric and Archaeological Science (IPAS) from the Department Environmental science at the University of Basel.
The animal to which the bone belonged was exceptionally small with a withers height of only 112 centimeters.
which the bone dates could have been trying to create a new smaller and sturdier type of cattle especially suitable as draft animal by intentional crossbreeding with wild aurochs.
Fortunately porcine enterovirus G doesn't do much in pigs but it raises concerns about other viruses getting through the border Hause said.
and are impacting several other aspects of the swine industry. Hause has mapped these viruses at the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory as a way to ensure the reliability of the next-generation sequencing methods he uses to identify
Hause's most recent work has led to the discovery of an influenza virus in cattle.
A swine sample came in that we thought was influenza but all other tests were said negative Hause.
Subsequent research has shown that it is widespread in cattle not just pigs. Now we're studying the association of this strain of bovine influenza with respiratory disease in feedlots.
and can jump from humans to pigs and back to humans so it's important for both animal health
and widely used during the 1970s as a safer replacement for DDT It was used on crops ornamental plants livestock and pets.
#Genome analysis helps in breeding more robust cowsgenome analysis of 234 bulls has put researchers including several from Wageningen Livestock Research on the trail of DNA variants
which influence particular characteristics in breeding bulls. For example two variants have proven responsible for disruptions to the development of embryos and for curly hair
These are the first results of the large 1000 Bull Genomes project on which some 30 international researchers are collaborating.
whether the genomes of all the common bulls in The netherlands can be filled with the help of these 234 bulls.
Currently these bulls have been genotyped with markers of 50000 or 700000 DNA variants. The positive results indicate the direction for further research into the practical use of genome information in breeding.
Dairy and beef cattle The project demonstrates how useful large-scale DNA analyses can be says Professor Roel Veerkamp Professor of Numerical Genetics at Wageningen University and board member of the 1000 Bull Genomes project.
He emphasises that the requirements for dairy and beef cattle are becoming ever more exacting: Until the mid nineties a cow primarily had to produce a lot of milk.
But since then expectations have gone up. Farmers are looking for more robust cows. In practice that means good fertility longer life udders that give good protection against infections improved claws and more efficient feed utilisation.
That adds up to a lot of characteristics which are governed by all kinds of genes. In order to bring them together in a cow in the best
and fastest way possible genomic selection is important for breeding organisations such as CRV and by means of genome analysis we want to improve this further says Veerkamp.
Bull genome The genome of a bull consists of 3 billion'letters'.'In the 234 bulls studied the researchers found a total of over 28 million positions on the DNA
which displayed variation in other words where the animals have different letters. Currently CRV uses approximately 50000 variants the so-called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) for genomic selection by linking SNP patterns of a very large number of animals to characteristics
The bull analysis presented at this time is the first phase of the 1000 Bull Genomes project a database which is planned to incorporate the genomes of a thousand bulls from all over the world.
The bulls analysed to date are primarily from Australia The netherlands Germany and France. However there are now many more countries involved
and we have exceeded already 1000 bulls says Professor Veerkamp. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wageningen University and Research Centre.
and good for people said Dr. Andrew Steer President & CEO WRI. Every head of government minister and climate negotiator should pay attention to this important if often overlooked strategy to address climate change.
and the biochemical and biophysical processes involved in the growth of forage plants such as Stylosanthes capitata Vogel a legume utilized for livestock grazing in tropical countries such as Brazil.
because plants represent the main food source for cattle in countries such as Brazil--one of the only countries in the world that produce meat and milk through the extensive farming of livestock i e. through livestock farming in pastures.
#Asian genes in European pigs result in more pigletspigs which are bred commercially in Europe are found to have varied a highly mosaic of different European and Asian gene variants.
The Asian genes in particular result in a large number of piglets in European pig breeds. In the latest issue of the science journal Nature Communications researchers from Wageningen University explain that a number of important characteristics of European pigs have Asian origins.
They previously demonstrated that the genetic diversity among commercial pigs is greater than within the existing populations of wild boar.
The pig we know today has a long history since the original independent domestication of the wild boar in Europe and Asia some 10000 years ago.
This domestication resulted in European and Asian pig breeds with very different characteristics and appearance.
Modern commercial European pigs contain DNA originating from Asia. According to the researchers the genetic diversity in commercial pigs is greater than in existing wild boar populations as a result.
Chinese pigsthe Wageningen research has demonstrated that different parts of the genome of commercial pigs are much closer to Chinese pigs than to European wild boar.'
'At first sight that seems surprising because pigs in Asia and Europe were domesticated independently from one another around ten thousand years ago
and you would therefore expect there to be no traces of Asian DNA in European pigs'says Professor Martien Groenen under whose leadership the research took place.
In Nature Communications he and his colleagues explain that the finding has its origin in the UK in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
This is because there was a strong rise in the demand for pork during the Industrial revolution and pig farmers in the UK in particular saw that Asian pigs had wanted characteristics they to improve in their own pigs.
In general Chinese pigs were much more fertile and fatter than their European counterparts. So breeders imported a number of Chinese individuals around this time
and crossed them with their own European pigs. The greater genetic diversity within the current commercial pig breeds is therefore the result of crosses between European and Chinese pigs around two hundred years ago.
Strong selection for characteristics such as fertility and fat production of the Asian pigs subsequently ensured that some pieces of Asian DNA are present at high frequency in the European pigs.
An example is the AHR gene of which many European pigs have the Asian version. Sows with the European gene have significantly fewer piglets than carriers of the Asian version.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wageningen University and Research Centre. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal References s
#Room for improvement in elementary school childrenâ##s lunches and snacks from homeopen a childâ##s lunch box
and youâ##re likely to find that the lunches and snacks inside fall short of federal guidelines.
Through the use of a simple efficient and low cost technique involving a focused laser beam two NUS research teams led by Professor Sow Chorng Haur from the Department of physics at the NUS Faculty of science demonstrated that the properties of two
Said Prof Sow â#oein our childhood most of us are likely to have the experience of bringing a magnifying glass outdoors on a sunny day
To address this technological challenge Prof Sow Dr Lu Junpeng a postdoctoral candidate from the Department of physics at the NUS Faculty of science
Hidden images â#drawnâ##by focused laser beam on silicon nanowires could improve optical functionalitiesin a related study published in the journal Scientific Reports on 13 may 2014 Prof Sow led
To develop materials with properties that can cater to the industryâ##s demands Prof Sow together with his team of researchers will extend the versatile focused laser beam technique to more nanomaterials.
Comparing environmental costs of livestock-based foodswe are told that eating beef is bad for the environment
dairy beef poultry pork and eggs. Their idea was to calculate the environmental inputs-the costs-per nutritional unit:
For example cattle grazing on arid land in the western half of the US use enormous amounts of land but relatively little irrigation water.
Cattle in feedlots on the other hand eat mostly corn which requires less land but much more irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer.
In total eating beef is more costly to the environment by an order of magnitude-about ten times on average-than other animal-derived foods including pork and poultry.
Cattle require on average 28 times more land and 11 times more irrigation water are responsible for releasing 5 times more greenhouse gases
and consume 6 times as much nitrogen as eggs or poultry. Poultry pork eggs and dairy all came out fairly similar.
That was also surprising because dairy production is thought often to be relatively environmentally benign. But the research shows that the price of irrigating
and fertilizing the crops fed to milk cows-as well as the relative inefficiency of cows in comparison to other livestock-jacks up the cost significantly.
Meat turns up the heat as livestock emit greenhouse gaseseating meat contributes to climate change due to greenhouse gasses emitted by livestock.
New research finds that livestock emissions are on the rise and that beef cattle are responsible for far more greenhouse gas emissions than other types of animals.
It is published by Climactic Change. Carbon dioxide is the most-prevalent gas when it comes to climate change.
Methane and nitrous oxide are released in part by livestock. Animals release methane as a result of microorganisms that are involved in their digestive processes and nitrous oxide from decomposing manure.
and now at the University of Siena in Italy and Carnegie's Ken Caldeira estimated the greenhouse gas emissions related to livestock in 237 countries over a nearly half a century
and found that livestock emissions increased by 51 percent over this period. They found a stark difference between livestock-related emissions in the developing world which accounts for most of this increase
and that released by developed countries. This is expected to increase further going forward as demand for meat dairy products
By contrast developed countries reached maximum livestock emissions in the 1970s and have been in decline since that time.
As a result greenhouse gas emissions from livestock keep going up and up in much of the developing world.
and dairy cattle comprised 74 percent of livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions 54 percent coming from beef cattle and 17 percent from dairy cattle.
Part of this is due to the abundance of cows but it is also because cattle emit greater quantities of methane and nitrous oxide than other animals.
Sheep comprised 9 percent buffalo 7 percent pigs 5 percent and goats 4 percent. That tasty hamburger is the real culprit Caldeira said.
It might be better for the environment if we all became vegetarians but a lot of improvement could come from eating pork or chicken instead of beef.
They also tested various nutrient sources (non-fertilized control composted poultry litter and pelletized organic commercial fertilizer).
This study has implications for a range of other species including black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) and woodlark (Lullula arborea.
Livestock now can't graze on these cheap food sources. Could interspecies transplants of gut microbes help livestock expand their dining menu?
Kohl says he'd like to transplant woodrat gut microbes into sheep or goats to find out if that increases their tolerance to toxic foods.
Juniper is expanding its range and ecologists and land managers are concerned he says. Farmers are interested in getting their sheep
and goats to eat juniper. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation. Dearing and Kohl conducted the research with three other University of Utah faculty members:
human geneticist Robert Weiss biochemist James Cox and biologist Colin Dale. Evolving a Taste for Toxinsmany plants produce toxic chemicals
which they use as a defense against herbivores or plant-eating animals. A toxic resin coats the leaves of the creosote bush;
Agriculture is responsible for 20 to 35 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions largely in the form of carbon dioxide from tropical deforestation methane from livestock and rice growing and nitrous oxide from crop fertilization.
and environmental protection relate to making more crop calories available for human consumption by shifting crops from livestock to humans and reducing food waste.
In the study laboratory pigs with complete heart block were injected with the gene called TBX18 during a minimally invasive catheter procedure.
On the second day after the gene was delivered to the animals'hearts pigs who received the gene had significantly faster heartbeats than pigs who did not receive the gene.
She and her coworkers will study the potential of dandelions to inhibit bacteria related to bovine mastitis an infection in the mammary glands of dairy cows.
In the study laboratory pigs with complete heart block were injected with the gene called TBX18 during a minimally invasive catheter procedure.
On the second day after the gene was delivered to the animals'hearts pigs who received the gene had significantly faster heartbeats than pigs who did not receive the gene.
Their recommendations state that rice-based formulas are an option for infants allergic to cow's milk
The main source of income in these regions is livestock farming which supports over a billion people.
which the livelihoods of households that depend on livestock could be maintained in the long term. The researchers also looked at socioeconomic changes combining a risk assessment with an environmental and economic model.
within the DFG's Collaborative Research Centre for Difference and Integration UFZ scientists worked with the Berlin University of the Arts (Udk) to develop a strategic game to explain the connections between land use rainfall and livestock capital to a broad public.
The aim is to increase the herdsman's capital in the form of sheep. Players have to take decisions that depend not only on the state of the grazing land but also on the day-to-day challenges of life in the steppes.
#Prehistoric â#bookkeepingâ##tokens continued long after invention of writingan archaeological dig in southeast Turkey has uncovered a large number of clay tokens that were used as records of trade until the advent of writing
One theory is that different types of tokens represented units of various commodities such as livestock and grain.
You either have information about livestock coming through here or flocks of animals themselves. Each farmer or herder would have a bag with tokens to represent their flock said Macginnis.
what is now Turkey Syria and Iraq. In its day roughly 900 to 600 BC the Assyrian empire was the largest the world had seen ever.
The team say that some tokens likely stand for grain as well as different types of livestock (such as goats
and cattle) but--as they were in use at the height of the empire--tokens could have been used to represent commodities such as oil wool and wine.
Two CT-scanned Siberian mammoth calves yield trove of insightsct scans of two newborn woolly mammoths recovered from the Siberian Arctic are revealing previously inaccessible details about the early development of prehistoric pachyderms.
Micro-CT scans of teeth from both mammoth calves were conducted at the University of Michigan School of dentistry.
These differences may simply reflect the one-month age difference between the calves or they could relate to the different populations from which the two calves derived.
The researchers refer to both calves as mummies due to the high level of soft-tissue preservation.
In addition to fully articulated skeletons the carcasses held preserved muscle fat connective tissue organs and skin. Khroma even had clotted blood inside intact blood vessels and undigested milk in the stomach.
A possible death scenario for Khroma places the calf and her mother on a riverbank in the spring.
Drought conditions lead to poor pasture conditions and hay production which then impacts the number of cattle ranchers can graze Knapp said.
The study appears in Springer's Journal of Ornithology. The fossil of the Scansoriopteryx (which means climbing wing) was found in Inner Mongolia
The above story is provided based on materials by Springer. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
They are in the same pheasant family as the roosters and exhibit similar characteristics. It is also worth noting that Toyohashi near Nagoya is the number one producer of quails in Japan explains Professor Yoshimura.
in addition it analyses whether or not trophic niche width influences productivity (number of chicks per pair) at population and territory levels.
#Developing better vaccine for mutating virus in cowsbovine viral diarrhea virus infections result in one of the most costly diseases among cattle with losses in U s. herds estimated at $2 billion per year according to professor Christopher
Identifying persistent infectionswhen a pregnant cow becomes infected the developing calf is at risk. If the infection occurs between 40 and 120 days of gestation the calf will be born persistently infected according to the U s. Department of agriculture.
The calf appears healthy but is what Chase refers to as a walking time bomb that can infect the entire herd.
It's like Typhoid Mary a BVDV Bossy he says. The animal will shed the virus for its entire life.
Approximately 0. 5 percent of all cattle in the United states are infected persistently according to Chase. Most cattle producers vaccinate yearly
but when testing is done anywhere from one to 15 percent of a herd can test positive.
BVDV spreads via direct contact through nasal discharge saliva such as when cows drink from a tank with unchlorinated water.
Identifying variationsin 2003-2004 the Antelope research station in northwestern South dakota bought 136 cattle and wound up with 60 persistently infected calves.
The surviving calves all of whom died of mucosal disease within a year provided Chase and his graduate researchers a gold mine of samples.
In some cases the virus incorporated part of a cow gene or another virus in the part of the genome in which most mutations take place Chase explains.
and assistant professor Adam Hoppe of SDSU Chemistry and Biochemistry Department are examining how BVDV suppresses the cow's immune response.
The findings of the study led by Edwin van Leeuwen of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in The netherlands are published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.
The above story is provided based on materials by Springer Science+Business Media. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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