and taurine that regulates the production of new bone cells. This pathway could be a potential new target for osteoporosis treatment.
when they showed that liver cells from the offspring of B12-deficient mothers were unable to produce taurine.
When these mice were fed regular doses of taurine at three weeks of age they recovered bone mass
While the importance of taurine is yet to be understood fully this research shows that Vitamin b12 plays a role in regulating taurine production
and that taurine plays an important role in bone formation Dr Vidya Velagapudi Head of the Metabolomics Unit at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland.
but the next stages of this research will need to confirm the connection between Vitamin b12 taurine and bone formation in general populations.
Samples collected by Kocaeli University Hospital Turkey from children born of nutritionally Vitamin b12-deficient mothers also showed a significant decrease in levels of Vitamin b12 and taurine.
In addition older patients with Vitamin b12 deficiency from a study by the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland displayed a statistically positive correlation suggesting that Vitamin b12 plays a key role in regulating taurine synthesis and bone formation in humans of all ages.
The fact that the Vitamin b12-taurine-bone pathway affects only bone formation and appears to play the same role in mice
It's like having dairy cattle Winkler said. Through this technique the ants consume the sugar-rich honey dew the aphids secrete
much as humans use cow's milk. When the ants are need in of protein they simply eat the aphids.
There is a fledgling industrial effort underway in Florida to redirect the five million tons of annual citrus waste generated there from low-value cattle feed to produce ethanol for fuel.
#Gene study shows how sheep first separated from goatsscientists have cracked the genetic code of sheep to reveal how they became a distinct species from goats around four million years ago.
The study is the first to pinpoint the genetic differences that make sheep different from other animals.
The research identifies the genes that give sheep their fleece and uncovers features of their digestive system
It also builds the most complete picture yet of sheep's complex biology. Further studies using this resource could reveal new insights to diseases that affect sheep.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute which receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology
and Biological sciences Research Council were part of a global team that has decoded the genome sequence--the entire genetic make-up--of domestic sheep for the first time.
This team--the International Sheep Genomics Consortium--compared the sheep's genes with those of other animals--including humans cattle goats and pigs.
Sheep were one of the first animals to be domesticated for farming and are still an important part of the global agricultural economy.
or livestock--we lose vital resources put animals at risk of extinction and release massive quantities of carbon dioxide stored in the trees
when the Amazonian rainforest is fragmented by cattle ranching. The fragmented forests they found change rapidly.
Now researchers at the University of Missouri have shown that a new line of genetically modified pigs will host transplanted cells without the risk of rejection.
By establishing that these pigs will support transplants without the fear of rejection we can move stem cell therapy research forward at a quicker pace.
In a published study the team of researchers implanted human pluripotent stem cells in a special line of pigs developed by Randall Prather an MU Curators Professor of reproductive physiology.
Prather specifically created the pigs with immune systems that allow the pigs to accept all transplants
Once the scientists implanted the cells the pigs did not reject the stem cells and the cells thrived.
Prather says achieving this success with pigs is notable because pigs are much closer to humans than many other test animals.
Many medical researchers prefer conducting studies with pigs because they are more anatomically similar to humans than other animals such as mice
and rats Prather said. Physically pigs are much closer to the size and scale of humans than other animals and they respond to health threats similarly.
This means that research in pigs is more likely to have results similar to those in humans for many different tests and treatments.
Now that we know that human stem cells can thrive in these pigs a door has been opened for new and exciting research by scientists around the world Roberts said.
Hopefully this means that we are one step closer to therapies and treatments for a number of debilitating human diseases.
#New global maps of livestock distributionled by Marius Gilbert--Interfaculty School of Bioengineering Universitã libre de Bruxelles--and Tim Robinson (ILRI Kenya) an international researcher
team established new global maps of livestock distribution. This study should help to measure the socioeconomic public health and environmental impacts of livestock and poultry worldwide.
The evaluation of multiple socioeconomic environmental and public health around the livestock sector requires accurate accessible and comprehensive spatial data on the distribution and abundance of livestock.
A team of researchers led by Marius Gilbert Research Associate of the FNRS--Laboratory of Biological Control
and Spatial Ecology (LUBIES) Interfaculty School of Bioengineering (EIB Universitã libre de Bruxelles) and Tim Robinson (International Livestock Research Institute Nairobi Kenya) publishes this week
in PLOS ONE new global maps of livestock and poultry. The map data that accompany this publication are distributed in open access under Creative Commons license
or downloaded via the platform Livestock Geo-wiki (http://www. livestock. geo-wiki. org/)./This platform will also be used to distribute updates that will regularly be generated as new census data becomes available.
These data should help quantifying different types of impact of the livestock sector and contribute to the development of policies to promote a safe sustainable and equitable sector development in the coming decades.
Livestock now represents the largest biomass among terrestrial vertebrates ahead of that of the human population and far ahead of that of wild animals.
In Belgium for example the density of pigs and poultry per km2 is one of the highest in the world.
At the global scale the growth in demand for livestock products has never been greater than today.
The growing livestock sector places ever greater pressure on our natural resources and the environment. It contributes significantly to global environmental change with a recently estimated 14.5%of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the sector as well as through environmental problems associated with manure management and disruption of the nitrogen cycle in the soil water and air.
Also of concern are the public health implications of livestock intensification. The widespread use of antibiotics in livestock for preventive or curative purposes or as growth promoters directly contributes to the increasing prevalence of resistant strains of bacteria to antibiotics both at local and global levels.
In many countries the pressure on the land available for agriculture and livestock farmers pushes people
and their livestock into ever-close proximity to natural areas that constitute the habitat of wildlife
But livestock are also a source of livelihoods and food security for almost a billion people. As well as the actual economic benefits that livestock already confers on the economies
and rural development in poor countries and potential improvements in food security and nutrition some 766 million poor farmers living with an income<$ 2 U s. per day could directly benefit from improvements in this sector.
and livestock where livestock serves many functions in terms of animal traction and renewal of soil fertility.
Moreover livestock grazing systems are used also to produce meat and milk in areas unsuitable for crop production.
the livestock sector plays an essential role in achieving this objective. The new global mapping of livestock and poultry will facilitate the assessment of impacts of livestock
and to contribute to the development of appropriate policies. This study is the result of a partnership between the Laboratory of Biological Control and Spatial Ecology (ULB LUBIES) the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI Nairobi Kenya) the Food and Agricultural organization of the United nations
(FAO Rome Italy) and the University of Oxford (United kingdom. The platform release has been established by our collaborators at the International Institute for Applied Systems analysis (IIASA.
and up close almost a bulls-eye for a predator to see and attack. But this directed the attack toward the tips of less-important wings and not the more vulnerable head or body of the insect.
Penelope Measham and Nicholas Macnair from the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tasmania along with Audrey Quentin from CSIRO Ecosystems Science published the results of their experiments using two common sweet cherry varieties.
C stated corresponding author Penelope Measham. Regions in Western australia and Queensland will become marginal or not suitable for'Kordia'.
#Skin grafts from genetically modified pigs may offer alternative for burn treatmenta specially-bred strain of miniature swine lacking the molecule responsible for the rapid rejection of pig-to-primate organ transplants may provide a new source of skin grafts
A team of investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that skin grafts from pigs lacking the Gal sugar molecule were as effective in covering burn-like injuries on the backs of baboons as skin taken from other
Sachs and his team developed a strain of inbred miniature swine with organs that are close in size to those of adult humans.
Since pig organs implanted into primates are rejected rapidly due to the presence of the Gal (alpha-13-galactose) molecule Sachs
and his collaborators used the strain that he developed to generate miniature swine in which both copies of the gene encoding Galt (galactosyltransferase) the enzyme responsible for placing the Gal molecule on the cell surface were knocked out.
When Cetrulo's team used skin from these Gal-free pigs to provide grafts covering burn-like injuries on the backs of baboons--injuries made
As with the use of second deceased-donor grafts to treat burned patients a second pig-to-baboon graft was rejected rapidly.
whether a pig xenograft or a baboon skin graft was used first. These results raise the possibility
A high-quality alternative to deceased-donor skin that could be produced from a specially maintained pathogen-free herd of Galt-knockout miniature swine would be an important resource for burn management in both civilian and military settings.
How mothers milk protects piglets from parasite infectionsantibodies against C. suis are transferred via the sow's very first milk to the piglets immediately after birth.
These findings prompted the researchers at the Institute for Parasitology to look for a way to increase the level of these antibodies in sows.
The ultimate goal was to provide the piglets with as much antibodies as possible via their mother's milk during the first few days of life.
Piglets from infected mothers are paid healthierthe idea off. Piglets from infected sows suffered less from the infection than piglets from non-infected sows.
Overall offspring from immunised mothers had less severe diarrhea or no diarrhea at all. Piglets that became ill recovered faster
and excreted fewer parasites compared to those from non-immunised sows. An infection with Cystoisospora suis causes serious gastrointestinal disease in piglets.
The infection is continues completely asymptomatic in adult pigs explains lead author Schwarz. Sows produce antibodies for their offspringto stimulate antibody production against Cystoisospora suis in sows researchers exposed pregnant sows to infectious stages (oocysts) of the parasite two weeks before parturition.
Oocysts as the primarily infectious stage stick to the floor and other objects in the farrowing barns.
Piglets ingest them and the parasite colonizes the gut attacking the mucous membrane. The parasites multiply in the body before being excreted
and the cycle starts again. Cystoisospora suis can survive in pigsties for a number of months
and is very hard to kill. This leaves farmers faced with the likelihood of new infections.
Sows also ingest the parasite but due to age resistance they are affected not by this coccidian parasite.
High concentrations of antibodies against the parasites are passed on to the piglets in the first few hours of life through their mother's milk where they enter the blood stream
These maternal antibodies protect the piglets from infections in the first few weeks of life.
The higher the concentration of antibodies in the sow's milk the better protected her offspring are.
To date it has been assumed that immunoglobulins do not play a role in the course of swine coccidiosis.
This form of milk vaccination might serve as a basis for developing an immunisation strategy to prevent swine coccidiosis.
There are some effective medications for swine coccidiosis but we would like to use the piglet's immune response to stop it in its tracks before the infection even gets started lead author Lukas Schwarz concludes.
The importance of Cystoisospora suisneonatal porcine coccidiosis caused by Cystosisospora suis is a severe parasitic disease of the intestinal tract of neonatal piglets caused by the unicellular organism Cystoisospora suis.
Coccidiosis is associated with extensive destruction of the gut mucosa and thus with reduced food conversion causing decreased weight gain and economic losses for farmers.
and Turkey suggested that the great ape's diet evolved from hard-shelled fruits and seeds to leaves but these findings only contained samples from the early-Middle and Late Miocene while lack data from the epoch of highest diversity
#Environmental strategies on livestock farms: Results obtained after evaluationthe Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and development (Neiker-Tecnalia) has coordinated the European BATFARM project
and practices used on livestock farms in the European Atlantic region in order to reduce their environmental impact on the air water and soil.
In this project a detailed study has been made of the technologies present on livestock farms belonging to various regions in the Atlantic Area.
Among the technologies evaluated in situ are floor type in cattle housing use of additives in slurry storage manure turning flexible lagoons for collective slurry storage biowashers for gases at the outlet of air ducts of the sheds
In this part of the continent a considerable proportion of livestock production takes place in line with the intensive model as in the case of pig poultry and a large proportion of cattle livestock.
So the problems in managing livestock waste are shared by all the regions involved in the project.
The outcomes of the project have been made available to the various interest groups companies livestock management bodies policy-making bodies research centres end users and the general public.
Directive on the adopting of Best Available Techniquesin connection with the environmental problems involved in livestock production the EU 2010/75/EC Directive also known as the IED (Industrial Emissions Directive) seeks to regulate all forms of emission into the atmosphere water
and soil coming from intensive livestock farms (farms with a population of over 40000 hens 2000 fattening pigs
or 750 sows) and makes the obtaining of comprehensive environmental authorisation compulsory. The Directive proposes adopting Best Available Techniques (BAT)
Farmers in the deforested areas raise cattle but more recently have planted soybeans Numata explained. To expand production they simply cleared more forest area.
Since our 2004 report on the fat-1 mouse our lab and many others have been working towards the generation of larger omega-3-producing animals--including pigs sheep
and cows--that could produce meat milk or other foods rich in this essential fatty acid says Kang an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical school.
Chamois in region of Austria had pneumoniain spring 2010 nearly a third of the chamois living in a region of northern Austria suddenly died of unexplained causes.
Concerned hunters and foresters sent the carcasses to the University of Veterinary medicine Vienna for analysis. Extensive investigations have revealed now that the animals died of bacterial pneumonia caused by two strains of bacteria that are highly unusual in chamois.
Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) share their habitat with a number of other wild animals as well as with farm animals.
Severe pneumonia as cause of deathnineteen dead chamois from the region of Amstetten Lilienfeld and Salzburg in north-central Austria were investigated.
The bacteria had previously been detected only in cattle and sheep. That they can cause deadly and epidemic pneumonia in chamois was unknown.
It is against the law to administer medical treatment to wild animals so we don't really have many possibilities to prevent an epidemic explains Annika Posautz from the pathology team of the Research Institute.
There has been no acute die off of chamois since the cases in 2010. So why were the bacteria so harmful at that time?
Threat to domestic animalsin The alps chamois are frequently in close contact with domestic animals such as cattle and sheep that graze in the pastures.
One compound nitrate is a major component of inorganic fertilizers that has helped make the area encompassed by the Mississippi river network the biggest producer of corn soybeans wheat cattle
and hogs in the United states. But too much nitrogen robs water of oxygen resulting in algal blooms and dead zones.
#Colonization of Brazil by the cattle egretin recent years the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) has colonized American continent.
association with grazing animals such as cattle and other livestock. This bird is native to tropical and subtropical Africa southern Europe and western Asia.
In Brazil the cattle egret was recorded first in the northern region of the country in 1964 feeding along with buffalos on Marajo Island in the state of Para.
and livestock across the country--a trend that could diminish the security of our food supplyâ#Climate change effects on agriculture will have consequences for food security both in the U s. and globally through changes in crop yields and food prices and effects on food processing
The suggestions are part of a review article in Springer's journal Current Environmental Health Reports. Cigarette butts and other tobacco product waste are the items that are picked most commonly up during urban
The above story is provided based on materials by Springer. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Adaptation measures could include improved access to international agricultural markets to for instance sell cattle before droughts insurance systems to balance increased variability in crop yields from one year to another or water
and nanoparticles against foodborne pathogens associated with meat and poultry. The results demonstrate that the bacterial pathogens were inhibited significantly by the use of the antimicrobial films said Catherine Cutter professor of food science.
She hopes that the research will lead to the application of edible antimicrobial films to meat and poultry either before packaging or more likely as part of the packaging process.
and poultry products with bacterial pathogens treated them with the pullulan films containing the essential oils
or further-processed meat and poultry products said Cutter. The research shows that we can apply these food-grade films
and poultry--safer to eat. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Penn State.
#Involvement of gene in lentivirus infections of sheep, goats has been establishedin her Phd thesis Helena Crespo-Otano has studied the mechanism of the action of the small ruminant lentivirus (SRLV) a type of virus
which infects sheep and goat species. Lentiviruses are viruses responsible for slow infections that damage the immune system and
which cause a range of clinical symptoms (nervous pulmonary arthritic and mammary). The thesis is entitled Papel del receptor de la manosa y de la polarizaciã n de macrã fagos en la infecciã n por
and premature culling (the livestock are separated from the flock) of the infected animals which leads to an increase in the restocking rate in the flock and considerable economic losses.
Firstly the existence of differentiated populations of macrophages was demonstrated in sheep and goats the so-called M1 (proinflammatory) and M2 (anti-inflammatory)
#Switch from cattle fields to carbon farms could tackle climate change, save endangered animals cheaplychanging cattle fields to forests is a cheap way of tackling climate change
and saving species threatened with extinction a new study has found. Researchers from leading universities including the University of Sheffield carried out a survey of carbon stocks biodiversity and economic values from one of the world's most threatened ecosystems the western Andes of Colombia.
The main use of land in communities is cattle farming but the study found farmers could make the same
Under carbon markets designed to stop global warming they could get paid to change the use of their land from growing cows to'growing carbon'--receiving around US$1. 99 per tonne of carbon dioxide the trees remove from the atmosphere.
and protecting some of the world's most endangered species. The economic benefits of cattle farming are minimal so this is a way farmers could make the same if not more money.
However in cattle pastures there were only 11. Lead researcher Dr James Gilroy from the University of East Anglia's school of Environmental sciences carried out the research while at the Norwegian University of Life sciences.
This research shows that there are great environmental and ecological benefits to changing land use from cattle farming to forest
#Summer grazing enables high milk yield of dairy cowspart-time grazing is a good alternative to full-time silage diet of dairy cows.
When planned properly the milk yields of rotationally-grazed dairy cows remain as high at pasture as in indoor feeding.
Dietary experiments provide information of forage digestibilitythe objective of the doctoral dissertation was to seek dietary factors that limit the milk yield of grazing cows.
The study included nine different dietary experiments with concentrate supplement varying from zero to 12 kg provided twice a day as the cows were milked.
In addition to changing the amount of concentrate supplement the cows had free access to forage at pasture or an herbage allowance between 19 and 25 kg of dry matter/cow per day.
The flow of nutrients was defined by taking samples from the cow's rumen and omasum.
By means of nutrient flow it is possible to study the processes inside the cow's rumen in the first place
or another a cow cannot intake unlimited amounts of forage from pasture. The physiology of the rumen did not limit the intake of forage so the limitation must derive from pasture management factors.
One example of such factors is that cows have to collect their forage from a large area
Judging by changes in the milk production and live weight of cows 20 kg of dry matter per day per hectare at pasture is not enough for per cow
House flies are common where animal manure is produced including in cattle poultry and swine operations.
Cockroaches primarily German cockroaches have become a common pest in confined swine operations. Zurek and his colleagues collected house flies and cockroaches from food animal production locations including swine
and poultry farms as well as wastewater treatment facilities that collect waste from multiple sources including hospitals.
The researchers then genetically analyzed the bacteria in the digestive tract of the insects and compared them to the bacteria present in the animal feces and wastewater.
Antibiotics in low doses are added as feed additives primarily in poultry and swine diets he said.
The outcome is that the animals grow faster. At the same time if you use low doses of antibiotics extensively that poses selective pressure on bacteria in the digestive tract of these animals and results in antibiotic resistance.
#How Brazilian cattle ranching policies can reduce deforestationthere is a higher cost to steaks and hamburgers than
But an encouraging new study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley and international collaborators finds that policies to support sustainable cattle ranching practices in Brazil could put a big dent in the beef and food industry's greenhouse
The researchers used an economic model of global land use to assess the effects of encouraging semi-intensive cattle ranching practices in Brazil.
More than 200 million cattle occupy upward of 494 million acres (200 million hectares) of land in Brazil an area almost a quarter the size of the continental United states. Brazil is also second behind the United states
While the growth of cattle ranching has been blamed for 75 to 80 percent of Brazil's deforested areas particularly in the Amazon rainforest the study authors emphasize that many factors beyond beef production cause deforestation.
The researchers point out that roughly 200 million acres of cattle pastureland could be used more efficiently either for higher yield cattle ranching
Muhammad M. Mohiuddin MD of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Research Program at the NHLBI and co-investigators have developed now techniques to overcome some of the immunologic roadblocks that hinder successful xenotransplantation using genetically engineered pigs as a source of donor organs.
Pigs were chosen because their anatomy is compatible with that of humans and they have a rapid breeding cycle among other reasons.
As the result of recent improvements in technology for genetic modification of pigs genes that are immunogenic for humans have been eliminated('knocked out) and several human genes have been added to the pig genome.
Grafts from these genetically engineered (GE) pigs are less likely to be seen as foreign thus reducing the immune reaction against them.
The NHLBI group was fortunate to have access to GE pigs through close collaboration with Revivicor Inc. Experiments using these GE pig hearts transplanted in the abdomen of baboons
along with their native hearts were designed to study the usefulness of these GE pigs along with several new target-specific immunosuppressive agents in prolonging the graft survival.
Through the combination of a pig heart with certain gene modifications with drugs suppressing both T
The researchers'next step is to use hearts from the same GE pigs with the same immunosuppression utilized in the current experiments to test their ability to provide full life support by replacing the original baboon heart.
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