#Happy Turkey Day: Thanksgiving Turns 150 This Thursday Americans will gather around groaning tables to consume massive amounts of turkey gravy potatoes and stuffing.
It's a tradition the country associates with a Pilgrim feast in the 1600s but actually 2013 marks only the 150th anniversary of official Thanksgiving.
and the livestock needed to be culled before the winter said Andrew Smith a culinary historian with The New School in New york city. 10 Things You Didn't Know About Food At a time
Wolves lions and bears are known to attack livestock and even pets. On rare occasions they have killed humans.
Concerning the animals who Von Drehle calls alpha predators yes they are known on occasion to attack livestock
and pets but data show they are not a real factor in losses of significant numbers of livestock
and omega-3 fatty acids compared with milk from cows raised on conventionally managed dairy farms according to a new study.
Theâ healthier fatty acid profile  of organic milk is likely a result of cows foraging on grass the researchers said.
and metabolism of dairy cows Benbrook said. A conventional farm that provides their cows with access to grass would reap the same benefit in terms of the quality of the milk Benbrook added. 6 Foods That Are Good for Your Brain Organic farmers are required to follow standards set
by the United states Department of agriculture. These rules include providing access to the outdoors including to pasture for ruminants.
One aspect of organic production methods is that cows must be allowed to graze on grass.
and tail off as the summer progresses reaching a lower baseline level for the winter Benbrook said adding that CLA levels mirror the amount of fresh forage in the cows'diet.
#Heap of Cattle Bones May Mark Ancient Feasts A metric ton of cattle bones found in an abandoned theater in the ancient city of Corinth may mark years of lavish feasting a new study finds.
which the theater was reused to process carcasses of hundreds of cattle Mackinnon told Livescience. He presented his research Friday (Jan 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle.
The cattle bones were unearthed in an excavation directed by Charles Williams of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. They'd been discarded in that spot
See Images of the Discarded Cattle Bones Some of the skeletal materials were articulated even partially connected suggesting bulk processing
and catalogued more than 100000 individual bones most cattle with some goat and sheep. The bones of at least 516 individual cows were pulled from the theater.
Most were adults and maturity patterns in the bones and wear patterns on the teeth showed them all to have been culled in the fall or early winter.
These do not appear to be tired old work cattle but quality prime stock Mackinnon said.
He suspects the cattle were slaughtered for annual large-scale feasts. Without refrigeration it would have been difficult to keep meat fresh for long so may have been more efficient for cities to take a communal approach.
Cattle are at the center of another USDA grant that comes under Coburn's scrutiny.
The Coburn report conflates the USDA grant with a separate study on the effects of climate change on cattle and bison.
and extreme weather which cause hardship for cattle farmers every year. The goal of the large USDA study is to develop more weather-resilient grazing systems for beef cattle in the southern plains Rice told Livescience.
The last couple of years with all the drought and heat people were shipping their cattle up north Rice said.
If you develop a system that's more resilient then they wouldn t have to sell their cattle prematurely
or ship them to a region that is less affected by the drought. 8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World That might not be so frivolous
Watching wildlife Cows aren't the only animals that get a short shrift in Coburn's report.
A $150000 National park service study tracking mountain goats gets the tee-hee treatment because goats are attracted to urine from hikers.
The study is arguably less funny considering that goat-human encounters are up and that an aggressive ram chased down
and gored an experienced hiker in Olympic national park Wash. in 2010 standing over the man as he bled to death.
Rice's multiuniversity study on cattle grazing for example won funding only after an extremely rigorous application process that involved review by outside scientists
By simulating human graves by burying dead pigs under a variety of conditions and then monitoring the graves using geophysical methods such as radar researchers could improve the ability to find hidden bodies.
In one study the researchers compared their ability to detect naked pigs versus ones wrapped in a plastic cloth.
The naked pigs were easier to detect than the ones wrapped in plastic the study showed.
Again the naked pigs were detected more easily than the wrapped ones. The results of that work also showed that the signs of a hidden body vary with the soil type and climate.
For the researchers'newest project they plan to bury pigs in Colombia in simulated secret graves under eight scenarios of different soil types and climates.
The team hiked over 15400-foot-high (4700 meters) mountain passes home to creatures like the Himalayan blue sheep or bharal.
Even the name Sparta is from a verb meaning oei sow or oeto sow. Although Sparta made efforts to consolidate its territory in Laconia we also know that at this early stage the people of the city appear to have taken pride in their artistic skills.
and it pottery its wares being found in places as far flung as Cyrene (in Libya) and the island of Samos not far from the coast of modern-day Turkey.
When the Persians threatened Greek cities in Ionia on the west coast of what is now Turkey the Greeks who lived in those areas sent an emissary to Sparta to ask for help.
At the holiday's inception turkey was a mere part of the meal not a necessary centerpiece.
In late fall the crops are in the livestock need to be slaughtered and it's time for one last feast before the lean times of winter. 10 Facts About the 13 Original Colonies
The turkey a bird that matures for slaughter in the fall would have made an appearance as would chicken pork beef and goose.
Even though venison (deer) is the only meat confirmed to have been present at the Pilgrims'harvest feast in 1621 turkey gradually became the centerpiece of the new holiday thanks in part to Hale Bertelsen told Livescience.
In her 1827 novel Northwood A Tale of New england Hale rhapsodizes about the ideal Thanksgiving menu including the turkey at a lordly station at the head of the table.
and mutton (sheep) however not to mention pickles and preserves vegetables custards cheese cake and pies. In the 19th century the turkey has the additional charm that most Victorians in Yankeeland were positive that the Pilgrims had it too Oliver said.
The Victorians were 200 to 300 years after the first settlement here and they were romanticizing the past pretty energetically.
The turkeys of the 19th century weren't like today's big-breasted Butterballs said Andrew Smith a lecturer on food history at The New School in New york city.
In the last few years Smith said foodies have embraced the past with heirloom turkeys that boast more dark meat than modern farmed birds.
8 Terrific Turkey Facts A parade of sides Like the turkey some Thanksgiving sides were associated with the meal from its official beginning.
Stuffing poultry with bread chunks dates back to Roman times Bertelsen said. Cranberries and pumpkins are both Northeastern crops that are ready in the fall making their inclusion in a fall harvest feast a no-brainer.
Hugh Fitzsimons is a third-generation rancher in Dimmitt County Texas where he raises bison and honeybees.
and making it difficult for even the toughest bison to survive. Last year the Texas rancher says he had only seven baby bison calves
when normally he has 10 times that many; his honey crop plummeted from 75 barrels to two.
Domestication of sheep goats and cattle began at about the same time. In Central and South america the most commonly domesticated plants were maize bottle gourds squash and beans.
The FDA has shown little enthusiasm for regulating the routine use of antibiotics in livestock. Science is on the side of much more stringent regulation.
The UCS Food and Environment program citing substantial scientific evidence has warned that the routine use of antibiotics in livestock is a major factor in antibiotic resistance in humans a huge and growing public-health problem.
But if the Sound Sciencebill became law it would be even more difficult for the FDA to try to curb the dangerous overuse of antibiotics in our livestock and hence in our food supply.
A chimera is the name of a creature from Greek mythology that mixed together features of a lion a goat and a snake.
anseriformes which include penis-wielding ducks swans and geese and galliformes which make up most land-loving birds
along with research assistant Ana Herrera and their colleagues grew embryos from chickens (galliformes) and ducks (anseriformes) and tracked their penis growth.
A few days after a primitive penile swelling appears on chick embryos however development abruptly halts and then regresses.
The disappearing phallus Next the researchers set out to find out what stops a chick's penis from growing
In chick embryos penis development is halted by the release of bone morphogenetic protein 4 or Bmp4. This protein shows up along the whole length of the primitive genital swelling seen in early chick development;
in ducks it's only seen at the base of the genitals. To make sure Bmp4 was really doing the penis-stifling deed the researchers applied the protein to duck penises. Sure enough development halted.
Likewise when they blocked Bmp4's expression in chick penises the embryonic birds'phalluses continued to grow.
Both the H7n9 virus and the H7h7 virus belong to the H7 family of viruses. 6 Flu Vaccine Myths There are probably other viruses like H7n7 that are circulating in the poultry populations in China said study
researcher Yi Guan of the Joint Influenza Research Centre in Hong kong. China has about 65 percent of the world's domestic ducks
and many live poultry markets where contact between people and chickens is common. Many flu viruses Guan noted don't cause people any problems.
They spread through poultry populations and burn out in a year or two. But H7-type flu viruses persist
and oftenâ evolve into new forms. Vincent Racaniello professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University in New york said this kind of surveillance study is important in finding new viruses and understanding them better.
Guan said the most surprising thing the team found was just how widespread flu viruses are.
If the virus continues to circulate in poultry further adaptation may occur possibly leading to easier transmission to humans he said.
The simplest way to deal with outbreaks Guan said is to cull the chickens and ban the overnight storage of live poultry.
Guan said his team plans to study how H7n9 kills and transmits to people. It's also important to keep sending research teams out to watch the birds.
what threats may be said emerging Guan. Follow Livescience on Twitter Facebook and Google+.+Original article on Livescience S
and avoid spreading invasive insects such as the Asian longhorn beetle. Still some select projects have sprouted up across the city in the past year that make use of the storm's wreckage.
And with only days to go before turkeys hit dinner tables across the country the Test Kitchen chefs have been busy said Jack Bishop chef TV personality and editorial director of America's Test Kitchen.
But the line between cooking a good turkey and awful turkey is relatively small. It's not hard to cook a turkey well
but it's pretty easy to cook one poorly. Thanksgiving Gallery: 8 Fascinating Turkey Facts Still the prospect of cooking a whole turkey should not intimidate chefs Bishop added.
By avoiding some of the most common mistakes and injecting a bit of science into the process even a novice can ensure the end result is a meal to be thankful for he said.
Brining your turkey If possible Bishop suggests purchasing a fresh turkey rather than a frozen one.
If you're willing to make the investment in time and planning that's the best route he said.
To prepare a fresh turkey Test Kitchen chefs recommend brining the bird overnight which involves soaking the turkey in a container of salty water for at least 12 hours.
This brining process helps keep the turkey moist and juicy. The salt will change the protein structure within the muscle fibers so the turkey will hold onto more moisture in the cooking process Bishop explained.
You'll end up with a better-seasoned and juicier bird. Still Bishop cautions that more is not necessarily better
and it's important to avoid making the brining solution too salty. As a general rule he recommends using a half-cup of table salt for every gallon of water.
After six to 12 hours of brining the turkey can be patted dry and left on a baking sheet in the refrigerator.
Before placing the turkey in the oven Bishop suggests brushing the raw bird with butter.
Cooks who opt for a frozen turkey do need not to worry about brining it in advance. Most frozen turkeys are injected already with brine
and kosher varieties are processed with salt Bishop said. The most important tip for using frozen turkeys is to let the birds thaw in the refrigerator before cooking them he added. 5 Myth-Busting Facts for a Safe Turkey Turkey temperature This year alone the Test Kitchen chefs experimented with more than 100 turkeys
to determine the optimal cooking method and temperature Bishop said. In the last 20 years Bishop estimates the Test Kitchen has cooked thousands of turkeys.
The tests'results indicated that roasting a turkey at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly 200 degrees Celsius) works best.
But there are some challenging aspects to cooking a turkey Bishop said. For one the shape of the bird complete with a huge cavity in the center means it heats unevenly in the oven.
Plus the turkey's white meat and dark meat should ideally be cooked to different temperatures. You don't want white meat to be overcooked
because it begins to dry out Bishop said. Dark meat on the other hand shouldn't be undercooked because it'll be chewy.
The easiest and most reliable way to ensure parts of the turkey are not under
-or overcooked is to use a meat thermometer. Before taking the turkey out of the oven the white meat in the breast should be 160 degrees F (71 degrees C)
and the dark meat in the thighs and legs should be 165 degrees (74 degrees Celsius).
And there's no need to fuss around with the turkey too much while it's in the oven Bishop said.
The Test Kitchen chefs found that basting the bird does not actually improve the juiciness of the turkey.
Instead to brown and crisp up the skin Bishop recommends placing the turkey on a rack that sits inside a roasting pan.
If you're willing to do a bit more work it's good to start the turkey breast side down
and serving the turkey Bishop recommends letting the finished product rest for 30 to 40 minutes.
This will help ensure the turkey is still juicy and moist when served. When a turkey is heated the muscle fibers tighten up
and physically contract Bishop explained. If you start cutting when it's hot from the oven the muscle fibers will expel juices
But there's more to a Thanksgiving meal than just a turkey. Here are other tips from Bishop and the Test Kitchen team:
and acacia to expand cattle land and agricultural land or provide firewood accelerating the region's harsh conditions.
For generations villagers cleared the trees for cattle land. Since 2008 an agricultural business named Produits du Sud has trained village youth to conserve
Leaves and fruits provide food fodder for livestock and organic matter to fortify the soil. More livestock means more manure which further enriches the soil enabling crops to be grown
and spreads tree seeds so new trees grow. The trees also provide shelter for crops
#Huge Wild Yak Population Found in Tibetan Park Yaks are coming back. At least they are in a remote reserve on the Tibetan Plateau.
 Decimated by hunters in the middle of the 20th century wild yaks are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
The yak is the third largest beast in Asia after the elephant and rhino but due to its remote location has never been weighed officially.
Yaks live in alpine tundra grasslands and the cold desert regions of the northernâ Tibetan Plateau ranging from 13000 to 20000 feet (4000 to 6100 meters) in elevation according to the IUCN.
Wild yaks are icons for the remote untamed high-elevationâ roof of the world researcher Joel Berger who led the yak-counting expedition said in a statement.
 While polar bears represent a sad disclaimer for a warming Arctic the recent count of almost 1000 wild yaks offers hope for the persistence of free-roaming large animals at the virtual limits of high-altitude wildlife.
Berger and his team found more wild yaks near glaciers which feed adjacent alpine meadows
Less than 1 percent of the yaks varied in color from the rest suggesting they aren't mixing
and hybridizing with domestic yaks as is often the case in more populated areas of Tibet according to the release.
Very little is known about wild yak biology such as how often the animals breed and how many young yaks survive to adulthood.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the organization involved. It's the Wildlife Conservation Society not the World Conservation Society.
which is the same one used to create the cloned sheep Dolly in 1996.5 Wild Stem Cell Discoveries
For example scientists can take a normal embryo from the uterus of one cow transplant it into another
and have a 60 percent chance of a normal calf being born. Transferring a cloned cow embryo into a cow uterus results in a healthy calf less than 10 percent of the time Cibelli told Livescience.
When you see that scenario whoever wants to move this into humans quickly I think it should be said criminal Cibelli.
So far Mitalipov and his colleagues have not been able to grow a cloned monkey fetus to term suggesting that primate reproduction may be even more complex than what is known from Dolly the sheep and other farm animals.
The five cheetahs studied predominantly hunted impala a type of African antelope but one male cheetah who frequently hunted in areas with thicker vegetation occasionally hunted warthogs Wilson said.
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Gravity-Defying Bighorn sheep Bighorn sheep can climb slopes that would make Spider-man shake his head. The above image doesn't seem possible
Bighorn sheep get their name from their big curved horns on the males which are called rams.
Bighorn sheep aren't as agile as mountain goats but they are equipped well for climbing the steep terrain that their predators can't. Bighorn sheep's surefooted climbing skills are due to their feet
which are perfect for climbing unbelievably steep and rocky slopes. Modified toenails on bighorns'outer hooves are shaped to snag any slight protrusion on a rocky surface.
A soft inner pad provides a grip that rivals the best climbing shoe in its ability to handle slight changes in the surface of a cliff.
A bighorn sheep's size makes its climbing even more impressive. Bighorn sheep can weigh up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms) with the horns adding another 30 pounds (13 kg.
In the winter bighorn sheep live between 2500 to 5000 feet (760 to 1500 meters) in elevation.
In the summer they climb even higher up to 8500 feet (2590 m). Their climbing skills help them evade predators such as coyotes and bobcats.
To see a bighorn sheep in action head to the Rocky mountains or the Sierra nevada mountain range. Desert bighorn sheep can be found from the southwestern United states into Mexico.
Editor's note: This story was corrected to reflect the correct identification of the animal in the photo as a bighorn sheep and not a mountain goat.
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#Incredible Technology: How to Bring Extinct Animals Back to Life Editor's Note: In this weekly series Livescience explores how technology drives scientific exploration and discovery.
In 2003 biologists brought back a Pyrenean ibex by making a clone of frozen tissues harvested from the last of these goats.
But South korean biomedical engineer Insung Hwang hopes to find just a cell nucleus and produce a clone from it like Dolly the sheep.
and poultry did not have the same effect. Bertone-Johnson suspects that non-heme iron had a stronger relationship with PMS
It's a Rooster, It's a Dinosaur? What has a mouth like a duck's and a comb like a rooster's?
A dinosaur that roamed North america 75 million years ago. A new fossil discovery reveals the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus regalis sported a fleshy comb on its head similar to the ones on modern-day roosters.
No such comb has ever been discovered before on a dinosaur. We're never short of being surprised by
what these animals looked like said study researcher Phil Bell a paleontologist at the University of New england in Australia.
In modern birds such combs are used typically for sexual display. They're found in both sexes in birds so the presence of the comb tells researchers nothing about their dinosaur specimen's sex.
The bones they do have belong to the neck and head and don't reveal sex either.
whether the comb is a feature only of E. regalis or if other duckbills might have had similar fleshy accessories.
Skin associated with the head may not preserve well meaning that other combs have vanished without a trace Bell said.
But of the patients analyzed so far half appear to have had no contact whatsoever with poultry.
Nearly all reported cases of the earlier bird flu strain while deadly seemed to jump from poultry to humans who were handling them or in contact with them.
And China learned a lot about how to limit the spread of bird flu after the last outbreaks simply by closing down poultry markets that appear to be likely starting points.
If the suspicions of human-to-human transmission potential is confirmed that alone makes the threat of a pandemic (as opposed to a series of local outbreaks that can be contained with efforts to close down poultry markets or the sale of infected birds) more likely.
It walks on two legs ending with cloven hooves or pig's feet. The overall body shape resembles a kangaroo
In a section on the topic in the encyclopedia American Folklore folklorist Angus Kress Gillespie notes that The Jersey Devil remained an obscure regional legend through most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until 1909
which are used for biofuels livestock feed and the basic ingredients in processed food. At the same time farm policies offer few incentives for farmers to grow fruits
#Kiss the Pig Contests, Cheap Laughs and Bullying (Op-Ed) Marc Bekoff emeritus professor at the University of Colorado Boulder is one of the world's pioneering cognitive ethologists a Guggenheim Fellow and cofounder with Jane
(and other organizations) holding events such as kiss the pig contests to reward students for reading
if they knew about the stress experienced by the pig I'm sure they'd recognize the harm that's being done.
and has to kiss a pig is considered a loser. In kiss a pig contests these sensitive animals are surrounded by shrieking kids
and the pigs have no understanding of what is happening to them. The piglets often scream in fright urinate
and struggle to escape. Schools should recognize that these kinds of incentives encourage students to be openly disdainful of their teachers and also foster derision and disrespect toward both educators and pigs.
Instead of mocking pigs students could learn a lot of positive lessons about kindness and compassion from them.
Pigs aren't mindless Pigs are loyal friends and amiable companions. Smart and inquisitive they enjoy exploring
and uncovering new and interesting things. They dream and also enjoy listening to music and getting back rubs.
Research conducted on the cognitive and emotional lives of pigs has been published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals
and clearly shows they are extremely clever that they love to play and (like dogs)
when pigs are stressed they can even become pessimists. Calling someone a pig should actually be a compliment.
Clearly pigs are highly emotional sentient beings who are capable of experiencing joy happiness fear stress and pain.
Just as none of us would appreciate being held up in front of a jeering crowd neither do pigs.
And neither would most dogs. Bullying is bullying no matter who the victim is. The teacher who would stop a child from being picked on should extend the same compassion toward animals.
If students were taught how sensitive and personable pigs really are I feel certain these contests would be stopped once and for all.
Young people can learn to appreciate pigs for the truly remarkable beings they are. Pigs offer valuable lessons in forgiveness resilience and confidence and I know this firsthand from a pig I met a few years ago named Geraldine.
From Animals We Can Learn Generosity and Forgiveness (Op-Ed) Geraldine was rescued a potbellied pig living at a lovely sanctuary called Kindness Ranch.
Although she had known nothing but cruelty before being rescued she was personable and clearly interested in assessing me for acceptance as a new friend.
This article was adapted from Kiss a Pig Contests Cheap Laughs and Bullying in Psychology Today.
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