So instead of giving pigs mouse genes scientists could make domestic pigs with genes normally found in wild pigs.
The end result would be engineered pigs that farmers could have made through generations of careful breeding geneticists argue.
I don't think those who don't wish to eat GM foods will find GM pigs-with-pig-genes any better than pigs with mouse genes.
when the Mayo Clinic injected human stem cells into fetal pigs creating swine with human blood
#Pig Heart Transplants For Humans Are On The Wayshe's got the heart of a pig nd that's a good thing.
Researchers are reporting that a baboon is still alive after receiving a heart transplanted from a pig The Telegraph reports.
Previously when researchers tried to transplant pig hearts into primates the primates'bodies would reject the transplants within six months The Telegraph reports.
Ultimately researchers want to make pig hearts transplantable into humans. Pigs could provide a larger supply of the organ than human donors can closing the tragic gap between supply and demand.
In the U s. about 3000 people are on the waiting list for a heart transplant but only about 2000 hearts become available each year according to the U s. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute
Pig hearts are promising because they're close enough to human hearts in anatomy. Doctors also already use heart valves taken from pigs and cows in human surgeries.
It seems pig hearts are just a little too foreign for primate bodies to accept easily however.
In previous studies the hearts would trigger a massive immune response in the primates they were transplanted into.
and they've been a major barrier to developing pig heart transplants The Telegraph reports. It will be years before pig hearts are ready for human patients
if they ever are. To make hearts that baboons nd in the future humans on't reject the National Heart Lung
and Blood Institute team specially engineered its pigs to have some human genes and to lack some pig genes.
The researchers also gave their baboons drugs to suppress their immune systems. Human patients take immunosuppressant drugs
Baboons who received hearts from un-genetically modified pigs rejected the hearts within a day.
Now that the team has shown pig hearts are able to hang around inside primates safely the next step will be to actually replace baboons'hearts with pig hearts The Telegraph reports.
The baboon in this study has a pig heart in its body alongside its own heart
and a team of surgeons and engineers to develop a glue that they recently tested in hearts of living rats and pigs.
The tests Karp and del Nido performed included closing heart defects in laboratory rats and closing cuts in the arteries of pigs.
They also used the glue to attach a patch made from another biodegradable material Karp invented onto the thick inner wall of the still-beating hearts of four pigs.
They followed the pigs for up to 24 hours. They found the patches stayed in place the entire time even after they gave two of the pigs an injection that raised their heart rates to about 190 beats per minute a heart rate a person might achieve
when exercising vigorously and their blood pressures to about 200 mmhg which is a bit higher than even unhealthy human blood pressures usually reach.
Unlike nonruminant animals such as pigs and poultry ruminants produce copious amounts of methane in their digestive systems.
and easily infect farm animals such as cows sheep pigs and chickens. Humans can be infected by eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables.
chickens and pigs drives climate change hoofprintthe resources required to raise livestock and the impacts of farm animals on environments vary dramatically depending on the animal the type of food it provides the kind of feed it consumes
what cows sheep pigs poultry and other farm animals are eating in different parts of the world;
The study confirmed that pigs and poultry (monogastrics) are more efficient at converting feed into protein than are cattle sheep
The authors caution that the lower emission intensities in the pig and poultry sectors are driven largely by industrial systems
and pigs from the ancient village were eating millet but deer were not. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes show that cats were preying on animals that lived on farmed millet probably rodents.
In 2003 many villagers kept cows or pigs on their land but after joining the EU it became uneconomical to do so.
Thirty-three per cent had contact with pigs in 2003 but only 14 per cent in 2012.
Hunters could return with two really big peccaries--think wild boar --or they could come back with a squirrel monkey.
#Nutritional information on oilseed crop for use in pig dietslong considered a weed in North america Camelina sativa is valued increasingly as an oilseed crop.
when used as part of weanling pigs'diets. When oil is extracted from the camelina seeds using either solvent extraction
when fed to pigs said Hans Stein a U of I professor of animal sciences.
but to our knowledge the nutritional values of these ingredients have not been studied in pigs he said.
This lack of knowledge limits the use of camelina products in diets fed to pigs
and his team fed growing pigs diets containing one of five different camelina products. They tested camelina seeds from two different sources as well as camelina expellers from three different sources.
which indicates that camelina expellers may be included in diets fed to pigs he explained. The camelina expellers studied were pressed cold
and feed companies evaluate camelina expellers for possible inclusion in pig diets. Stein said that the next steps for research would be to determine the digestible
#Probiotics reduce piglet pathogenspiglets fed probiotic Enterococcus faecium showed reduced numbers of potentially pathogenic Escherichia coli strains in their intestines according to a team of German researchers.
In previous studies the working groups from the Institute of Microbiology and Epizootics at Freie Universitat Berlin found that feeding E. faecium probiotic did not change the general swine intestinal microbiota
In the study Bednorz and her collaborators compared piglets fed with E. faecium to those in a control group.
They collected more than 1400 samples of E coli from piglets of different ages and from different parts of the intestine.
and suggests that similar to other species such as pigs and dogs cattle domestication was probably also a complex process rather than a sudden event.
#White-lipped peccary trails lead to archeological discovery in Brazil: 4, 000-to 10,000-year-old cave drawingswhile tracking white-lipped peccaries and gathering environmental data in forests that link Brazil's Pantanal
and Cerrado biomes a team of researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and a local partner NGO Instituto Quinta do discovered Sol ancient cave drawings made by hunter-gatherer societies thousands
when Keuroghlian and her team were conducting surveys of white-lipped peccaries herd-forming pig-like animals that travel long distances
The peccaries are vulnerable to human activities such as deforestation and hunting and are disappearing from large swaths of their former range from southern Mexico to northern Argentina.
While following signals from radio-collared white-lipped peccaries and the foraging trails of peccary herds the team encountered a series of prominent sandstone formations with caves containing drawings of animals and geometric figures.
Keuroghlian contacted Aguiar a regional specialist in cave drawings who determined that the drawings were made between 4000-10000 years ago by hunter-gatherer societies that either occupied the caves
Oddly the subject of the WCS surveys in the area--peccaries--are absent from the illustrations.
The Rice lab of bioengineer Jane Grande-Allen found through studies of pigs'heart valves that age plays a critical role in the valves'progressive hardening
Tissues from pig valves are used commonly to make human heart-valve replacements. VWF helps regulate blood clotting in both pigs
and humans but as the Rice team discovered it finds its way over time into the collagen-rich interior of the valve tissues.
The paper's lead author Liezl Balaoing a graduate student of Grande-Allen and Rice research scientist Joel Moake studied valves from pigs of three ages:
Through staining Balaoing traced the migration of a number of clotting-related proteins common to pigs and humans from the surface endothelial cells to the inner interstitial cells.
#Genetic study demonstrates Israels wild boars originated in Europewild boars look more or less the same in Israel as they do anywhere else:
So scientists had no reason to suspect Israeli wild boars were any different than their brothers
. Dorothee Huchon of TAU's Department of Zoology have found that unlike the Near Eastern wild boars in surrounding countries Israel's wild boars originated in Europe.
After a genetic and archaeological analysis the researchers suggest the wild boars living in Israel are domesticated descendants of pigs brought to Israel starting almost 3000 years ago by the Philistines and other seafaring raiders.
Pillagers and pig loversour DNA analysis proves that the wild boars living in Israel today are the descendants of European pigs brought here starting in the Iron age around 900 BCE says Prof.
Given the concentration of pig bones found at Philistine archaeological sites the European pigs likely came over in the Philistines'boats.
Pig bones have been found in abundance at Philistine archaeological sites along Israel's southern coastal plane dating from the beginning of the Iron age around 1150 to 950 BCE.
But pig bones are rare or absent at Iron age sites in other parts of the country including in the central hills where Ancient Israel is thought to have emerged.
whether the Philistines and other Sea Peoples--groups of seafaring invaders from around the Aegean sea--made use of local pig breeds
and the shape between European and Near Eastern pigs the researchers had to use DNA testing to identify the origins of the animals.
Genetics researchers divide the pigs of the world into three main groups: European Far Eastern and Near Eastern.
To the researchers'surprise each of the 25 modern-day wild boars they analyzed from Israel share a European genetic signature
whereas modern-day boars from nearby countries like Egypt Syria Turkey Armenia Iraq and Iran have a Near Eastern genetic signature.
The researchers conclude that European pigs arrived in Israel at some point and overtook the local pig population.
To find out when the researchers collected and analyzed pig bones from archaeological sites across Israel--ranging from the Neolithic period to medieval times 9500 BCE to 1200 CE--the most comprehensive study of ancient DNA
The results showed that pigs from the Bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age display the local Near Eastern genetic signature
Domestic European pig breeds may have been introduced by groups of Sea Peoples--including the Philistines mentioned in the Bible--who migrated to the coast of the Levant starting in the 12th century BCE and settled in places like Gaza Ashkelon and Ashdod.
Making themselves at homeadditional European pigs could have been brought to the Levant during the Roman-Byzantine period and during the Crusades.
Over time the European pigs overtook the European pigs and their descendants are the only wild boars living in Israel today.
The domestic European pigs could have driven the local pigs to extinction or mated with them
To find out for sure they are further analyzing the DNA of modern wild boars. If the European pigs mated with the local pigs as we suspect today's modern wild boars should have some Near Eastern DNA says Dr. Meiri who conducted the laboratory work for the study in a special highly sterile lab in TAU's Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute
of Archaeology. If the European pigs just out-competed the locals we'd expect the wild boars to have purely European DNA.
The pig study is part of a larger project directed by Prof. Finkelstein and Prof. Weiner which makes use of modern exact
-and life-science methods to study the Iron age. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Friends of Tel aviv University.
#Veterinary Scientists Track the Origin of a Deadly Emerging Pig Virus in the United Statesveterinary researchers at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary medicine at Virginia Tech have helped identify the origin
and possible evolution of an emerging swine virus with high mortality rates that has already spread to at least 17 states.
The virus which causes a high mortality rate in piglets was recognized first in the United states in May of this year.
The virus typically only affects nursery pigs and has many similarities with transmissible gastroenteritis virus of swine said Meng who is a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical sciences and Pathobiology.
There is currently no vaccine against porcine epidemic diarrhea virus in the United states . Although some vaccines are in use in Asia we do not know
Symptoms include acute vomiting anorexia and watery diarrhea with high mortality rates in pigs less than 10 days old.
#The pig, the fish and the jellyfish: Tracing nervous disorders in humanswhat do pigs jellyfish and zebrafish have in common?
It might be hard to discern the connection but the different species are all pieces in a puzzle.
The pig the jellyfish and the zebrafish are being used by scientists at Aarhus University to among other things gain a greater understanding of hereditary forms of diseases affecting the nervous system.
In a project which has just finished the scientists have focussed on a specific gene in pigs.
The pig The SYN1 gene can with its specific expression in nerve cells be used for generation of pig models of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's.
The reason scientists bring a pig into the equation is that the pig is suited well as a model for investigating human diseases.
Pigs are very like humans in their size genetics anatomy and physiology. There are plenty of them
Before the gene was transferred from humans to pigs the scientists had to ensure that the SYN1 gene was expressed only in nerve cells.
The results of this investigation pave the way for the SYN1 gene being used in pig models for research into human diseases.
The pig with the human gene SYN1 can presumably also be used for research into the development of the brain and nervous system in the fetus.
I think it is interesting that the nervous system is preserved so well from an evolutionary point of view that you can observe a nerve-cell-specific expression of a pig gene in a zebrafish.
It is impressive that something that works in a pig also works in a fish says Knud Larsen.
Especially in swine and poultry manure up to 50 per cent of the overall phosphorus is present in the organic form.
Researchers from University of Copenhagen have discovered big differences in the variability of eating habits among pigs.
The newly published study--led by professor Haja Kadarmideen--is the first in the world looking at pig to human comparative genetic mapping to reveal key genes on the human genome that are known to be involved in obesity.
With 30 million pigs produced in Denmark each year genomics scientist at University of Copenhagen Haja Kadarmideen decided to turn this to his advantage with his latest research on people's eating habits surrounding obesity and diabetes.
Realizing it would be impossible to monitor the eating behaviour of 1200 humans every single hour of every day he turned to Danish pigs to find out why do humans pig out Indian-born Australian Haja Kadarmideen who is a professor
First kind of study in the worldas pigs are a well-known animal model for studying human obesity because of similar genomes
and digestive systems over a period of four years nearly 1200 pigs were given unlimited access to food.
With the help of the Pig Research Centre from the Danish Agriculture and Food Council each day the pigs were monitored for how often they would eat how much time they spent visiting the feeder how much they had eaten and
Each of the 1200 pig's DNA was assessed using a genomic chip technology that simultaneously created a genetic profile at 60000 locations across the entire DNA of each pig.
and eating behaviour observations on all pigs via genome wide association studies to detect eating behaviour genes--a big task equivalent to finding polar bears in a snowstorm says Kadarmideen.
They discovered big differences in the variability of the pigs eating habits. The research was clearly able to show that for some (pigs with certain genetic variants) overeating was normal behaviour.
That for a particular group of pigs there was clear evidence they were programmed genetically to eat more food than others.
This is the first study in the world looking at pig to human comparative genetic mapping to reveal key genes on the human genome (e g. on chromosomes 6 and 17) that are known to be involved in human obesity and some new genes;
together they may explain why we crave for (more and sometimes unhealthy) food and why some of us overeat so consequently developing obesity and diabetes both
Our pig model research indicates that eating behaviours runs in families. If a mother or father or both had unhealthy eating habits they are likely to pass on some part of their habits to their children through their DNA.
and Molecular Medicine Laboratory developed a pig model that closely mimics the human gastric environment.
When pigs were infected with H. pylori the researchers observed an increase in another type of immune cells called pro-inflammatory CD4+T helper cells followed by an increase in CD8+cytotoxic T cells according to the study.
However the rise of the cells in pigs mirrors the recent findings in human clinical studies.#
The results from our new pig model closely mimic what has been reported in clinical settings which will allow us to comprehensively
Researchers within the Center for Modeling Immunity to Enteric Pathogens are using results from the pig model and other experimental data to develop a computational model of H. pylori infection.
This freshwater predator is known to be highly adaptive feeding on fish crustaceans and in the case of larger specimens wild pigs.
or working in the pig farms. The pig-related MRSA--also known as CC398--was identified in 232 people (164 in 2011) of
whom 92 had an infection at the time of diagnosis (63 in 2011). The continued increase in the number of cases of MRSA particularly in people who are in contact with pigfarms causes problems both for those affected
Contact to pigs has been included as a risk factor for MRSA and patients are asked about contact to pigs
when admitted to hospital. Follow-up on the effect of treatment on otherwise healthy MRSA carriers has also been tightened up.
Increase of MRSA in pigs In 2012 709 pigs at abattoirs and 219 samples of tank milk from dairy cattle were examined also for MRSA.
Compared to 2011 the number of MRSA-positive pigs for slaughter has increased significantly: From 44%in 2011 to 77%in 2012.
In all 2%of the samples tested positive for MRSA and two samples were identical with a MRSA type found in pigs--the type known as MRSA CC398.
which may indicate that MRSA in cattle is more transient than in pigs. If MRSA is identified in a herd of pigs it is very difficult to eradicate it from this herd.
Raw milk and dairy products are considered not a source of MRSA as the raw milk is pasteurized and subjected to several other treatments.
It seems that pigs are still the major source of MRSA-CC398 and the occurrence of this MRSA type in tank milk may be attributable to contamination from pig production explains Yvonne Agersã¸Senior Researcher at National Food Institute Technical University of Denmark.
It is important to prevent that occurrence of MRSA in pigs increase and that MRSA spread to other areas of livestock production she adds.
FACTSMRSA bacteria MRSA is short for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus. When bacteria are exposed to antimicrobial agents they protect themselves by developing resistance.
Community-acquired MRSA was identified in 726 people compared to 596 in 2011 (an increase of 22%)and cases of pig-type MRSA (CC398) rose by 41%from 164 in 2011 to 232 in 2012.
Of those infected with pig-type MRSA 92 (40%)had an infection when the diagnosis was made compared to 62 (38%)in 2011.
Animal and meat production in Denmark A large majority of the meat products produced in Denmark come from pigs.
In 2012 Denmark produced a total of 29047000 pigs corresponding to 1902 million kg of pork
The genus name for Pygsuia biforma is derived from part of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks sports cheer Wooo Pig Sooie
because it has a row of structures resembling the dorsal bristles of razorbacks which are feral pigs.
Pyg replaces pig as a play on the Latin Pygmae a mythical race of pygmies a reference to their small size
and sui replaces sooie for brevity and a reference to the animal family to which suids the ancient biological family of pigs belong.
Consequently the genus name also means little pig in mock Latin. The species name biforma is derived from the presence two distinct cell forms that are observed in the life cycle.
A culture sample of Pygsuia biforma has been submitted to the Smithsonian Institution. The researchers'work was funded partially by the Arkansas Biosciences Institute.
#Exposure to pig farms and manure fertilizers associated with MRSA infectionsresearchers from Geisinger's Henry Hood Center for Health Research
and soft tissue infections in the study population could be attributed to crop fields fertilized with swine manure.
The researchers found a significant association between community-associated MRSA and application of swine manure to crop fields.
A similar but weaker association was found between swine operations and community-associated MRSA. No association was found between dairy farms and MRSA infections.
In tests using pig bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells Wilson and lead author Eladio Rivera a former postdoctoral researcher at Rice found that the bismuth-filled nanotubes which they call Bi@US-tubes produce CT images far brighter than those from common
#European hunter-gatherers owned pigs as early as 4600 BCEUROPEAN hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4600 BC according to new evidence.
and did not have pigs sheep goats or cows all of which were introduced to Europe with incoming farmers about 6000 BC.
now that the hunter-gathers possessed some of the farmers'domesticated pigs. It is known not yet whether the hunter-gatherers received the pigs via trade
or exchange or by hunting and capturing escaped animals. However the domestic pigs had coloured different
and spotted coats that would have seemed strange and exotic to the hunter-gatherers and may have attracted them to the pigs.
Co-author Dr Greger Larson from the Department of Archaeology at Durham University added: Humans love novelty and though hunter-gatherers exploited wild boar it would have been hard not to be fascinated by the strange-looking spotted pigs owned by farmers living nearby.
It should come as no surprise that the hunter-gatherers acquired some eventually but this study shows that they did very soon after the domestic pigs arrived in Northern europe.
The team analysed the ancient DNA from the bones and teeth of 63 pigs from Northern Germany
which showed that the hunter-gatherers acquired domestic pigs of varying size and coat colour that had both Near Eastern and European ancestry.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Durham University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and mammals like the endangered Amur (or Siberian) tiger Asiatic black bear and wild boar. Listed as Endangered by IUCN Blakiston's fish owl is restricted to riparian areas in Russia China Japan and possibly North korea.
This sequence of events contrasts with the case of A s. aureus strain from pigs Fitzgerald points out since a study in 2012 revealed that MRSA ST398 strains evolved the ability to resist methicillin before they crossed over into humans.
Any number of factors could create these differences making pigs--but not cattle--a source of a drug-resistant bacterium.
whether differences in the S. aureus strains differences between pigs and cattle or differences between swine and dairy farming practices might be responsible.
#Rubber slat mats could improve animal well-beingnew research shows that rubber slat mats could improve swine health.
According to the researchers flooring is one of the main factors in production systems that cause locomotory problems in swine.
Julia Calderã n-DÃ az a Phd candidate at University of College Dublin said pregnant sows placed on cushioned flooring would have a lower risk of being compared lame with sows placed on concrete.
Sows housed on rubber mats had reduced a risk of swelling and wounds on the limbs.
In the European union pregnant sows must be housed group four weeks after breeding until one week before farrowing.
Calderã n-DÃ az said other countries are likely to use group housing for pregnant sows in the near future.
The amount of time orangutans spent on the forest floor was found to be comparable to the ground-dwelling pig-tailed macaque Macaca nemestrina
The amount of time orangutans spent on the forest floor was found to be comparable to the ground-dwelling pig-tailed macaque Macaca nemestrina
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