Those price spikes in turn are prompting increases in the retail prices of beef pork poultry and dairy products.
In the spring of 2012 20 adults returned from migration producing 22 chicks over the ensuing months.
Also the first chicks of the year hatched at Taroona and Healesville. Just possibly the wild population at Melaleuca can be recovered with the help of their cousins in captivity.
#Babies Abound at Penguin Colony Found by Poop A recent visit to a remote Antarctic emperor penguin colony found thousands of fuzzy penguin chicks meaning the colony is even bigger than previously thought.
The team counted the number of chicks demanding regurgitated meals from their parents to gauge the total colony size
What surprised me is that each group was 5 to 7 percent chicks. It means that it is a healthy rookery;
I didn't find more than five dead little chicks at the overwintering place Hubert told Livescience's Ouramazingplanet in an email interview from Antarctica.
Charming Chicks: Antarctica's Baby Penguins A December 2012 expedition from Princess Elisabeth station marked the first time humans saw this colony of flightless birds.
Lots of chicks This year's penguin count confirms the accuracy of the satellite monitoring Hubert said.
Other birds sighted during the trip include Adelie penguins and skuas a type of seabird that preys on penguin chicks.
After winter ends parents make trips to the sea to deliver meals to their chicks.
Pesky penguins Seeing the fuzzy penguin chicks demand a vomited-up meal was Hubert's favorite part of the few hours spent at the massive colony.
They are so cute and funny especially the chicks bothering the parents without interruption to try to get fed.
#Bizarre Egg-Burying Birds Hatch at Bronx Zoo Three maleo chicks have been hatched at the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Bronx Zoo in New york where keepers recreated the conditions of the birds
While most birds sit on their eggs to keep their unhatched young warm maleos bury their large eggs in underground nests letting heat from geothermal sources the sun
The chicks when they finally hatch are quite mature; on day one they can dig themselves out from under 3 feet (1 meter) of earth then start flying
For all their impressive features wild maleos are in sharp decline in their native home on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi
Maleos at The bronx Zoo are provided with deep river sand which is heated electrically from below so that the birds can find a warm spot to bury their eggs.
The three maleo babies that have hatched just are healthy and being kept in an off-exhibit area of the zoo WCS officials said.
Maleos are mostly black in color with peach plumage on their stomach yellow facial skin a red-orange beak and a casque on top of their head.
The birds which belong to the megapode family are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Almost half of all megapode species are threatened with extinction Nancy Clum curator of ornithology at The bronx Zoo said in a statement.
The work we do with maleos both at the zoo and in the field can provide a model for conservation of other megapode species. Email Megan Gannon
or follow her@meganigannon. Follow Livescience@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Livescience. com m
Around the world industrial factory farms now account for approximately two-thirds of egg and poultry-meat production and more than half of pig-meat production.
The eventual goal said William Gallus a meteorologist at Iowa State university is warn-on-forecast.
or half-hour of advanced warning Gallus told Livescience. Using tornado simulators Gallus and his colleagues are working on understanding how local topography affects the way a tornado might move
and strengthen. For example they've found that ridges cause tornadoes to deviate left as they climb up
or so away Gallus said causing damage far afield from the actual funnel cloud. 50 Amazing Tornado Facts Moore in particular has been hit by three violent tornadoes in less than 15 years:
but Gallus believes it's worth looking into the local landscape for possible influencing factors.
Gallus isn't the only researcher looking to get a hyper-local look at how tornadoes work.
but in Joplin doors and glass windows at either end of long halls were destroyed by debris creating a dangerous situation Gallus said.
Roosters Really Do Know What Time It Is The rooster's morning cock-a-doodle-doo is driven by an internal clock finds new research suggesting the male chickens really know the time of day.
The study detailed today (March 18) in the journal Current Biology found that roosters put under constant light conditions will still crow at the crack of dawn.
Because stimuli throughout the day such as car headlights will set off a rooster's crow at any time it was also possible that increasing light was the trigger for the cock's crows.
and his colleagues put 40 roosters in a setting with constant light then recorded when they crowed.
The roosters also crowed at other times of day and in response light and the crows of their fellow chickens but those behaviors were much stronger at daybreak.
></p><p>The oldest known wild bird in the United states has hatched a chick for the sixth year in a row.</
</p><p>The Laysan albatross named Wisdom thought to be at least 62 years old hatched a healthy-looking chick on Sunday (Feb 3) according to a statement from the U s. Department of the interior.
Wisdom and her young chick inhabit Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) which is famous for its Laysan albatross population.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/26868-oldest-bird-hatches-chick. html target=blank>Oldest Known Wild Bird Hatches Healthy Chick
A healthy diet can include whole grains vegetables meat poultry and fish she said. Some fish and seafood are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids
and poultry the report says. Follow us@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.+Original article onâ Livescience. com S
Brilliantly colored birds like golden pheasants and temminck's tragopans posed for pictures too as did haired yellow-throated martens golden takins and wild boars.
Newer genetic evidence from wild and domestic plants in recent years points to multiple origins for agriculture from Southwest Turkey to Iraq to Northern Syria.
Potassium is found in a wide range of foods such as leafy greens tomatoes cucumbers zucchini eggplant pumpkins potatoes carrots beans dairy foods bananas meat poultry fish
After the chick hatches it pecks off its redwood-colored down and flying solo launches straight for the ocean.
the egg-sucking chick-eating Steller's jay. About 4000 murrelets remain in California with about 300 to 600 in central California's Santa cruz Mountains.
and norms of a so-called exceptional contemporary culture by introducing individual and named animal beings cows turkeys dolphinsâ chimpanzees
They can be found near rivers lakes and swamps from Guinea in western Africa to Ethiopia on the eastern side of the continent and down to South africa.
Because the virus does not cause symptoms in chickens it can be harder to spot infected poultry.
Most of these cases about 75 percent were had people who direct contact with poultry. In a few cases people in the same family caught the disease suggesting that the virus spreads between people in close contact.
#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 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.
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.
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 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.
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 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 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.
Female blue tits that construct bigger nests and decorate them with fragrant plants have male partners that are more willing to invest in raising chicks Spanish researchers report in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
and that the couple will have healthy chicks. Â But the research team found that males might also judge their mates. oeit was thought traditionally that only males need to show of their quality said Tomã¡
and in how many chicks will survive said Tomã¡s. Tomã¡s and his colleagues at Madrid's Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales made some nests smaller and added grass
Tutankhamun went to his final resting place accompanied by 48 cases of beef and poultry.
and replaced with domesticated turkey. They lived in simple pit houses with a hearth fire hole and room for storage.
Most (76 percent) had contact with chickens (including four who were poultry workers) while 20 percent reported exposure to ducks and 7 percent to swine the report said.
The researchers said they suspect the source of H7n9 infections to be poultry. This agrees with the result of a study published today
which points to poultry markets as the likely source of H7n9 bird flu infections. Other findings from the investigation of the 82 cases include:
A ban on the sale of poultry in market stalls disinfection of markets or market closures may need to be considered to prevent the spread of the virus from animals to people the researchers said.
but fish poultry milk and other dairy products are also good food sources of it. Carnitine is also a popular over-the-counter diet supplement often billed as helping to boost energy and bulk up muscle.
Peahens Ignore Most of Peacocks'Flashy Displays A male hoping to attract a female's attention typically needs something to help him stand out from the crowd
and theatrical courtship displays peahens almost always gazed at the lower part of the peacock's train of feathers particularly below the neck.
Others thought peahens were drawn likely to the distinctive eyespots on a peacock's display of feathers.
Backpack-toting peahens Yorzinski designed an experiment to measure where the peahens look when males put on a display.
One camera filmed the view from the perspective of the peahen and another camera tracked the movement of the peahen's pupils.
Yorzinski combined the data and used the movement of the bird's pupils to determine where the peahen was looking.
For the experiment to work Yorzinski gradually trained captive peahens to wear tiny backpacks holding the equipment and a helmet with two cameras attached.
I had my doubts along the way she said. It took a couple of months to get the females very comfortable with wearing the equipment.
To test the accuracy of the eye-tracking technology Yorzinski threw food into the enclosure to monitor the peahens'gaze.
Yorzinski also observed the peahens'pupils when a predator was introduced into their environment in this case how the birds'eyes followed a taxidermic raccoon as it rolled past the enclosure on a skateboard.
Peahen gaze Yorzinski is unsure why peahens focus primarily on the lower part of a peacock's train.
and observing how they impact peahens'mating decisions. She is also using the same eye-tracking technology on males to see how they check out the competition
#Oldest Known Wild Bird Hatches Healthy Chick The oldest known wild bird in the United states has hatched a chick for the sixth year in a row.
The Laysan albatross named Wisdom thought to be at least 62 years old hatched a healthy-looking chick on Sunday (Feb 3) according to a statement from the U s. Department of the interior.
Wisdom and her young chick inhabit Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) which is famous for itsâ Laysan albatrossâ population.
The bird has hatched likely 30 to 35 chicks in her long life although that number might be said higher Peterjohn in the release.
The tsunami killed an estimated 2000 adult albatrosses and about 110000 chicks in the wildlife refuge.
#One Source of Bird flu Virus Found Poultry markets in Shanghai are one likely place where people are contracting the new bird flu virus a new study from China suggests.
In the study researchers collected 970 samples from poultry markets and farms in Shanghai and the Anhui Province in eastern China.
Twenty samples tested positive for the H7n9 virus all from poultry markets in Shanghai. Ten of the positive samples were from chickens three from pigeons and seven from the surrounding environment.
The H7n9 viruses in the samples were very genetically similar to the viruses that have sickened people in China suggesting that poultry markets are a source of infections the researchers said.
which is that people can contract bird flu at poultry markets said Dr. Richard Webby a bird flu expert
Previously reports of infection with the H5n1 strain of bird flu were linked to poultry markets Webby said.
However the new study does not suggest that the new H7n9 bird flu virus originated in Shanghai poultry markets
In fact it has been reported that as many as 40 percent of people infected with H7n9 did not have a history of contact with poultry.
Poultry markets may provide a sort of breeding ground for such reassortment to happen. It provides a rather unnatural environment where a lot of these different bird species that may have different flu viruses get together
Yanzhong Huang director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange N. J. said that it's still not certain that the new virus originated in poultry.
A poultry market Shanghai may be one source of H7n9 bird flu infections. This story was provided by Myhealthnewsdaily a sister site to Livescience.
The father a 60-year-old living in the Jiangsu province of eastern China fell ill about five to six days after he visited a live poultry market in March according to a new report
The man's 32-year-old daughter who became ill about two weeks later did not visit poultry markets
The most likely explanation for these cases is that the father became infected with H7n9 from a poultry market
(or the poultry he purchased there) and then he passed the virus directly to his daughter according to the researchers at thejiangsu Province Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
so it can spread undetected within poultry populations Rudge and Coke said. The report provides a timely reminder of the need to remain extremely vigilant Rudge
Scientists studied male and female red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa) which both display complicated black-and-white patterns of plumage on their chests.
and apparently the plumage of red-legged partridges. 5 Seriously Mind-boggling Math Facts In a new study scientists found that the healthier a bird is the more fractal-like its plumage becomes.
the black-spotted bib of the red-legged partridge the researchers wrote in a paper published Jan 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Our correlative results indicate that both better condition
which could provide a valuable way for red-legged partridges to judge potential mates. Our work justifies further studies on fractal perception in animals depending on their visual processing abilities the researchers wrote.
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