The study which looked at scat samples for leopards in India's Ahmednagar's district in Maharashtra found that 87 percent of their diet was made up of domestic animals.
Seventeen percent of the leopard's diet consisted of assorted wild animals including rodents monkeys and mongoose and birds.
Livestock despite being made more abundant up a relatively small portion of the leopard's diet.
The study also finds that the majority of this illegal destruction was driven by overseas demand for agricultural commodities including palm oil beef soy and wood products.
of which wind up in cosmetics or household goods (palm oil) animal feed (soy) and packaging (wood products).
Export Agriculture a Key Driver of Illegal Deforestationaccording to the report the international trade in agricultural commodities (beef leather soy palm oil
and 14%of all beef traded internationally comes from land that had been deforested illegally. Nearly one-fifth (17%)of Brazilian beef 75%of Brazilian soy and 70-80%of the palm oil and plantation wood and pulp from Indonesia were destined for foreign markets.
Five football fields of tropical forest are being destroyed every minute to supply these export commodities said Lawson noting that the report's figures were obtained using conservative estimates based on documented violations of significant impact.
#Mosquito fact and fictionone of Jason Pitts'favorite stories is about mosquitoes and their strange attraction to Limburger cheese.
In the 1990's Dutch biologists put Limburger cheese in a wind tunnel with malaria mosquitoes and were surprised to find that females were drawn to the smell he said.
Natural repellants such as clove oil citronella lemon grass eucalyptus castor oil peppermint lavender and cedar oil all work to a limited extent Pitts said
The report identifies 33 species like the northern bobwhite quail grasshopper sparrow and bank swallow that do not meet the Watch List criteria
when replacement kidneys can be built in the lab. The results are a promising indicator that it is possible to produce a fully functional vascular system that can deliver nutrients
If sustained over several decades agricultural innovation in Africa would eventually conserve land and decrease carbon emissions especially
The longer the bacteria stick around in workers'noses the researchers say the greater the opportunity for them to potentially spread to hog workers'families their communities
and maintain 28 globally important crops including rice wheat soybean sorghum banana apple citrus fruits grape stone fruits
'It is very important that we conserve these species in secure gene banks but it is critical to conserve them in their natural habitat as they will continue to adapt to changes in the climate as well as threats from pests and diseases.''
so it is now even more crucial that we conserve crop wild relatives as part of the wider need to address global food security issues.'
and their milk and meat becomes bitter and useless. The Innovation Lab built a quarantine facility in 2007 to ensure that the pea-sized beetle had eyes for parthenium alone.
but when fires get out of control they can burn huge areas and spread to neighboring homes and settlements.
and the United states. He found that 13 agricultural products--wheat soybean palm oil maize sugars and others--make up 80 percent of the world's diet and food trade.
He also found that China is greatly increasing its consumption of meat which already is changing land-use patterns in that country--meat production requires significantly more land area then crops.
Fats and proteins tend to increase with the economic development of emerging countries he said.
An increase in consumption of animal products is further enhancing the human pressure on croplands and rangelands.
Light nutrients and water he said. Weed control is critical for the establishment of any perennial crop.
Since alcohol is metabolized by the liver it can alter the way heart medications and other drugs work in the body Gilchrist said.
Drug interactions aside physicians generally recommend limiting alcohol intake to two drinks per day for both dietary and behavioral reasons.
while watching the big game: â#¢Help minimize stress by watching the game with people you enjoy. â#¢Knock out a few pushups
and situps during commercial breaks. â#¢Chew gum or squeeze a stress ball to reduce anxiety
or if you are attending the game take a walk around the stadium or to another section to meet a friend. â#¢Manage your net dietary intake by planning ahead
and making healthier choices at other times of day in anticipation of splurging a bit during the game. â
and substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream or cream cheese dips. â#¢Because sodium causes fluid retention--something especially bad for heart patients--a good rule of thumb is to avoid foods that have more than 1 mg of sodium per calorie.
For a collection of winning snacks main courses side dishes and desserts download UAB's Heart Healthy Tailgate Recipes.
The farm generates income from three main sources--forage hay native plant seed and more recently grass-fed beef he explained.
The native grasses require less input than rowcrops while resulting in less erosion better soil and water quality and more wildlife.
Martin Heller and Gregory Keoleian of U-M's Center for Sustainable Systems looked at the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of about 100 foods as well as the potential effects of shifting Americans to a diet
while keeping caloric intake constant diet-related greenhouse gas emissions would increase 12 percent. If Americans reduced their daily caloric intake to the recommended level of about 2000 calories
while shifting to a healthier diet greenhouse gas emissions would decrease by only 1 percent according to Heller and Keoleian.
and environmental agendas are aligned not in the current dietary recommendations Heller said. The paper's findings are especially relevant now
because the USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is for the first time considering food sustainability within the context of dietary recommendations he said.
In its 2010 dietary guidelines USDA recommends that Americans eat more fruits vegetables whole grains fat-free and low-fat dairy products and seafood.
They should consume less salt saturated fat trans fat cholesterol added sugar and refined grains.
The guidelines don't explicitly state that Americans should eat less meat. However an appendix to the report lists the recommended average daily intake amounts of various foods including meat.
The recommended amount of meat is significantly less than current consumption levels which Heller and Keoleian estimated using the USDA's Loss Adjusted Food Availability dataset as a proxy for per capita food consumption in the United states
. While a drop in meat consumption would help cut diet-related greenhouse gas emissions increased use of dairy products
--and to a lesser extent seafood fruits and vegetables--would have the opposite effect increasing diet-related emissions according to the U-M researchers.
In the United states in 2010 food production was responsible for about 8 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.
For starters cows don't efficiently convert plant-based feed into muscle or milk so they must eat lots of feed.
Growing that feed often involves the use of fertilizers and other substances manufactured through energy-intensive processes.
And then there's the fuel used by farm equipment. In addition cows burp lots of methane and their manure also releases this potent greenhouse gas.
Greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing the U s. diet are dominated by the meats category according to Heller and Keoleian.
While beef accounts for only 4 percent by weight of the food available it contributes 36 percent of the associated greenhouse gases they conclude.
The U-M researchers found that a switch to diets that don't contain animal products would lead to the biggest reductions in this country's diet-related greenhouse emissions.
Because of course if you ship something to market that's not going to end up being eaten by consumers every single bit of input in growing it harvesting packing cooling shipping--everything is wasted.
and positions of genes in the coffee plant show that they evolved independently from genes with similar functions in tea and chocolate
and Victor Albert professor of biological sciences at the University at Buffalo are the principal authors of the study.
Upon taking a closer look the researchers found that coffee's caffeine enzymes are more closely related to other genes within the coffee plant than to caffeine enzymes in tea and chocolate.
The above story is provided based on materials by University at Buffalo. The original article was written by Cory Nealon.
The salamanders--minus their last meals--were returned then safely to their exact capture location. The stomach contents were preserved in alcohol
The diet of the salamanders captured on the ground was the same as the diet of salamanders captured sitting high up on vegetation.
The study Relationship between diet and microhabitat use of red-legged salamanders (Plethodon shermani) in southwestern North carolina appeared in the journal Copeia.
#Ozone pollution in India kills enough crops to feed 94 million in povertyin one year India's ozone pollution damaged millions of tons of the country's major
and spread its pest status in other invaded regions descriptions of its life stages and biology its chemical ecology and the types of damage it does to various host plants.
and Immunology the scientific publication of the American College of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) examines the case of a 10 year-old girl who had an anaphylactic (severely allergic reaction after eating blueberry pie.
and seasonal allergies and known anaphylaxis to penicillin and cow's milk she wasn't known to be allergic to any of the ingredients in the pie.
After weeks of testing on both the young girl and a sample of the pie the article authors decided that what had caused the reaction was contaminated a streptomycin blueberry.
#Taxes, subsidies could encourage healthier diet, lower healthcare costsin a Viewpoint published in the Journal of the American Medical Association a team of Boston researchers call for the implementation of taxes
With climbing rates of obesity diabetes and other diet-related illnesses helping to drive health care expenses to an all-time high we are at a crossroads said first author Dariush Mozaffarian M d. Dr. P
We must act now to reduce the financial barriers to more sensible dietary choices and help people live long productive lives.
Reducing the rate of diet-related diseases and their economic costs would be a huge economic and welfare boost to Americans
and health disparities amongst the poor and other disadvantaged Americans and potentially save billions of dollars in year in health care costs for diet-related diseases.
when polluted runoff from a rapidly developing watershed overwhelmed the Bay's waters with nutrients causing algae blooms that blocked out much-needed sunlight for underwater plants.
and using excess nutrients in the water to grow. The researchers found lower nitrogen concentrations and less turbidity in the grass beds than the surrounding waters.
Sorghum exampleit is difficult to distinguish the human impact on the effects of natural factors on the evolution of crop plants.
A Franco-Kenyan research team has managed to do just that for sorghum one of the main cereals in Africa.
and Tharaka peoples making it possible to compare the influence of their different agricultural practices and traditional knowledge on the diversity of sorghum a very important cereal in this area.
and Tharaka peoples each grow a mixture of sorghum varieties that is unique to each group Certain varieties dominate based on ethnic preferences
So despite a common local market sorghum populations are very different there. Each ethnic group leaves its genetic signatureat the same time the researchers inventoried
and sampled the different varieties of sorghum grown by 130 Chuka Mbeere and Tharaka households.
DNA analysis of the 300 plants gathered has identified four genetic groups of sorghum. Two of them correspond to two introduced varieties.
This suggests that the practices of the three communities leave their signature in the genomes of sorghum populations.
(which the fungus also needs) from pasture grape pomace coffee or pineapple crown. This preparation where the mushrooms are to be developed is called substrate.
which is the growth of the fungus spores on some wheat or sorghum. The product obtained is spread on the substrate (contained in plastic bag)
but the gap in overall diet quality widened between the rich and the poor. An unhealthy diet is linked closely to cardiovascular disease diabetes and some cancers.
Eating a healthy diet is an important part of the strategy to prevent adverse health outcomes.
Evaluating population trends in diet quality is important because it can offer guidance for public health policy.
A higher AHEI-2010 score indicated a more healthful diet. The index's components were scored from 0 to 10.
and fruit juices red and/or processed meat and sodium a higher score corresponded to lower intake.
Scores increased by 0. 9 points for sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juice reflecting decreased consumption.
However overall dietary quality remains poor indicating room for improvement and presenting challenges for both public health researchers and policy makers.
How could we close the dietary quality gap? First we could restrict benefits to more healthful foods as has been done by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC)
Improving diet and lifestyle is critical for CVD risk reduction in the general population but the large majority of this evidence has come from western countries and hardly any from China.
#Changing global diets is vital to reducing climate change, researchers sayhealthier diets and reducing food waste are part of a combination of solutions needed to ensure food security
A shift to healthier diets across the world is just one of a number of actions that need to be taken to avoid dangerous climate change
and global tastes shift towards meat-heavy Western diets increasing agricultural yields will not meet projected food demands of what is expected to be 9. 6 billion people--making it necessary to bring more land into cultivation.
They argue that current food demand trends must change through reducing waste and encouraging balanced diets.
and managing demand for particularly environmentally-damaging food products by changing global diets should be key aims that
The average efficiency of livestock converting plant feed to meat is less than 3 %and as we eat more meat more arable cultivation is turned over to producing feedstock for animals that provide meat for humans.
The losses at each stage are large and as humans globally eat more and more meat conversion from plants to food becomes less
and less efficient driving agricultural expansion and land cover conversion and releasing more greenhouse gases.
When healthy diets were added the model suggests that all three measures combined result in agricultural GHG levels almost halving from their 2009 level--dropping 48%.
%Western diets are increasingly characterised by excessive consumption of food including that of emission-intensive meat and dairy products.
We tested a scenario where all countries were assumed to achieve an average balanced diet--without excessive consumption of sugars fats and meat products.
The'average'balanced diet used in the study is a relatively achievable goal for most. For example the figures included two 85g portions of red meat and five eggs per week as well as a portion of poultry a day.
This is not a radical vegetarian argument; it is an argument about eating meat in sensible amounts as part of healthy balanced diets said Cambridge co-author Prof Keith richards.
Managing the demand better for example by focusing on health education would bring double benefits--maintaining healthy populations and greatly reducing critical pressures on the environment.
Cutting food waste and moderating meat consumption in more balanced diets are the essential'no-regrets'options added Bajzelj.
and they are sold in flavors such as Skittles cotton candy and the like which can attract youth. Most importantly we know that e-cigarettes
#Flapping baby birds give clues to origin of flighthow did the earliest birds take wing? Did they fall from trees
The study looked at how baby birds in this case chukar partridges pheasant-like game birds from Eurasia react
The researchers Dennis Evangelista now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North carolina Chapel hill and Robert Dudley UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology found that even ungainly day-old baby birds successfully use their flapping wings
This suggests that even rudimentary wings can serve a very useful aerodynamic purpose. Flapping and rollingthe nestlings right themselves by pumping their wings asymmetrically to flip or roll.
By nine days after hatching 100 percent of the birds in the study had developed coordinated
and occur before other previously described uses of the wings such as for weight support during wing-assisted incline running said Evangelista who emphasized that no chukar chicks were injured in the process.
and allowed the ancestors of today's birds to effectively use their forelimbs as rudimentary wings.
The new study shows that aerial righting using uncoordinated asymmetric wing flapping is a very early development.
But once animals without wings have this innate aerial righting behavior when wings came along it became easier quicker and more efficient.
Dudley noted that some scientists hypothesize that true powered flight originated in the theropod dinosaurs the ancestors to birds
when they used symmetric wing flapping while running up an incline a behavior known as wing-assisted incline running or WAIR.
WAIR proponents argue that the wings assist running by providing lift like the spoiler on a race car
and that the ability to steer or maneuver is absent early in evolution. Falling gliding and flyingsuch activity has never been observed regularly in nature
which rudimentary wings could have been used but it kicks in rather late in development relative to asymmetric flapping Dudley added.
This experiment illustrates that there is a much broader range of aerodynamic capacity available for animals with these tiny tiny wings than has been realized previously.
if they flapped their wings while running up an incline. None did. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Berkeley.
#New research reveals how wild rabbits were transformed genetically into tame rabbitsthe genetic changes that transformed wild animals into domesticated forms have long been a mystery.
and the nervous system were particularly important for rabbit domestication. The study is published today in Science
The rabbit was domesticated much later about 1400 years ago at monasteries in southern France. It has been claimed that rabbits were domesticated
because the Catholic church had declared that young rabbits were considered not meat but fish and could therefore be eaten during lent!
When domestication occurred the wild ancestor the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was confined to the Iberian peninsula and southern France.
There are several reasons why the rabbit is an outstanding model for genetic studies of domestication:
and this region is populated still densely with wild rabbits explains Miguel Carneiro from CIBIO/Inbio-University of Porto one of the leading authors on the paper.
Wild rabbits also serve as an excellent model for genetic studies of the early stages of species formation as shown in an accompanying study we publish today in PLOS Genetics adds Miguel Carneiro.
Then they resequenced entire genomes of domestic rabbits representing six different breeds and wild rabbits sampled at 14 different places across the Iberian peninsula and southern France.
No previous study on animal domestication has involved such a careful examination of genetic variation in the wild ancestral species. This allowed us to pinpoint the genetic changes that have occurred during rabbit domestication says Leif Andersson Uppsala University Swedish University of Agricultural
In contrast to domestic rabbits wild rabbits have a very strong flight response because they are hunted by eagles hawks foxes
In fact Charles darwin wrote In on the Origin of Species that â#no animal is more difficult to tame than the young of the wild rabbit;
scarcely any animal is tamer than the young of the tame rabbit. Darwin used domestic animals as a proof-of-principle that it is possible to change phenotypes by selection.
Rabbit domestication has occurred primarily by altering the frequencies of gene variants that were already present in the wild ancestor.
The team observed very few examples where a gene variant common in domestic rabbits had replaced completely the gene variant present in wild rabbits;
it was rather shifts in frequencies of those variants that were favoured in domestic rabbits. An interesting consequence of this is that
if you release domestic rabbits into the wild there is an opportunity for back selection at those genes that have been altered during domestication
the difference between a wild and a tame rabbit is not which genes they carry
But that of course makes perfect sense in relation to the drastic changes in behaviour between wild and domestic rabbits concludes Kerstin Lindblad-Toh.
because we believe that most of the current dietary guidelines for patients with diabetes do not reflect recent evidence.
An unhealthy diet has long been considered a major contributor to the development of diabetes but only in the past two decades has this role been confirmed by prospective observational studies and clinical trials.
People who eat a Mediterranean diet with foods such as olive oil whole grains and leafy vegetables and fruits have a lower risk of developing diabetes even
Foods such as oat cereal yogurt and dairy products green leafy vegetables grapes apples blueberries and walnuts were associated with reduced diabetes risk.
and insulin sensitivity than participants who ate other popular diets. In addition overweight patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes who followed the Mediterranean diet had need less for antihyperglycemic medications compared with participants on a low-fat diet.
Overall a variety of eating plans including the Mediterranean low-carbohydrate/low glycemic index and high-protein diets improved glycemic control and cardiovascular disease risk factors in patients with diabetes compared with control diets.
This offers patients a range of options for diabetes management. Foods associated with a higher risk of diabetes include red and processed meat sugar-sweetened beverages alcohol in excess quantities and refined grains such as white flour.
Recent studies of fat intake and diabetes incidence support the notion that eating the right kind of fats is beneficial to health.
A major problem with the American diet is refined too much grains and added sugar which are associated with the rise in obesity
Current evidence shows that some fats such as those from red and processed meats are associated with higher cardiovascular risk
The Joslin nutritional guidelines for diabetes recommend a diet with relatively high amounts of healthy fats and protein but moderately low amounts of carbohydrates.
while improving the quality of their diet. Now that we have clear evidence we are striving to educate the American public about what foods to eat to prevent diabetes
Korea Thailand Russia Estonia Italy Spain and two cities in the United states. The consumers completed questionnaires about their purchase storage handling and preparation practices of poultry and eggs.
The study produced the article Eggs and Poultry: Purchase Storage and Preparation Practices of Consumers in Selected Asian countries
We really wanted to know how consumers in different countries are actually handling raw eggs and poultry because these products are the source of two main bacteria:
The research found that most consumers purchase their eggs from the supermarket with the exception of Argentina where consumers get their eggs from the regular open-air market.
However the way the eggs were stored at the supermarkets varied. While some countries kept the eggs refrigerated most eggs in Thailand India Spain Italy
and Colombia were stored at room temperature. When you think about the range of countries that we had
A lot can happen to eggs if they're stored at room temperature in a country where the climate may be somewhat tropical.
The researchers found the majority of consumers store their eggs in the refrigerator once they brought them home.
and meats but how they store those meats varies. Fifty percent or more of the consumers in Russia India Thailand Colombia and the U s. would freeze the meat right away
although these consumers often would improperly store the meat. If you think about the typical refrigerator
and the air movement within the fridge warmer air typically rises higher Koppel said. If you put the meat in a place where the temperature is warmer then it's more likely to spoil.
Raw meats also may have juices that leak and there is a possibility that the juices may cross-contaminate ingredients on lower shelves.
The safest place to store raw meat in the refrigerator is on the bottom shelf. The research found mixed results on this with most of the consumers in Argentina and Colombia storing meat on higher shelves putting them at a higher risk for contamination.
The riskiest behavior was exhibited in preparing the eggs and poultry. About 90 percent of consumers in Colombia and 70 percent of consumers in India washed these products in the sink before preparation.
In the U s. about 40 percent did. If you think about washing something in the sink typically water splatters on the surface around the sink Koppel said.
If you have some other ingredients near the sink that you're about to use for your meal all that water splattering around the sink could cross-contaminate the other ingredients you are about to use.
The researchers found consumers also need to improve their cutting board cleanliness. About 40 percent of Colombian consumers reported using the same cutting board for multiple ingredients without washing
If you use the sponge that you use to wash dishes research has shown that those sponges actually contain a lot of other bacteria
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