Feather pecking is a common and serious behavioural disorder in laying hens around the world. The chickens peck and pull the feathers of their victims, and this may lead to cannibalism. Now a group of researchers under the lead of Per Jensen, Professor of ethology at Linköping University have shown that the risk of becoming a victim is largely determined by one single gene, which controls the expression of black pigment in the carrier. A mutation which gives white feathers protects against the att
Tracking newly discovered asteroids and comets to identify their orbits is the work of a small number of observatories. Yet UK students, using the Faulkes Telescope North – a remotely operated research quality telescope dedicated for educational use – will now be swelling these ranks. The students have taken such accurate data of a number of asteroids that the telescope has been awarded an observatory code and can now submit official data to the international body that monitors asteroids and comets,
The first draft of the bovine genome sequence is now freely available to biomedical and agricultural researchers around the world.
CSIRO Livestock Industries is a partner in the U.S. $53 million dollar international effort to sequence the genome of the cow (Bos taurus).
“CSIRO has invested in the research to increase understanding and utilisation of the bovine genome which is a major focus for our livestock portfolio development both now and into the future,” CSIRO Livesto
James A. Harris, M.D., of the Hair Sciences Center of Colorado has invented and patented a new minimally invasive technology which will revolutionize the field of hair transplantation surgery. The new system utilizes an instrument called the Harris SAFE Scribe — a small, self-contained device — to isolate, extract and transplant single follicular units of hair without the trauma associated with other types of hair transplantation surgery.
According to Dr. Harris, a head and ne
Vitamin E supplements can help reduce the risk of coronary heart disease; a low-fat diet can help reduce the risk of coronary heart disease; but research at the University of Surrey has now shown that if a vitamin E supplement is taken with a low-fat meal, the absorption of the vitamin into the blood stream, and therefore its efficacy, is significantly reduced.
Dr John Lodge and his team discovered that the absorption of vitamin E into the blood stream was minimal when taken with only a gl
Due for launch next spring, ESA’s ice mission CryoSat marked an important milestone last week when the innovative SAR/Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL) instrument was delivered to the prime contractor Astruim GmbH for integration into the satellite.
Developed by Alcatel Space, the SIRAL radar altimeter is the key instrument to be carried on the CryoSat mission. Its design is based on heritage from existing radar altimeters but with a number of sophisticated enhancements
Autistic children often do not interact well with the world around them; being unable to understand events in their immediate surroundings and lacking any sense of an ability to control or direct events. This inability to interact inhibits their mental development; precisely the problem that MEDIATE was designed to help overcome.
The MEDIATE environment is a six-sided module about five metres across, which acts as a multi-sensory interactive environment for children. Designed for au
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2004 “for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation” jointly to
Aaron Ciechanover
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel,
Avram Hershko
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel and
Irwin Rose
University of California, Irvine, USA
They have discovered how useless proteins are labelled wit
The newly developed system makes sure that farm animals won’t run out of food. One of the largest companies in the EU animal feed sector, Suomen Rehu Oy, has developed a feed silo that places feed orders automatically.
In the Signal 24 mobile technology-based ordering service, the silo is equipped with a measuring transducer that senses when the silo is running out of feed. This takes place several days before the silo should receive new feed supplies. From the silo, the data is
EUREKA project E! 2388 LOGCHAIN MUSIC has doubled freight train capacity on the intermodal service Duisburg-Lübeck, which links Norway, Sweden and Finland to Germany and the rest of Europe, through the development of an intermodal conveyor belt. The project not only created this innovative rail production scheme, but has also increased traffic volume and developed two new software packages to aid freight and port management.
“We examined the current freight routes and found that ab
Researchers from The Rockefeller University have uncovered specific mechanisms by which cells that are genetically programmed to commit suicide stimulate growth in surrounding cells. The research, published online in Developmental Cell, provides new information about how normal, healthy tissues are maintained and may shed some light on a pathway that may contribute to tumor growth.
It has been known for some time that cells that die as a result of injury-provoked programmed cell deat
ULIS SAS of France, a European leader in the field of low-cost infrared detectors for thermal imagery, has launched its latest, third-generation, uncooled 160×120 pixels microbolometer detector – the UL 02 05 1 – which operates at room temperature. The low cost of the device is one of its strongest selling points. By dividing the price of the system by three or even by four through the use of innovative microbolometers, ULIS has made infrared imagery available to markets such as industrial survei
University of Michigan researchers are testing a new procedure in which they can take a tiny piece of a person’s mouth lining, grow it into a dollar-bill sized piece of tissue and graft that expanded piece into the donor’s mouth to heal a wound.
Dr. Stephen Feinberg is leading a team that is currently working with five patients to treat small mouth wounds with the grafts. These five patients are part of what is called a proof of concept study for the Food and Drug Admin
The pathogen responsible for a precooked chicken recall last summer will become easier to detect in ready-to-eat meats, thanks to a new biosensor developed by scientists at Purdue University.
A team of food scientists has developed a sensor that can detect the potentially deadly bacteria Listeria monocytogenes in less than 24 hours at concentrations as low as 1,000 cells per milliliter of fluid – an amount about the size of a pencil eraser. The sensor also is selective enough to r
The “fight or flight” mechanism is one of the best-known physiological responses. It increases our ability to respond to stressful situations. One way to look at exercise – physiologically — is as a non-life-threatening example of a stressful situation. Think about it: When we exercise, our heart and breathing rates rise rapidly and blood vessels in our limbs dilate in order to deliver more oxygenated blood to our working muscle cells. The rapid rise in blood flow to the periphery — especially to
While questions still remain about the nature and function of stem cells found in fat, a group of researchers and clinicians convened today in Pittsburgh at the Second Annual Meeting of the International Fat Applied Technology Society (IFATS) agreed that research should move forward with the ultimate goal of performing human clinical trials to test the cells’ therapeutic potential for specific indications.
Today concludes scientific sessions exploring how adipose tissue, or f
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