Chicken Movements Help Combat Campylobacter.

A new technique that monitors the movement of chickens can be used to predict which flocks are at risk of becoming infected with Campylobacter - the most common bacterial source of food poisoning in humans in the UK. Research by scientists at Oxford University has found that by using a camera system to analyse the 'optical flow' of chickens, at-risk flocks can be detected when the birds are only seven to 10 days old - much earlier than is usually possible with conventional on-farm sampling methods.Despite efforts to improve bio security, Campylobacter - which can reach humans through raw or undercooked chicken - has so far been persistently difficult to eliminate from the food chain. This new early warning system has the potential to transform the way Campylobacter is controlled, benefiting producers, consumers and the birds themselves. Source ;Royal society B/ POULTRY SITE.

Avian Flu Found in Hong Kong Wild Bird.

An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been discovered in Hong Kong's Diamond Hill area.The virus was found in a dead Great Egret, as part of an intensive surveillance effort. Laboratory tests confirmed the bird was infected with the H5N6 strain of the virus.The dead bird was found and collected from a non-public area near Spring Hill in the Nan Lian Garden, Diamond Hill, Wong Tai Sin, last Thursday (December 31). The great egret is a common resident of Hong Kong and some are winter visitors. The spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said cleaning and disinfection have been stepped up at the venue, adding that there are no poultry farms within 3 kilometres of where the dead bird was found. In view of the case, the AFCD has phoned poultry farmers to remind them to strengthen precautionary and biosecurity measures against avian influenza. Letters have been issued to farmers, pet bird shop owners and licence holders of pet poultry and racing pigeons reminding them that proper precautions must be taken. The spokesman said the department would conduct frequent inspections of poultry farms and the wholesale market to ensure that proper precautions against avian influenza have been implemented. The department will continue its wild bird monitoring and surveillance."People should avoid contact with wild birds and live poultry and their droppings. They should clean their hands thoroughly after coming into contact with them. story source; poultry site.

Barking characterizes dogs as voice characterizes people.

Research on canine behavior shows that gender, age, context and individual recognition can be identified with a high percentage of success through statistical and computational methods of pattern recognition applied to their barking. The canine communication has been a research topic in ethology over the last decade. Most of the research has focused on studying how dogs are capable to understand different forms of human communication, for example by displaying gestures and human voice recognition. This joint research between CIG and UPM aimed to understand the acoustic signals obtained from dog barking when they are subjected to certain situations. This research is conducted through the development of a computational system based on statistic modeling that is able to recognize diverse characteristics of the dog . The experiments were carried out in Budapest with eight dogs -- three males and five females -- Mudi breed, from Hungary usually used as sheep-dogs. Each dog (aged between one and 10) registered 100 barks. A total of 800 barks was obtained by placing the dog in seven different situations: (a) alone, the owner tied the dog to a tree; (b) playing with a ball; (c) fighting, the human pretended to attack the dog's owner; (d) receiving their food ration; (f) in the company of a person who was foreign to the dog; and (g) to get ready to going out with the owner. Each one of the 800 barks was characterized from 29 acoustic measurements. By using the diverse computational models obtained from the collected data during the experiment, researchers were able to successfully recognize the dog's gender the 85.13% of the time while the age of the dog (recorded as young, adult and old) was classified without mistakes the 80.25% of the time. The task of identifying the situation in which the dog was it was successful the 55.50%, while the recognition (among the eight dogs participating in the study) of the Mudi breed was successful the 67.63% of the time.This study reveals the biological relevance and richness of the information in dog barking and brings new possibilities in applied research. story source; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Fish oil may help curb seizure frequency in epilepsy.

Low doses of fish oil may help to curb the frequency of epileptic seizures when drug treatment no longer works, suggests a small study. The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil are able to cross over from the bloodstream into heart cells where they work to stabilize heart rhythm and protect against heart attacks. This is particularly important for people with epilepsy because they have a significantly high risk of having a heart attack. The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil are able to cross over from the bloodstream into heart cells where they work to stabilize heart rhythm and protect against heart attacks.This is particularly important for people with epilepsy because they have a significantly higher risk of having a heart attack than those without the condition.And experimental research indicates that omega 3 fatty acids can also cross over into the central nervous system, where they reduce the excitability of brain cells which trigger seizures. source;British Medical Journal

Fish oil helps transform fat cells from storage to burning.

.Credit: Eiri Ono/Kyoto University. Kyoto University researchers have found that fish oil transforms fat-storage cells into fat-burning cells, which may reduce weight gain in middle age. Fish oil activates receptors in the digestive tract, fires the sympathetic nervous system, and induces storage cells to metabolize fat. The team explains in Scientific Reports that fish oil activates receptors in the digestive tract, fires the sympathetic nervous system, and induces storage cells to metabolize fat.Fat tissues don't all store fat.The So-called "white" cells store fat in order to maintain energy supply, while "brown" cells metabolize fat to maintain a stable body temperature. Brown cells are abundant in babies but decrease in number with maturity into adulthood. A third type of fat cell -- "beige" cells -- have recently been found in humans and mice, and have shown to function much like brown cells. Beige cells also reduce in number as people approach middle age; without these metabolizing cells, fat continues accumulating for decades without ever being used. story courtesy;science daily

New NDV-H5NX avian influenza vaccine has potential for mass vaccination of poultry.

Researchers have developed and tested a new vaccine that protects chickens and other poultry from multiple strains of avian influenza found in the U.S., including H5N1, H5N2 and H5N8. A team of researchers at Kansas State University, in collaboration with Garcia-Sastre of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has developed a vaccine that protects poultry from multiple strains of avian influenza found in the U.S., including H5N1, H5N2 and H5N8. The vaccine has the potential to be administered through water or into embryonated eggs, making it easier for poultry producers to vaccinate flocks.The vaccine, called NDV-H5Nx, protects chickens and likely other poultry against the three recently introduced U.S. avian influenza strains H5N1, H5N2 and H5N8, as well as against Newcastle disease virus -- a virus that naturally affects poultry. Avian influenza killed millions of chickens and turkeys in the U.S. in spring and summer 2015, leading to billions in lost revenue for the U.S. poultry industry. The NDV-H5Nx vaccine also has the potential to be administered to millions of birds at a time through water, said Jürgen Richt, Regents distinguished professor of veterinary medicine, director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases at Kansas State University and one of the researchers involved in the discovery. "The vaccine we produced is a live vaccine, which means it replicates in birds," Richt said. "Because it's live, we believe that the vaccine could be sprayed into the air or put in the water supply so that when the chickens need a drink, they could be vaccinated. A poultry farm could vaccinate all of its birds in a single day because all living creatures need water to live." The vaccine also has potential to be administered to developing chicks in eggs, resulting in offspring being automatically vaccinated for the diseases, said Wenjun Ma, Kansas State University assistant professor of diagnostic medicine and patho biology and one of the researchers involved. The NDV-H5Nx vaccine has the ability to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals, or DIVA. This compatibility is critical for the U.S. poultry industry because it provides evidence to trade partners that poultry have been vaccinated and is free of H5, Richt said. H5 vaccines currently on the market require that each chicken be injected by hand. Many poultry operations have millions of birds and it would take many hours to vaccinate every chicken, Richt said.This is a major advantage as many birds can be vaccinated per time. Story source; science daily.

ELEPHANT INFECTED 7 ZOO WORKERS WITH TUBERCULOSIS.

Seven employees of an Oregon zoo contracted tuberculosis from three elephants in their care in 2013, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.The staff members at the Oregon Zoo in Portland were infected with a latent form of the respiratory illness and therefore displayed no symptoms and were not contagious, a report published by the CDC said. The CDC report on the outbreak pointed to a lack of research about tuberculosis in elephants. It also called for improved screening to detect the disease because the present method of detection – taking cultures – may miss some cases or result in false positives.Jennifer Vines, deputy health officer for Multnomah County, whose office worked with the CDC on its report, said the investigation did not conclude that tuberculosis is highly transmissible between elephants and people. About 5 percent of captive Asian elephants in North America, like the ones in Portland, are believed to have tuberculosis, the CDC said. Human-to-elephant transmission was first identified in 1996 and there have been a handful of cases in recent years in Tennessee and elsewhere.The outbreak prompted the Portland zoo to say it would conduct more frequent tuberculosis tests of both animals and staff through at least June 2016. The outbreak was identified in May 2013 when a routine annual check of elephants found that a 20-year-old bull named Rama was infected.Rama’s father, 51-year-old Packy, also tested positive as did Tusko, a 44-year-old former circus performer. Public health officials do not know the cause of the outbreak. The CDC said it was possible that a zoo volunteer diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2012 may have spread the disease to the elephants.The zoo’s other elephants were not infected, nor were another roughly 100 people who were near the three sickened bull elephants. story source;http://newsdaily.com/2016/01/elephants-infected-seven-oregon-zoo-workers-with-tuberculosis-cdc/

NANOTECHNOLOGY TO TREAT HUMAN WASTE AND REMOVE STENCH.

A toilet that does not need water, a sewage system or external power but instead uses nanotechnology to treat human waste, produce clean water and keep smells at bay is being developed by a British university.The innovative toilet uses a rotating mechanism to move waste into a holding chamber containing nano elements. The mechanism also blocks odors and keeps waste out of sight. “Once the waste is in the holding chamber we use membranes that take water out as vapor, which can then be condensed and available for people to use in their homes,” Alison Parker, lead researcher on the project, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The pathogens remain in the waste at the bottom of the holding chamber, so the water is basically pure and clean.”Cranfield University is developing the toilet as part of the global “Reinvent the toilet Challenge” launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Nanotechnology is the science of creating and working with materials about one nanometer wide, or one-billionth of a meter. A human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. According to the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) 2.4 billion people, mostly in rural areas, live without adequate toilets.Poor sanitation is linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio, the WHO says. A replaceable bag containing solid waste coated with a biodegradable nano-polymer which blocks odor will be collected periodically by a local operator, it says. story courtesy;News daily. http://newsdaily.com/2016/01/waterless-toilet-uses-nanotechnology-to-treat-waste-banish-smells/

BIO-DIGESTER. SUPPLIES ENERGY TO FARMS.

The digestive system of a cow served as a model to researchers to create a container that receives organic waste, mostly livestock manure, where it is mixed with millions of bacteria to obtain natural gas integrated mostly of methane, called biogas, as well as a high quality bio-fertilizer. The principle of action of the digestive system of a cow served as a model to Camilo Pagés and Alexander Eaton to create a container that receives organic waste, mostly livestock manure, where it is mixed with millions of bacteria to obtain natural gas integrated mostly of methane, called biogas, as well as a high quality bio-fertilizer. The biodigester, commercially called Biobolsa (bio-bag), transform the waste in a container made of high density geomembrane where polyethylene components and bacteria generate gas that is used as fuel for stoves or heaters, and even in the form of electricity. In very simple terms, Alex Eaton explains that his technology is a huge bag of 15 meters long and two meters wide and two more in height, which can contain up to 40,000 liters of liquid capacity, and treat one ton waste per day. However, they have adapted it to specific needs and created smaller Bio-bags of two by two meters, working with 20 kilos of manure. "The system is modular and can interface, it also is deployable and adjustable. On average, the return on investment is contemplated in a year and a half, and if you consider that the material used for the Biobolsa lasts longer than 20 years, there is much room for profit," says the journalist with a graduate degree in environmental protection. Source; science daily.

Remote-controlled robot inspects suitcase bombs.

Abandoned items of luggage are frequently found at airports and train stations. This is a case for the emergency services, who have to assume that these items might contain bombs. They must assess the potential threat quickly, avert any possible danger, and preserve evidence for criminal proceedings. In the future, police will have the support of a remote-controlled sensor system as they go about their duties, say researchers who are developing this sensor suite in cooperation with industry partners and criminal investigation authorities. Emergency services do not have to enter the danger zone,the system the researchers have developed comprises a multimodal sensor suite consisting of a millimeter wave scanner, a high-resolution digital camera, and a 3D environment monitoring system. The components are contained in a housing and mounted on a robot platform. Bomb disposal engineers remotely control the robot from a safe distance. Its swiveling 3D sensors make a three-dimensional survey of the crime scene, and the digital camera provides high-resolution images for later optical evidence preservation. Meanwhile the millimeter wave sensor scans the source of danger and creates an image of what's inside. A built-in embedded PC on the robot collects the data and sends it to the investigators, where it will be merged on the computer by means of sensor data fusion. Up to now our techniques have not allowed us to form a 3D outline of suitcase bombs, and it has been impossible -- or only partially possible -- to make a spatial map of the contents. With the sensor suite we can visualize in three dimensions what's inside a luggage item, and so determine the composition of the bomb and how the parts are arranged in the luggage," explains Stefan A. Lang, team leader at the FHR and the project's coordinator. This lets the explosives experts quickly assess the threat, and going forward they will also be able to preserve as much evidence as possible about the bomb. Until now, specialists were often forced to destroy suitcase bombs -- making it difficult to identify the perpetrators. Other advantages of the contact-free detection system: it is light, compact, and platform independent, which means it can be mounted on any robot. story credit; science daily.

WATERMELON FARMER SINGS TO GET THE SWEETEST FRUIT.

A Queensland watermelon grower says he sings and talks to his crop to ensure he gets the sweetest fruit, but the tastiest is left in the field. Grower Anthony Rehbein says he sings to his watermelons to ensure he gets the best fruit. (ABC Rural) Anthony Rehbein will harvest 100 tonne of the fruit per day for an eight week period over summer, and has used social media to allow consumers to follow the life cycle of a watermelon."Everyday since I planted them I talk to them, sing to them, look at them, touch them, make sure there's no stress so no matter what crop you grow you've got to nurture just like kids," he said.Despite the love and attention Mr Rehbein gives it, he said fussy consumers have forced him to leave behind a quarter of his crop, because the melons contain seeds."There's two types (of melon) and you can't grow one without the other," he said."There's a pollinator, which is a seeded watermelon, and then there's a seedless, which is three quarters of your crop. The bees come in, do their work and cross pollinate so the customer gets seedless watermelons."That's the only way you don't get seeds, is through bee pollination, and using the Red Tigers, which is a fantastic seeded watermelon, and the Royal Armarda, which is our seedless."You've got to have both."But Mr Rehbein still believes the seeded varieties are the better eating fruit. Mr Rehbein sais the busy harvest is an exciting time on the farm."The pickers go out and pick virtually every daylight hour that we have," he said."They're looking for the blush of the melon, like a slight yellowing or a sunburn on top, which tells you that the internal colour is nice and red and ready to go."They give it a little 'love tap' so that they know that the melon is solid and full inside. He said the melons hit the Sydney or Melbourne markets within three days of being picked."When it's hot, people like melon and it's a great time of year, we're coming out of winter, great to take to the beach," he said.Read the benefits of watermelon;www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7719362384747421432#editor/target=post;postID=1320249339715928435;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=6;src=postname Story credit; ABC NEWS.

TICK VACCINE FOR AFRICAN CATTLE .

Two Queensland scientists have been recruited as part of a global project to help develop a tick vaccine for the African cattle industry.The tick may be an enemy of the Australian beef industry, but the situation is even more dire in Africa.The research is part of a global project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help the overseas cattle producers combat tick infestation. Researcher Alicja Lew-Tabor said ticks were having a significant impact on domestic beef production in Africa.Unlike Australian producers, African producers generally only supply their domestic market and Dr Lew-Tabor said ticks caused significant problems in meat and milk supply. "Most of the countries in Africa have cattle of sorts, whether it is for milk or beef production, and most of them would be in regions that are affected by cattle tick and the diseases that they carry," Dr Lew-Tabor said."Ticks are resistant to a lot of the drugs that they use to put on the cattle; they become resistant to them in time."That chemical resistance was the very reason why Dr Lew-Tabor and fellow researcher Manuel Rodriguez-Valle were selected to join the worldwide project. For five years, they have worked on the development of many vaccine strains which could have potential in Africa.They started with 300 possibilities and have selected 25 vaccines which could be successful in controlling the tick infestation.Dr Rodriguez-Valle said the work was tedious, but the results looked good."We have two candidates that look very interesting [and] we will have results very quickly, at the end of February; we are very confident in them," he said.To control the results, the cattle are kept isolated in pens.The goal is to try to reduce the number of ticks per animal by 70 per cent. We infect the animals with around 5,000 tick larvae and wait until the ticks drop off each animal, then we collect the tick, weigh it and analyse the reduction in the number of ticks," Dr Rodriguez-Valle said.The vaccines inject antigens into the cattle, creating antibodies to attack the ticks."We got 80 per cent protection in a trial that we did in Brazil but what they [Gates Foundation] has wanted us to do is pull that mixture apart and work out what the most active components are," Dr Lew-Tabor said.The vaccine is expected to be ready to use within five years, and Dr Lew-Tabor said there could be benefits for Australian beef producers too."They will be able to bring the more susceptible breeds into regions where they don't have those breeds," she said. source; ABC NEWS.

PROFIT POTENTIAL OF RAISING TURKEY.

A farmer explains the benefits of raising turkeys for profit;Ms Leadoux would not have it any other way, although she got involved because of her husband. Ms Leadoux produces about 6,000 turkeys throughout the year, with preparation for Christmas starting more than 12 months ahead of the festive season.However, she said demand for turkey throughout the year had resulted in huge increases in demand."We are struggling to keep up," she said."We have worked pretty hard to establish a market throughout the year, which means we are producing turkey more often. We are continually knocking back orders at this time of the year, and big orders, like 400 birds."Ms Leadoux said the potential for further increases in demand was "absolutely huge""People have traditionally seen turkey as a festive fare, a speciality meat," she said. "People have been amazed at the variety. When we first started going down to the market, people would walk past the stand. We started taste-testing the product, and getting them to try it."Now it's just phenomenal. The potential of this business is absolutely huge." The profit potential is phenomenal, an aspect of the value chain that is a goldmine. # turkey # poultry # profit # market. story source;ABC NEWS.

BLUE FIN TUNA IN JAPAN.

( courtesy ;internet). Most tuna farming in Japan involves catching young tuna in the wild and cultivating them in coastal reserves – a practice that experts believe has contributed to plummeting populations of small fish. Kinki University, however, prides itself on a method it calls “complete cultivation”, in which the fish are artificially raised from egg to adulthood before the larvae are then used to start a new cycle. Experts involved in the project say they still have a long way to go before they can farm enough tuna to meet demand. The survival rate for newly hatched fry is low, and rearing tuna in captivity requires vast areas of coastal water. Shigeru Miyashita, of the university’s fisheries laboratory, said the rate at which researchers had successfully raised bluefin from egg to adult – without using any fish caught in the wild – had improved over the years. “Through the complete aqua-farming of bluefin tuna, we hope to help ensure the stability of the world’s marine resources,” Miyashita said. “But to make 10,000 tonnes of farmed adult tuna you need 1.6m fry. The other problem is space. Wild Pacific bluefin have the whole ocean to swim in, but we have to raise them in a confined area. The university’s project received a boost at the end of last year when it joined forces with Toyota Tsusho, the trading arm of the Japanese carmaker, to begin the mass farming of bluefin tuna hatchlings at a site in Goto, south-western Japan. We started this project because we were concerned about the future of the bluefin tuna. Japanese people love tuna – we now want to encourage them to eat ours instead of the wild variety.” story excerpts from the Guardian.

How satellite technology is helping to fight illegal fishing.

A new initiative is arming coastguards with satellite intelligence that allows them to target their search for pirate fishing vessels in remote marine areas Pirate fishing vessels plundering fish from the world’s marine reserves, such as the one around Ascension Island announced on the weekend, can now be watched, tracked and brought to justice using satellite technology.Despite a proliferation of huge, publicly lauded marine reserves, actually stopping fishing in many remote areas has previously been almost impossible. Fishing vessels are required to carry a transponder that tracks their movements and allows authorities to monitor their behaviour. But illegal fishers simply switch off the machine, disappearing from the system. A UK-funded initiative, developed by Satellite Applications Catapult (SAC) and the Pew Charitable Trusts, uses satellite radars to track these “dark targets”. Now, instead of blindly patrolling vast areas of ocean, coastguard vessels use the satellite intelligence to target their search. Bradley Soule, senior fisheries analyst for SAC. Satellite radar has traditionally been used by the military and law enforcement agencies. But the cost has dropped dramatically, opening up the data for private companies to use.“It is definitely a big deal,” he said. “[The global satellite tracking] gives a sense of the scope ... It is a wide-ranging problem.” Roughly one in every five fish landed around the world is caught illegally. Story source ;http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/04/how-satellite-technology-is-helping-to-fight-illegal-fishing

TECHNOLOGY OVERDRIVE!!!!

Technology @ its best!!! I just have to share this # all things are possible. Jessica Cox proved...YOU DON'T NEED 'WINGS' TO FLY...the first pilot with no arms..I salute her!!

INTERNET OF FOOD PIE.

Take a bite.

INTERNET AND FOOD SAFETY

The use of internet in our everyday life not only makes our work easy but its also a point of access for food safety.

The concept above can be modeled in various industries to expand and cutoff excesses with regards to sharp/wrong practices.


 Farm animals fitted with RFID allows for easy tracing and tracking from the farm to various departure points

.The animals are processed and issued a code during packaging, this is easily read by phones/ barcode reader.

These products make their way to various superstores ,as hygienically packaged wholesome products fit for human consumption. # food court # internet of food # techy foods #food market # food safety.

‘Internet of food’ could revolutionise personal nutrition: researcher

‘Internet of food’ could revolutionise personal nutrition: researcher

Study links Irritable Bowel Syndrome with vitamin D deficiency

Study links Irritable Bowel Syndrome with vitamin D deficiency