Malamute Puppy Gets New Lease on Life with 3D Printed Prosthetic Leg.

When Yogo was born, there was something different about her than all the other puppies in her litter: she suffers from congenital atrophy in her right front leg causing it to be significantly smaller than the others. As the puppy grew, her owner began to look around to see if there were any possibilities for having her fitted for a prosthetic. However, in China, where Yogo and her human companion lived, vets are not accustomed to the practice of fitting prosthetics for handicapped animals. Several weeks later, Yogo’s human was surfing the web when she came across a group of people who were interested in advancing the cause of disabled animals in China through Pet Fair Asia. While Yogo could still get around easily, many pets are put down every year because of injuries or disabilities that prevent them from walking. This new charity was hoping to reduce those numbers by providing help so that those animals could walk again. Intrigued by the possibility, Yogo and her dearest human travelled to Shanghai where the fair was taking place. Yogo’s bipedal guardian contacted the charity and asked if it she would be a good candidate for their program. Once it was determined that there was a good fit, a scan was made of Yogo’s legs by the Hangzhou based additive manufacturing company Shining 3D. After completing the scan, the company worked to develop a customized prosthetic that would fit exactly as needed. It took four iterations, but they were finally able to create the perfect prosthetic. They tried a version that was created from a copy of her fully formed left front leg but that had a shelf and back to allow her leg to be strapped in, in order to provide her with a prosthetic that looked more like the limb should. They also tried a version that was supposed to give her freedom of motion through the creation of a rounded wheel-like design. But the best version was one that looks like a small bar stool with a back that ends with a rounded bottom.contributed by 3dprint.com

3D Printed Turtle Eggs To Help Stop Poaching..

The illegal collection of turtle eggs being removed from the coasts of North and Central America is a great concern not only for animal activist but pet lovers as well Poachers steal the eggs, sometimes while the turtle is laying them, and sell them to be eaten. While turtles such as the Loggerhead and the Olive Ridley sea turtle lay large numbers of eggs at a time, they do so only once a year and many of the young that hatch from the eggs do not survive to adulthood. In addition, the clutches are completely defenseless and already subject to attacks by other natural predators. All in all this means that every egg counts when helping to maintain threatened species’ populations. In an effort to better understand the demand for these eggs, a California conservation group named Paso Pacífico has created a series of faux-eggs using a 3D printer. These decoys have GPS tracking devices inside them, rather than a future baby turtle, and the organization hopes that they will be able to determine who the buyers of these eggs are. The poachers themselves have often been the target of egg protection policy, but in order to address the problem, the root of the demand needs to also be extirpated. There have been concerted efforts to inhibit poaching activities. A California couple that was caught smuggling nearly a thousand Olive Ridley sea turtle eggs across the border from Mexico was sentenced to spend six months in jail and a Georgia man who was a repeat offender ended up with 21 months to serve in jail as a result of stealing Loggerhead turtle eggs. One of the impacts of these protective measures has been a rise in the number of nesting turtles. Unfortunately, this has also meant there are more nests to protect and larger hauls of eggs to poach attracts more attention. In the same way that a few individual poachers can do a significant amount of damage, Paso Pacífico hopes that the information collected from the decoy eggs could lead to the removal of some of the big players in the illegal turtle egg trade. Even if not completely extinguished, the exponential nature of the impacts could be mitigated if a few of the big players were eliminated.culled ( Washington Post)

3D-Printed Custom Implant Helps Patient with Ossifying Fibroma.

A young woman of 32, who suffered from an ossifying fibroma tumor in her lower jaw has been giving a new lease of life by using 3d printing to correct the defect.The surgical team decided it was necessary to immediately resect the tumor and place a custom-made laser-sintered titanium implant in the patient’s mouth. Although the ossifying fibroma was benign and painless, these types of tumors can grow to very large proportions if left untreated. The result is a tumor filled with cementum (the calcified substance that anchors the teeth to the jawbone) which mostly occurs on the lower jawbone. The team started by taking CT scans of the patient, and converting them to a 3D model in Materialise Mimics. The resulting 3D models of the bone and tumor were used as input to plan the resection planes and design the according cutting guides. After virtually going through the surgery, an implant was designed to fit the gap perfectly. The guides and models were printed in plastic and the implant itself was 3D printed in titanium. The aim of this design was to fully cover the titanium frame and the bone around the dental implants with soft tissue. Because soft tissue does not attach itself to titanium, any exposure of the implant would lead to epithelial ingrowth around the implant. The result would be infection and eventually the loss of the implant. The surgery was carried out successfully. By using the cutting guides, the titanium implant fit perfectly after the tumor had been resected. Just 24 hours post-surgery, the patient was already able to move her jaw normally again. Phase two of the process was recently completed. The space maintainer was removed and the cage was filled with bone harvested from the iliac crest. The third phase will see the placement of the dental implant into the augmented bone. In the final phase, a denture will be placed into the implant. contributed by materialise.com

3D food printing technology : 3D printing with cow DNA.

Perfect Day Foods they’ve found a way to replicate cow DNA through 3D printing, fabricating a tasty alternative that is vegan, and both lactose- and gluten-free. Perfect Day Foods founded in 2014, isn’t just the whimsical concept of two hungry dreamers. They’ve worked to raise a total of $4 million in investment funds for the 3D printing of this bovine DNA and subsequent new dairy. This entrepreneurial team is planning to give us our ice cream back with a substitute that they feel confident we’ll enjoy much more than all the other ones we pass by in the grocery store today with a mental ‘ick.’ 

                      3D food printing with  cow DNA.

 

This apparently is not about the all too common labeling and trendy vegetarian marketing that still, ultimately, means trying to force something overpriced, frightening, and weird down our deprived little gullets. Perfect Day’s animal-free dairy milk is a product created by people as hungry as you and I are, clamoring for our cheese. And in fact, it’s so close to the real thing—even made with casein and whey—and including the taste, texture, and nutrition—that if you have milk allergies, you’ll need to opt out on this product. In making a dairy substitute that is actually nutritious and safe, they use both yeast (fondly nicknamed Buttercup) and fermenting processes to create the same milk proteins as cows. 

     

    3D food printing with  cow DNA.

According to their website, they then mix plant-based sugars, fats, and minerals, creating a delicious and innovative milk that allows you to indulge guilt-free. 

 All of these ingredients used for the milk are familiar to the body, according to the Perfect Day team. The magic of Perfect Day is the ability to make real milk proteins without using a single cow. “We gave this yeast a ‘blueprint’ that allows it to ferment sugar and create real milk proteins. This is the very same blueprint, in the form of DNA, that cows use every day. 

 This process also puts much less strain on the environment overall, leading to the following:1)65% less energy consumption 2)84% less greenhouse gas emissions 3)91% less land usage and 4)98% less water consumption. more

Mad cow disease.

Groundbreaking research has identified the structure of the infectious prion protein, the cause of 'mad cow disease' or BSE, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, The infectious prion protein is a misfolded protein, which makes it very difficult to purify and study. Since it clumps together, standard structural biology techniques cannot be used to study it. Since the protein was first purified in the 1980s researchers have made limited insights into the structure of the protein. The collaborative study, published in PLOS Pathogens, used electron cryomicroscopy to collect high-resolution electron micrographs. This was the first time this technology has been used on amyloid fibrils of the infectious prion, which are a special form of clumped-together proteins that form fibrils. The team had to develop a processing scheme for the data masses. There were thousands of electron micrographs, and they had to extract the best images.The model can give insights into how the infectious prion protein propagates. The structure argues against existing theories of prion conversion and suggests how the process might actually work. The study suggests how infectious prions replicate by converting non-infectious, cellular versions into copies of themselves. Moving forward, the researchers want to go into more depth. This study used model system prions, but they are now using the prions that infect cows (BSE), wild animals (Chronic Wasting Disease) and humans (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease).continue

Second cat with rabies turns up in western Lancaster County.

A Mount Joy woman must undergo a series of rabies shots after letting a feral cat into her home last week.It’s the second rabid cat, as well as a rabid raccoon, found in western Lancaster County in as many weeks. “I’m not sure if this isn’t the tip of an iceberg,” Connie Kondravy, director of the Organization for the Responsible Care of Animals, said Tuesday. Kondravy said the Mount Joy woman called ORCA on Sept. 1 to report a stray cat outside her home on Charlan Avenue, on the western side of the borough. Kondravy said she told the woman to trap the cat under a box and not touch the animal until it had been examined. Instead, Kondravy said, the woman “let it in her house. She didn’t want to put a box over it because she thought (the precautions) were silly.” Kondravy said the woman told her the cat was acting “bizarre.” Once inside, she said, it ran around the house and, eventually, bit her.The woman called Mount Joy Borough police, Kondravy said, and the officer who responded shot the cat. An ORCA worker retrieved the cat’s body from under a porch, where it had fled after being shot, and sent the carcass to Harrisburg for testing. The test came back positive for rabies on Tuesday. Mount Joy police on Tuesday issued a rabies warning for the area. The infected cat, according to police, was a gray domestic shorthair with a white underbelly.Last week, ORCA reported that one of its employees was getting rabies shots after being exposed to a cat on Buttonwood Drive in Elizabethtown. That cat had a bloody wound on its side, likely from an attack by a rabid animal such as a raccoon, fox or, possibly, another feral cat. Kondravy said she isn’t aware of any wounds on the cat found in Mount Joy. In April, the state Department of Agriculture said it found nine rabid animals — five raccoons, a fox, a bat and two cats — in the mid-state area, including four in Lancaster County. “It seems like this is a bigger situation,” Kondravy said. “It’s so scary because we have more and more feral cats, and no one knows what to do about it.”One problem, she said, is that “you can’t necessarily look at an animal and say it’s rabid.” The stereotypical symptom — foaming at the mouth — could be indicative of several ailments other than rabies, she said. At the same time, not all symptoms of rabies are immediately visible to a casual onlooker. Dr. David Wolfgang, state veterinarian with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, said incidents of rabies this year in Pennsylvania are “about average so far.” However, he noted that rabies can pop up in pockets around the state. A raccoon tested positive for rabies in western Lancaster County on Aug. 30, he noted. Infected animals in the wild, such as raccoons and skunks, can easily transmit the disease to domestic animals and livestock if they come in contact with each other, Wolfgang said. “Unfortunately, feral cats tend to hang out in the same areas that raccoons do,” he said. “Plus, you have people who think that feral cats need to be fed, and that brings them closer to houses.”Feral cats “tend to be the species that brings rabies in contact with people,” Wolfgang added. If you come into contact with a raccoon that wants to bite you, people will retreat,” he said. “But people will find a stray cat that is sick and they will pick it up and try to help it ... and inadvertently expose themselves.” People absolutely should not handle stray cats that appear sick, he stressed. Instead, he said, contact the police or a local animal rescue group. “And, as much as they can, dogs and cats need to be vaccinated for rabies,” Wolfgang said.continue

Veterinary medicine: Eliminating rabies with mobile apps.

A study has shown that rabies could be eliminated with the use of a mobile app,the study was published in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases. This study shows that mobile technology can help to monitor the efforts of large scale vaccination of free roaming dogs in real time thus allowing the identification of areas where vaccination needs to be increased to meet the 70 per cent threshold and cut the risk of the disease being passed to people.

 Researchers are using the app to track free-roaming dogs that have been vaccinated against rabies. Monitoring them in this way has enabled vets to vaccinate 70 per cent of the dog population in the City of Ranchi -- the threshold needed to minimize the risk that the disease is passed to people. 

 Rabies is a global problem that leads to the suffering and premature deaths of over 50,000 people and many times more dogs each year. 

 The disease has been eliminated from many countries through mass vaccination of the dog population. However, rabies elimination remains challenging in countries where the majority of dogs are allowed to roam freely.

Previous research has shown that vaccinating just 70 per cent of the dog population is enough to cut the risk of rabies infections in people. Teams vaccinated more than 6000 dogs in 18 districts of the city of Ranchi, India. They surveyed the number of marked, vaccinated and unmarked, unvaccinated dogs to monitor the proportion of animals that had received the vaccine. 

 The smartphone app called the Mission Rabies app was developed for researchers to instantly upload information about the animals vaccinated, including their exact location. In areas where coverage fell below 70 per cent, catching teams were re-deployed to vaccinate more dogs until the target was achieved.