Genetics,environment and 2-faced births in animals.

A calf with four eyes, two noses and two mouths. Her middle two eyes share a socket. The calf dubbed lucky by owner is believed to be a blessing and the family is doing all to make lucky comfortable. Two-faced births don’t happen only to cattle,as seen in the case of Frank and Louie (also known as FrankenLouie) which was what is called a diprosopus or craniofacial duplication, also known as being a “Janus cat” — a two-faced cat. Janus was a Greek god with two faces, because he was considered to look both to the future and the past. Most Janus cats don’t survive for long. But Frank and Louie lived for 15 years. The Massachusetts cat behaved more like a dog than a cat, according to its owner, and walked on a leash and loved car rides. Darrh Bullock, an extension professor in the department of animal and food sciences at the University of Kentucky, said that calves like Lucky are “extremely rare. He said that Lucky’s two heads are not necessarily a genetic effect, but could have been caused by environmental influences such as hormonal imbalances or some sort of chemical that happened to get into the mother during the developmental stage of the fetus. The 2 headed calf is a result of splitting of the embryo that just doesn’t go very far,as fully splitting the embryo would wind up as identical twins. Jonathan Beever, a professor of genetics, genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Illinois, recently worked on a project, primarily with Angus cattle, on “developmental duplications.” Such duplications appear to be an inherited recessive genetic condition. Beever said a calf in Iowa was born with two heads and lived 16-18 months until it was sent to market.“Even with that condition he was viable,” Beever said. “There are 25,000 different genes that control how an animal develops,” Beever said. “When one of them gets disrupted, that allows things to happen that aren’t normally supposed to happen.” Beever said that Lucky is probably not one of those mutations, “but it gives us insight that something happened during that developmental time period, probably day 18 to 25, during pregnancy and the body decided to develop like that.” excerpts http://www.heraldonline.com/

Antibiotic Cream Could Prevent Lyme Disease.

A research published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found a topical gel containing azithromycin prevented Lyme disease infection when applied twice a day for three days within 72 hours of being bitten by a tick. Of the 1,000 patients bitten by a tick and treated with the gel, none developed Lyme disease while seven people in the placebo group did. In the group receiving a placebo, seven patients contracted Lyme. Discovered in the United States in 1975, the disease is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected black-legged ticks.This has flu-like symptoms such as muscle and joint ache, headache, nausea vomiting and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. When untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. People suspected of having the disease usually have to take a strong dose of antibiotics for a period of three weeks.Prevention is to stay away from tick infested areas,use tick sprays and also ensure pets are tick free by reducing tick population in the environment. Reactions to tick bites also vary in individuals with some cases more fulminating than others,but the prolonged outcome of disease is joint disorders,usually resulting in arthritis,facial paralysis and intermittent pain in bone,muscle,joint and tendons.

Bird flu strikes a veterinarian in cat shelter in New York.

A vet at a New York City animal shelter where cats were infected with a strain of bird flu has also been infected. Although the vet only had mild illness from the virus which was short lived and has resolved completely. The bird flu strain affecting cats in the New York shelter was reported earlier here and the twist to the story is that bird flu rarely infects cats but this strain defiled that and the same strain also infected the veterinarian who had been testing the sick cats, giving him prolonged contact with them. People can and do catch flu from animals — and vice-versa. Pigs commonly both catch flu from people and transmit it. The ongoing occasional human cases of H5N1 bird flu and H7N2 bird flu are traced to poultry markets. The influenza virus is of public health concern because of the ability to mutate and possibility of re-assortment between animal flu and human flu producing a new strain that can be extremely dangerous,although this H7N2 has not recombined . Vets, doctors and other scientists keep an eye on bird flu because it can and does spread to people and has the potential to cause epidemics. So far, H7N2 hasn't. It has only ever infected a few people. . more

Toddler dies from organ failure after being fed raw milk by his naturopathic parents.

According to a coroner in Victoria, Australia, a three-year-old’s death from organ failure was most likely due to his parents allowing him to consume raw, unpasteurized “bath milk.”The Guardian reports that the boy was placed on a “gluten-free and organic diet” in the summer of 2014 under the advice of a naturopathic doctor. The boy’s parents regularly consumed “Mountain View Organic Bath Milk,” which is distinctly labeled “not for human consumption.” As the coroner discovered, the parents sometimes added a small amount to the boy’s drinks. Health officials warn that unpasteurized milk contains pathogens such as campylobacter, cryptosporidium, shiga toxin-producing E coli and listeria.more The consumption of raw milk is deadly and should be avoided, read

Food waste and climate change.

Food waste as insignificant as it may seem,it takes its toll on the environment.Food waste in land fills,contribute to methane emissions heating up the environment. food waste, basically are food that are thrown away before or after it spoils. There are various factors that influence food waste such as 1) color, especially farm produce when individual preferences leads to dumping food even whenits not bad. 2) shape so many throw food away because they believe its shape is not conforming although the food is good. 3) food waste arise largely from taste disparity,many actually buy food expecting it to taste a particular way,and if the taste is not what they imagined,its tossed. Food waste arising from spoilage ,handling and storage problems are major factors at play here but irrespective of how or why the food got in the bin,its warming up the atmosphere. Methane emission generated from food in land fills are contributing to climate change. Methane is about 27 times more potent than carbon at trapping heat. Data has shown that greenhouse gas emissions related to the food supply quadrupled during the last 50 years.

Disease management on farms.

Raising livestock comes with it challenges that must be managed to prevent death of animals and eventual closure of farms. Diseases do spring up at a point in the course of production due to inadequate preventive protocols or not conforming to bio security measures. A healthy animal is a happy animal and also a profitable one. The raising of healthy animals is the goal of every farmer There are measures and protocols that farmers can adopt to make sure that animals are healthy and hygiene is optimal to production. 1) limit exposure to stress; stressors could be heat,cold,inadequate feeding and management practices such as vaccination,castration,debeaking and teeth clipping.Stress is a killer and stress animals are very susceptible to infection,thus preventive measures must be put in place. 2) bio security measure must be tailored according to farm requirement and followed strictly. 3) Hygiene is pivotal to disease management in the farm,cleaning,washing and disinfection of farm tools,implements are important.Waste disposal is an integral part of hygiene,the way waste is handled and managed has an overall effect on disease management on farm. Removal of waste promptly from farm to dump site or incinerator or biogas chamber all addresses level of hygiene on the farm. 4) Animals that are sick on farms must be isolated to prevent animal-animal contact or contamination of feeder,drinker or bedding with secretions such as nasal,oral or fecal .Some animals often shed infective organism in various secretions making them sources of infection for other animals. Animal-animal contact if limited will reduce spread of infection on the farm.

CDC identifies bacteria that killed 3 who ate church meal.

A Thanksgiving Day meal served by a church group in Antioch, CA, that killed three people was evidently contaminated with the bacteria Clostridium perfringens. Clostridium perfringens is one of the most common food borne illnesses in the U.S. It can be found in the human intestine without hurting us, but eating food containing large amounts of this bacteria can cause illness and in some cases death . The bacteria is commonly found in meat and poultry, but thorough cooking kills it. However, extremely small amounts of it can survive on utensils and surfaces and cross contaminate cooked foods. It multiplies very quickly when foods are left at room temperature. “During cooling and holding of food at temperatures from 54 F to 140 F, the spores germinate and then the bacteria grow. … If the food is served without reheating to kill the bacteria, live bacteria may be eaten. The bacteria produce a toxin inside the intestine that causes illness,” according to the CDC. Foods that have dangerous bacteria in them may not taste, smell, or look different. Any food that has been left out too long may be dangerous to eat, even if it looks okay.To prevent the growth of Clostridium perfringens spores that might be in food after cooking beef, poultry, gravies, and other foods commonly associated with Clostridium perfringens infections should be kept at a temperature that is either warmer than 140 F or cooler than 41 F.more