Equine veterinarians says delayed response to Hendra virus vaccine report stalls education of horse owners.

Equine veterinarians says delayed response to Hendra virus vaccine report stalls education of horse owners.Equine veterinarians say the Queensland Government's decision to delay its response to a report into the Hendra virus vaccine for horses is hampering their efforts to educate horse owners. The vaccine was developed by the CSIRO to protect horses from the deadly bat-borne virus, but some horse owners have questioned its safety.Equine Veterinarians Australia (EVA) president-elect Ben Poole said the delay meant continuing uncertainty, especially for horse owners. He said any delay in a response meant there would be a delay in implementation, pushing back action on critical issues like the speed of testing in the north, which can have consequences for horse health. source

New research strategy offers hope to pastoralists battling mystery cattle disease in southern Flinders Ranges.

South Australia's peak livestock body wants more research funding to help solve mysterious cattle deaths that have left pastoralists and vets baffled for more than a century. About 30 pastoralists from the Hawker and Craddock region have met with Livestock SA and PIRSA vets to discuss a strategy to tackle the unexplained stock deaths. Termed the "November disease", the deaths typically occur within a single cattle or sheep mob without explanation from November to February in years when there is greater rain and more pasture in paddocks. Symptoms include drooling, diarrhea, neurological problems and in almost all cases, eventually leads to death, with autopsy results showing severe liver and kidney damage, intestine inflammation and brain lesions. There are a number of theories about what could be causing the unexplained deaths with pulpy kidney suggested to be the cause in 2016, but that diagnosis has since been ruled out. Other speculated causes are bacterial or fungal toxins from soil or plant matter but ultimately, the cause remains unknown. PIRSA chief veterinary officer Roger Paskin said the sporadic nature of the disease made it difficult to investigate but thus far his team had ruled out all the known traditional bacteria, viruses and infectious conditions.Dr Paskin said understanding those "ecological triggers" for the disease would be key to getting to identifying the cause. more

Doctor pulls 6 foot-long tapeworm from a guys's mouth.

Doctors are telling of a remarkable medical case in which they had to a remove a 6-foot-long tapeworm from a man's gut by pulling it through his mouth. Live Science explains that the 48-year-old patient from India had been having stomach pains for two months before he decided to visit PVS Memorial Hospital in Kerala. During a colonoscopy, doctors discovered a segment of a pork tapeworm, a common sign that a larger tapeworm is hiding elsewhere in the body. Doctors then maneuvered a camera into the man's upper intestine, where they found what Dr. Cyriac Philips describes as the longest tapeworm he's ever seen. The worm was curled up, but as doctors began slowly pulling it out through the patient's mouth in what must have felt like an endless scarf gag, its size became clear. In the end, it measured a little over 6 feet long, doctors write in the New England Journal of Medicine. The patient—who was kindly sedated during the 1.5-hour procedure—likely became infected after eating raw or under cooked pork, per the CDC. Those who have tapeworms often don't know it because they're typically symptom-free. Another case,a 20-foot-long tapeworm caused a man to lose 22 pounds in three days. source

Male baboons and domestic violence.

Male baboons and domestic violence. Male baboons turn to domestic violence for a chance to mate and sire their own offspring. A study shows that male baboons turn to domestic violence when in a group with few fertile females so they kill infants sired by other males and attack pregnant females, causing them to miscarry, so as to have a mating chance . This behavior reduces their waiting time to breed with pregnant and nursing females, who otherwise wouldn't become sexually available again for up to a year. This study which appeared in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is a result of a long-term study of wild baboons monitored on a near-daily basis since 1971 at Amboseli. Researchers studying a baboon population around Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya found that immigrant males were responsible for roughly 2 percent of infant deaths and 6 percent of miscarriages between 1978 and 2015 and when cycling females were few, the death rates more than tripled. In situations where males have few opportunities, they resort to violence to achieve what's necessary to survive and reproduce,and When reproductive opportunities abound, this behavior is less frequent. At any given time, a troop of baboons typically contains one or two newly arrived males that have left the group where they were born in search of opportunities to reproduce and pass on their genes elsewhere. A baboon male would normally have to wait at least a year for a pregnant or lactating female to finish gestating and nursing her infant and resume cycling for a chance to sire her next offspring. When female have no baby to gestate or feed anymore , females that suffered a miscarriage or the death of an infant were ready to conceive again within 41 days. The study showed that most killer males went on to mate with the mothers of their victims.

How the male baboons choose their partners.

The female baboon's big red bottom has an aphrodisiac effect on her mates,though this may repel others. Scientists have long thought that baboon males prefer females with bigger backsides as the sign of a good mother, but recent study proves otherwise. The study in the journal Animal Behavior reveals that the size of a female's swollen rump doesn't matter as much as earlier concluded. Baboons breed throughout the year, and mating occurs during times when a female's behind is swollen -- a sign that she may be ovulating. For ten to 20 days each month, the tissue in a female baboon's hindquarters swells up, reaching peak size when a female is most fertile and then shrinking back to normal. The researchers recorded male courtship behavior during the time when females were swollen and they found that big-bottomed females were no more likely to attract mates than their smaller-bottomed counterparts. The males preferred females that had cycled more times since their last pregnancy,rather than going for bigger backsides. Female baboons are like humans they don't start ovulating again right away after having a baby, return to normal cycles when their infant starts weaning, but until that time they're less likely to get pregnant.The results suggest that baby readiness means more to males than the bigger bottom, because rather than size, it seems that males use the number of postpartum cycles as a cue to gauge their likelihood of making a baby. The male baboons seem to follow this law that lesser butt-size is better than bigger.

Dog's diet and its gut microbiome.

In a new paper, researchers report that the ratio of proteins and carbohydrates in a canine's daily diet have a significant influence on the balance of microbes in its gut. Researchers observed that dogs fed a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet had enriched microbial gene networks associated with weight loss in humans. The paper published in mBio, researchers from Nestle Purina PetCare Company report that the ratio of proteins and carbohydrates in a canine's daily diet have a significant influence on the balance of microbes in its gut. Among other findings, they observed that dogs fed a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet had decreases in the ratio of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes bacteria, as well as enriched microbial gene networks associated with weight loss in humans. These microbial responses were more pronounced in obese and overweight dogs than in dogs of a healthy weight. The study will help identify new microbiology-inspired strategies for managing pet obesity, which is a growing problem.According to the most recent annual survey by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention ,more than half of pet dogs in the United States are overweight or obese. Altering dogs diet to be high in protein and soft on carbohydrates with a blend of fat and supplements will keep dogs in trim and healthy.

Agricultural fires in Brazil harm infant health, a warning for the developing world.

Agricultural fires in Brazil harm infant health, a warning for the developing world. Anew research has shown that exposure to pollution from agricultural fires in the last few months of gestation leads to earlier birth and smaller babies. Researchers at Princeton and Duke universities gathered information from satellites, pollution monitors and birth records to untangle those competing influences and accurately measure the impact of pollution from the fires. They found that exposure to pollution from the fires in the last few months of gestation leads to earlier birth and smaller babies, and they found some evidence of increased fetal mortality. Conditions in early life, including in-utero, have been shown to affect children's long term outcomes, not only in terms of health but also their educational and economic success.