A new app helping pets to find paw-friends.

‘PetsApp’, an android app helps you find a play date for your pet.The ‘dating’ app for pets, works on a principle similar to that of Tinder’s. Once you create a profile for your dog, based on your location, you get a series of prospective mates for your pooch in the vicinity. Swipe left to ignore and right to like. If both users swipe right, it’s a match and they can chat and meet up. This app not only benefits canines, but also their owners. “You can chat with other dog lovers and start a connection based on this mutual love for pets,” says Yugal Pandey, who found a playdate for his five-year-old labrador, Benny via the app. Creators of the app, Delhi-based couple Sujata Kukreja and Akhil Nath were inspired for a project like this when one of their dogs struggled with “loneliness”.The app also includes some additional features. There is a chat-enabled adoption forum (no buying and selling is encouraged), lost and found option (with a GPS tracker), pet book (which is more like a pet Instagram, were you can click, share and upload pictures of your pets and their daily antics), and information centre (articles, tips and news relating to pets) There is a plan to add ‘Ask your Vet’ service, vaccination tracker, deals of the week on unique pet products and others after monitoring the progress of the app for two months. continue

Karnataka Tiger deaths: Wildlife experts call for trained professionals.

With the continuing deaths of tigers in Nagarhole-Bandipur region, wildlife officials and experts call for a dedicated team of vets and a separate veterinary cadre in the state forest department. There is also a need for a department of wildlife health monitoring, rescue and forensics in view of the rising man-animal conflict, especially in districts having tiger reserves. Five tigers and one leopard have died in the last 23 days. The rising pressure on the state forest department to capture and relocate tigers and leopards has in fact exposed the clear lack of veterinary expertise in dealing with both immobilization and post-treatment measures as also wildlife diseases. Given the gravity of the situation, more trained professionals in wildlife health are needed for the five tiger reserves.continue

Revolutionizing Cocoa Farming in Peru.

A technique pioneered by one family is helping thousands of cocoa farmers in Peru increase their yields – and inspiring chocolate enthusiasts around the world. -The small jungle town of Tocache, Peru, was notorious in the ‘80s and ‘90s as a hub of coca production, drug trafficking and violence. After successful coca eradication efforts in 2002, a government program helped coca farmers in the San Martín region migrate to cocoa production – reorienting from the drug market to the chocolate market. Yet most farmers lacked the knowledge to produce high yields on their new cocoa farms. Carlos Sierra and his family started growing cocoa along with other farmers in their community, but they quickly stood out. Through tireless trial and error, they developed an agronomy technique that resulted in productivity levels five times the local average. The Sierra farm became well known among cocoa farmers in the San Martín region, yet other farmers struggled to replicate their success. The technical experts spent a year working closely with the Sierras to document, standardize and adapt their agronomic practices for a wide audience. The result was a methodology called the Synchronized Fertilization and Pruning Technique, known by its Spanish acronym “TAPS.” TAPS focuses primarily on fertilization (adding nutrients to the soil) and pruning (trimming excess leaves and branches from trees) as drivers of productivity. Synchronized pruning and fertilization are recommended in three phases during the year, rather than the traditional annual approach. credit

New ultrasound technique is first to image inside live cells.

Researchers have developed a breakthrough technique that uses sound rather than light to see inside live cells, with potential application in stem-cell transplants and cancer diagnosis.Researchers at The University of Nottingham have developed a new nanoscale ultrasound technique that uses shorter-than-optical wavelengths of sound . The research published in the paper 'High resolution 3D imaging of living cells with sub-optical wavelength phonons' in the journal, Scientific Reports. Unlike light, sound does not have a high-energy payload, this has enabled the Nottingham researchers to use smaller wavelengths and see smaller things and get to higher resolutions without damaging the cell biology. People are most familiar with ultrasound as a way of looking inside the body but its being engineered to the point where it can look inside an individual cell. Nottingham is currently the only place in the world with this capability. Ultrasound in the cells causes no damage and requires no toxic chemicals to work, and this makes it possible to see inside cells that one day might be put back into the body,eg as stem-cell transplants.

Digital technology and food security.

Digital technology has made its way into various industries but its impact in agriculture has the highest advantages with food security being on top of the list.

Farmers have harnessed the use of technology as a tool to grow their business and also as a selling platform to reach out to consumers and connect to would be customers. 

 The task to feed the ever growing population estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050 is no small one and farmers,are employing all available tools to keep up with the demand. The use of precision agriculture is not a new concept as more and more farmers are imbibing this concept to promote growth and development of their agribusiness. 

Phones are the simplest tool in this digital transformation as this is used as a platform for training, dissemination of information ,marketplace and data management. 

Read more and this Digital technology is helping farmers and agribusinesses build resilience, achieve scale and develop sustainable solutions in Africa. 

This is what the “fourth industrial revolution” looks like for increasing numbers of the world’s smallholder farmers. Nearly a third of the global population relies on agriculture for a living, and growth in this sector has been shown to be at least twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. But progress can be frustratingly slow. 

The average African maize farmer, for instance, produces five times less per hectare than the average American grower. A variety of new digital applications are now accelerating interventions that have been shown to improve productivity and growth in this sector. 

Connected Farmer, for instance, is a mobile product started in East Africa from a public-private partnership between Vodafone, USAID and the nonprofit TechnoServe, to help farmers work with agribusinesses and better manage continue

Chewing your food could protect against infection.

A study, recently published in the journal Immunity, found that chewing food also known as mastication can stimulate the release of T helper 17 (Th17) cells in the mouth. Th17 cells form a part of the adaptive immune system, which uses specific antigens to defend against potentially harmful pathogens, while enduring "friendly" bacteria that can be beneficial to health. According to the study team, in the gut and the skin, Th17 cells are produced in the presence of beneficial bacteria. However, the researchers note that the mechanisms by which Th17 cells are produced in the mouth have been unclear, they noted that the mechanical force required by mastication leads to physiological abrasion and damage in the mouth. The researchers came to their findings by feeding weaning mice soft-textured foods, which required less chewing, until they reached 24 weeks of age. At 24 weeks, the release of Th17 cells in the rodents' mouths was measured. A significant reduction in oral Th17 cell production was noted, which the team speculated was down to a reduction in mastication-induced physiological damage. The researchers found that increasing the levels of physiological damage in the rodents' mouths by rubbing the oral cavity with a sterile cotton applicator led to an increase in the production of Th17 cells and so the researchers believe these findings indicate that chewing food may help to protect us from illness. However, the researchers caution that increased oral Th17 cell production may not always be beneficial; too many of these cells can increase the risk of periodontitis, or gum disease, which has been associated with numerous other health conditions, including diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The team also found that long-term exposure to physiological damage caused by mastication can exacerbate the effects of periodontitis.

Victorian farmer group calls on Federal Government to subsidise Q Fever vaccine.

The Victorian Farmers Federation is calling for increased access to Q Fever screening services and for the vaccine to be subsidized. Farmers, livestock handlers and abattoir workers are most at risk of contracting the disease, which is carried by livestock, domestic and wild animals. Some larger rural businesses such as meat processors, saleyards and livestock transporters are required by WorkSafe to protect workers against the disease by screening and vaccinating for Q Fever.According to the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, rates of Q Fever infection have fluctuated in recent years. There were 34 cases of Q Fever in Victoria in 2014, with 59 cases in 2015 and 48 last year. But figures from the Australian Q Fever Register, collated by the Australian Meat Processor Corporation, show the number of people being registered to be screened and tested for the disease in Victoria jumped from 4,502 in 2014-15 to 4,948 in 2015-16. A dairy farmer from Victoria's Gippsland region will have to outlay thousands of dollars to screen and vaccinate his staff against Q Fever after one of his employees contracted the disease. Greg Peddle milks 750 dairy cows on his property at Yarram, about 220 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.The worker was diagnosed and treated for the disease immediately and was only away from work for one day. But under instruction by WorkSafe, Mr Peddle must now enforce a "no jab no job" policy, which will require all workers employed on his farm to be screened and vaccinated.continue