Vietnam raises bird flu alert as dangerous strain detected

Vietnam raises bird flu alert as dangerous strain detected

Global value of processed poultry tipped to rise

Global value of processed poultry tipped to rise The demand for poultry is on the increase thus more revenue is to be generated from the industry.The areas of processing, packaging,transportation and innovative products all make the industry a viable one.

HYDROPONICS AND FOOD SECURITY.

Benefits of hydroponics. 1) There is no need for soil means more food can be grown on less land,this is ideal for a growing, urbanizing global population. 2) Yields can be up to 10 times more than from open field agriculture. 3) The water used can be recycled. 4) Farms can be anywhere, from skyscrapers to shipping containers. 5)Pollution from pesticides and herbicides can be prevented. 6)Local production reduces food miles and transportation costs. , A tech firm Fujitsu , at its Aizu Wakamatsu factory in central Japan is applying cloud-based data analytic s to the production of low-potassium lettuce and spinach.The operation takes place in a dust-free "clean-room" formerly used for semiconductor production. Fujitsu's cloud platform - Akisai - stores and analyses data from lots of sensors in the greenhouses, and enables heating units, ventilation fans and other equipment to be operated remotely."In terms of quality, we have applied the same industrial perspective from semiconductor manufacturing to vegetable cultivation," a Fujitsu spokesman tells the BBC. "Having a control structure that keeps product specifications - the weight and nutrient constituent-parts of lettuce - within a defined range, makes for effective high added-value vegetable production." The company sells the lettuce it produces to hospitals, supermarkets, and hotels - as well as online - and says its cloud service is collecting valuable data that is leading to improved quality and higher yields. Fujitsu's insights and efficiency improvements could also encourage more producers to enter the market and "lead to an increase in younger generations getting into agriculture", the spokesman adds. Story credit;BBC news.

MERS VACCINE !!!

An effective vaccine to protect against the Mers virus is a step closer,european scientists genetically modified a version of the smallpox vaccine to display Mers virus protein on its surface. The vaccine was able to protect camels - the animal reservoir for the virus - from developing Mers virus symptoms. Experts hope the vaccine might stop the virus spreading in camels and may also protect humans at risk from infection. Infections have been reported in 26 countries around the world with the outbreak epi-centre located in the Arabian Peninsula.There are no treatments for Mers but scientists are trying to develop an effective vaccine. One such scientist is Prof Bart Haagmans, who is based at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands. He has been busy developing and testing vaccines in camels. A team of scientists drawn from the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, genetically engineered a pox virus called Modified Vaccinia Ankara -MVA - to display Mers virus spike protein on its surface. MVA, related to the virus used to eradicate smallpox, was used to eradicate smallpox and is currently being used to develop vaccines to a variety of viruses like influenza, Ebola and hepatitis C. Importantly it can produce antibodies and killer cells.The Mers spike protein is thought to be a major target for the immune response. The team hoped that by cloaking MVA with this spike they would train the immune system to recognize and kill Mers. The team took the engineered MVA, sprayed it up the noses of camels and injected it into their muscle, and then four weeks later they repeated the vaccination again. When the team exposed the vaccinated animals to the Mers virus the camels developed very mild symptoms. Crucially they didn't develop a runny nose and the amount of virus they produced was very low. Camels that hadn't received the vaccine produced very large amounts of virus and suffered a very runny nose. This indicates that even though the vaccine didn't prevent infection it did reduce the amount of virus that the vaccinated camels produced. story credit BBC news.

CAMELS AND MERS VIRUS.

Camels, which are bred and raised for their milk and meat and for racing, are thought to be the initial source of human outbreaks. The virus is particularly prevalent in juvenile camels, where infection results in symptoms that are similar to a common cold. The virus is thought to pass to humans when they have contact with an infected camel's body fluids. Circulation of Mers in camels poses a serious risk to human health and many scientists are worried that the virus might mutate to become better adapted to human spread. That's why scientists are trying to develop vaccines - to stop the virus infecting humans and also to reduce the amount of virus circulating in camels. Vaccination is aimed at protection;Vaccines train our immune response to recognize a virus and to wipe it out before it can infect us or before it can do any harm.The vaccine acts in 2 forms;there are two arms to this protection - antibodies and killer cells. Antibodies are proteins found in human blood and in body fluids like mucus and saliva and these attach to the virus and stop it infecting. The Killer cells, , track down virus infected cells and kill the cell before new virus is released. Some vaccines raise antibodies, some produce killer cells and some raise both. The MERS infection of humans was first described in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and Since then there have been more than 1,600 reported cases. One third of reported infections have resulted in death. Individuals with other illnesses - such as diabetes, long term lung disease or kidney failure - are particularly prone to developing life-threatening symptoms. Virus spread is limited to people who have close contact with those who are infected, such as family members and healthcare workers. There are no treatments for Mers but scientists are trying to develop an effective vaccine.

CALVES UNDERGO GENETIC EDITING TO PREVENT GROWTH OF HORNS.

The two calves that grace a muddy pen on the UC Davis campus will never grow horns typical of their breed. Instead, they’ll always sport soft hair on the parts of their heads where hard mounds normally emerge. The calves were designed in a petri dish at a Minnesota-based genetics lab, with the goal of making them easier to pack into pens and trucks without the nuisance of their horns taking up valuable space. Their offspring may also lack horns, and generations of hornless cows could follow, potentially saving the dairy and cattle industry millions of dollars, said Alison Van Eenennaam, a geneticist at UC Davis’ College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences who worked with the Minnesota lab Recombinetics. This first-of-a-kind result of a process called genetic editing is a test run that’s expected to deeply impact the cattle and dairy industry and the entire food supply, Van Eenennaam said. It’s also part of a flurry of research looking at how to make cattle easier to maintain, transport and turned into food. The research has raised concerns among some farmers and animal-rights activists who warn of the health and ethical risks of consuming genetically modified food, but so far, that hasn’t stopped the research drive. At UC Davis, animal geneticist Pablo Juan Ross has been trying to perfect a technique developed a decade ago but now gaining more acceptance to design cattle that produce only male offspring.“Males grow faster than females, and in beef production they are more desirable,” Ross said. Another project uses stem cells to produce a clone animal, Ross said. Genetic editing could also help design cows that are less prone to pneumonia, which would reduce their need for antibiotics.Van Eenennaam is keen on using word processing as an analogy to describe the differences between genetic editing and engineering. She likens genetic editing to changing the spelling of a word within a document and genetic engineering to pasting in a word from a completely different document.“You’re not bringing in something foreign ... like introducing a protein from a tomato into a fish, which is what is associated in genetic engineering,” she said. The two dairy calves had a precise section of DNA responsible for horn growth was knocked out and replaced with a precise section from a cow that does not produce that trait. Many cattle varieties do not grow horns, including Angus cattle. With dairy cattle – both male and female – horns are a given, and the animals are dehorned soon after they’re born.Once the cows are sexually mature, Van Eenennaam will collect semen from the bulls to inseminate horned cows – the route by which most cows are impregnated in the cattle and dairy industry. The plan is to track the calves’ growth and development and see whether the two faithfully transmit the hornless trait to their offspring.“The odds are 100 percent if Mendelian genetics holds true,” she said.She added that it’s not clear whether other, unexpected effects of editing will appear. If successful, it will allow the industry to bypass decades of breeding for polled, or hornless, cows. At the University of Missouri, researchers focus on genetically modifying pigs to remove genetic traits for maladies such as retinitis pigmentosa, hemophilia and cystic fibrosis, said Randall Prather, an animal geneticist at the school. Story credit; http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article50822850.html

BLIND DOG NAMED CHRISTMAS RESCUED AFTER BEING TRAPPED IN WELL .

According to ABC eye witness reports; a blind, elderly dog named Christmas has been rescued after months of living alone in a well, -- and his rescue was captured in a touching video, ABC News reports. (http://abc11.com/pets/blind-dog-named-christmas-rescued-after-being-trapped-in-well-for-months/1131401/) "Surprisingly, the dog is in fairly good, psychical condition," said Laura Simpson, founder of the Harmony Fund in Holden, Massachusetts. "The blindness of course is from a pre-existing condition, but he's now in foster care and we're hoping he can find a home there he's loved and respected in the way he should be." Simpson told ABC News that it was last week when international animal rescuer Fahrudin Caki Bravo and his friend Ratko Koblar received word of a dog trapped in a well in nearby Bosnia."The dog had been there for months and they don't know if he was thrown in, or if he fell in," Simpson said. "We're certainly hoping that he fell, but with the dog being completely blind, he was only kept alive because the local children were kind enough to feed him.""He (Bravo) and his friend thought it was perfectly feasible getting the dog out and they did a great job," she added. "They made it look easy." Following his rescue, , Christmas received veterinary care and was placed in foster care.