No go for the GM Danio
Last week tropical fishkeepers in New Zealand were alerted to the presence of GM zebra danios available for sale online. The fish, which have been engineered to produce fluorescent proteins, are not authorised for sale in NZ and biosecurity officials have said that any fish traced would be collected and put down. The fish known…
Bamboo socks and bicycles
Is there no end to the usefulness of bamboo? They can now make bamboo socks that stop your feet smelling! The makers claim that they are softer and more durable than cotton and contain a natural odour-eating magic ingredient called “Bamboo-kin” – an anti-microbial agent that kills the organisms that create smelly feet. The cellulose…
Take one funny film twice daily
I saw this paper while selecting items for the database and had to share it. This study found that laughing at a comic film increases melatonin excretion into breast milk and babies fed this milk suffer fewer atopic eczema symptoms. Sounds like the treatment for atopic eczema could suddenly become fun! Hajime Kimata, the author…
Organic tomatoes – better for your heart?
Having carried out organic farming research for three years prior to joining CABI, my attention is always grabbed by comparisons between organic and ‘conventional’ agriculture. The size of the organic food market continues to grow (the global organic food and drink market was projected to generate revenues of US$40 bn in 2006, according to British…
What are my chances of catching an interesting parasite?
For most of the time that I have worked at CABI I have dealt, among other things, with articles on parasitology, and reading about some of the things that can be caught from undercooked meat or fish has made me tend to avoid it. However, on a recent holiday on the Trans-Siberian railway I stopped…
Don’t you know there’s a war on?
Aspartame1‘s back in the news. The data we’ve been waiting for since I was last moved to post on this deceptively sweet little dipeptide has been published. The European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences in Italy published their latest findings in the journal European Health Perspectives. ‘Lifespan exposure to low doses of aspartame…
Hug fat trees
The ancient tree hunt is on. I heard a story on the radio this morning about a tree, the Fortingall Yew (Taxus baccata) in Perthsire, which is guestimated to be 5000 years old. It was around when Stonehenge was built, had already been standing for 3000 years when the Romans invaded, and is thought to…
Changes in the veterinary profession.
Think of a veterinarian and, thanks in part to James Herriot, most people conjure up images of genial man in tweed jacket (except when he has his arm down the back of a cow). Most of his time spent trundling down country lanes from farm to farm treating livestock and dealing with farmers. When Alf…
Report Warns of MRSA in Farm Animals
The UK’s Soil Association is calling for live farm animals and imported meat to be tested for MRSA following reports of the ‘superbug’ in livestock in Europe, particularly the Netherlands. Research published this week [1] by the environmental charity says that a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has developed amongst intensively farmed pigs,…
Plants uproot and head North
Plants are moving northward to find cooler habitats, so it would seem that the blog I wrote earlier on human assisted migration might be moot – they’re doing it for themselves. Using DNA fingerprinting techniques, a study by Inger Greve Alsos and her colleagues has found that ‘long-distance colonization of a remote arctic archipelago, Svalbard,…