Category: Cattle
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SCN⁻-Bearing Tissues targeted in cattle mutilations?
are cattle mutilations real? and if so, is it accurate to say all tissues removed include those bearing SCN? Yes — cattle mutilations are real in the sense that documented cases exist where animals are found dead with specific tissues removed under unusual conditions. The phenomenon has been reported since at least the 1960s, with…
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Birth of the National Live Stock Association and a BBQ for the ages
It’s the wild and woolly 1890s, and the West is wilder than a bronco with a burr under its saddle. Cattle rustlers are running amok, fences are getting cut and ranchers are squabbling over land rights. But wait! Who’s that riding over the horizon, ready to save the day? It’s a couple of livestock bigwigs…
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Freemartin
A freemartin or free-martin (sometimes martin heifer) is an infertile female cattle with masculinized behavior and non-functioning ovaries.[1] Phenotypically, the animal appears female, but various aspects of female reproductive development are altered due to acquisition of anti-Müllerian hormone from the male twin.[2] Genetically, the animal is chimeric: karyotypy of a sample of cells shows XX/XY chromosomes. The animal originates as a female (XX), but acquires the male (XY) component in utero by exchange of…
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Fetal bovine serum (FBS)
Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is derived from the blood drawn from a bovine fetus via a closed system of collection at the slaughterhouse. Fetal bovine serum is the most widely used serum-supplement for the in vitro cell culture of eukaryotic cells. This is due to it having a very low level of antibodies and containing more growth factors, allowing for versatility in many…
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Bovine serum albumin (Fraction V)
Bovine serum albumin (BSA or “Fraction V”) is a serum albumin protein derived from cows. It is often used as a protein concentration standard in lab experiments. The nickname “Fraction V” refers to albumin being the fifth fraction of the original Edwin Cohn purification methodology that made use of differential solubility characteristics of plasma proteins. By manipulating solvent concentrations, pH, salt levels, and temperature, Cohn was able…
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Albanians believed the supreme powers of thunderstones were formed during lightning strikes
Albanians believed in the supreme powers of thunderstones (kokrra e rrufesë or guri i rejës), which were believed to be formed during lightning strikes and to fall from the sky. Thunderstones were preserved in family life as important cult objects. It was believed that bringing them inside the house would bring good fortune, prosperity, and progress to people, especially in livestock and agriculture,…
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Big Page of Hazel
The oldest confirmed hazel species is Corylus johnsonii found as fossils in the Ypresian-age rocks of Ferry County, Washington, USA
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The trefoil knot fold is a protein fold in which the protein backbone is twisted into a trefoil knot shape
“Shallow” knots in which the tail of the polypeptide chain only passes through a loop by a few residues are uncommon, but “deep” knots in which many residues are passed through the loop are extremely rare. Deep trefoil knots have been found in the SPOUT superfamily. including methyltransferase proteins involved in posttranscriptional RNA modification in all three domains of life, including bacterium Thermus thermophilus and…
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Cyanamide notes (it was a polio vaccine that spurred these notes and by now polio has five mentions on the page and these are two of them)
I’m going to add some polio vaccine stuff at the top of these notes. Hilary Koprowski is the one mentioned on the Polio Hall of Fame page who was not included in the hideous monument, see What In God’s Name, even though he (and his work) have direct connection to those who are included. He…
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Tracheal cytotoxin (TCT) is a soluble piece of peptidoglycan (PGN) found in the cell wall of all gram-negative bacteria, but only some bacteria species release TCT including Bordetella pertussis, Vibrio fischeri, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae
Tracheal cytotoxin (TCT) is a 921 dalton glycopeptide released by Bordetella pertussis, Vibrio fischeri (as a symbiosis chemical), and Neisseria gonorrhoeae (among other peptidoglycan-derived cytotoxins it produces). It is a soluble piece of peptidoglycan (PGN) found in the cell wall of all gram-negative bacteria, but only some bacteria species release TCT due to inability to recycle this piece of anhydromuropeptide. History In 1980, it was discovered that B. pertussis could attach to hamster tracheal epithelial (HTE) cells, and also, that…
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Fibroin is an insoluble protein present in silk produced by numerous insects
Fibroin is an insoluble protein present in silk produced by numerous insects, such as the larvae of Bombyx mori, and other moth genera such as Antheraea, Cricula, Samia and Gonometa. Silk in its raw state consists of two main proteins, sericin and fibroin, with a glue-like layer of sericin coating two singular filaments of fibroin called brins. BRIN AND BAVE (BRIN) One of the radiating sticks of a fan.…
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Acidophiles in acid mine drainage
The outflow of acidic liquids and other pollutants from mines is often catalysed by acid-loving microorganisms; these are the acidophiles in acid mine drainage. Acidophiles are not just present in exotic environments such as Yellowstone National Park or deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Genera such as Acidithiobacillus and Leptospirillum bacteria, and Thermoplasmatales archaea, are present in syntrophic relationships in the more mundane environments of concrete sewer pipes and implicated in the heavy-metal-containing, sulfurous waters…
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Freeze branding aka CryoBranding and the resulting brands, trichoglyphs, is a technique involving a cryogenic coolant instead of heat to produce permanent marks on a variety of animals
The coolant is used to lower the temperature of a branding iron such that its application to shaved skin will permanently alter hair follicles. The intense cold destroys the pigmentation apparatus in the animal’s hair follicles, leaving all subsequent hair growth without color. This creates a high-contrast, permanent mark in the shape of the branding iron’s head. A longer application of the cold iron can also…
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Ferrochelatase catalyses the eighth and terminal step in the biosynthesis of heme, converting protoporphyrin IX into heme B
Protoporphyrin ferrochelatase (EC 4.98.1.1, formerly EC 4.99.1.1, or ferrochelatase; systematic name protoheme ferro-lyase (protoporphyrin-forming)) is an enzyme encoded by the FECH gene in humans. Ferrochelatase catalyses the eighth and terminal step in the biosynthesis of heme, converting protoporphyrin IX into heme B. It catalyses the reaction: protoheme + 2 H+ = protoporphyrin + Fe2+ Function Ferrochelatase catalyzes the insertion of ferrous iron into protoporphyrin IX in the heme biosynthesis…
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Erich Traub (1906 – 1985) German veterinarian, scientist and virologist who specialized in foot-and-mouth disease, Rinderpest and Newcastle disease
Erich Traub worked directly for Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), as the lab chief of the Nazis’ leading bio-weapons facility on Riems Island. Note: Riems is home to the oldest virological research institution in the world, now called the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, which was built by Friedrich Loeffler in 1910. Loeffler, a professor at the University of Greifswald, ran filtration tests in 1898 and found…
