Deadly herpes strain affects captive Asian elephants

U.S. zookeepers worry that a strain of the herpes virus will continue to strike Asian elephants in captivity nationwide.

The virus, known as elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, has affected one in five Asian elephant calves born in the United States since the year 2000 and accounts for over half of all juvenile elephant deaths in North America. Researchers working with available tissue samples also believe it has killed approximately 24 elephants since 1983.

Because little is known about the disease, researchers are unsure how it is transmitted, and cannot say if the disease will reoccur once dormant, as some strains of herpes do in humans.

The herpes virus infects the cells that line the body’s blood vessels and causes hemorrhaging, which subsequently causes a cardiovascular collapse. The collapse can kill its victims within weeks or even days.

Antiviral drugs have yielded successful results in six North American cases, but almost twice as many calves have died even after receiving the treatments. Researchers are, therefore, uncertain how to fight the virus.

Recently, the elephant Jade at the St. Louis Zoo has been affected by the virus. The two-year old elephant was acting lethargic and sickly, leading zookeepers to have her undergo a blood test, which revealed she had a previously unknown strain of the virus.

After receiving treatment, Jade seems to be recovering. Zookeepers want to investigate if and how the drugs were effective.

Laura Richman of the Smithsonian first identified the disease in 1995. Richman said she and the researchers are still trying to find out how the disease is transmitted. Richman believes that mature elephants may carry a latent part of the disease, but the disease is more evident in calves, as their immune systems are still developing.

(source: nytimes.com)

Obama restores Bush ruling on Endangered Species Act

The Obama administration announced Monday that it would restore a requirement that U.S. agencies consult with independent federal experts in order to ensure their actions will not harm threatened and endangered species.

This will revive a decades-old practice under the Endangered Species Act, which required agencies to either consult the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Such requirement was halted by the Bush administration on Dec. 16, which allowed agencies to waive this review if decided on their own that their actions wouldn’t create any harm to at-risk species.

Scientists and environmentalists welcomed the move, but business officials said it could delay federally funded projects that could play a part in stimulating the nation’s troubled economy.

(Source: washingtonpost.com)

ANNA OPALKA compiles SCIENCE SCENE and can be reached at features@thaggie.org.

If you are wondering why your chicken breast tastes a little blander than usual, it may be because your chicken is lacking the spice of life – diversity.

A study conducted by an international team of researchers, including UC professor and chair of the department of animal sciences Mary Delany, has shown that the commercialized chicken industry around the world has lost at least half of the genetic diversity it once had.

The global commercialized chicken industry raises more than 40 billion birds for both their meat and their eggs. As the industry continues to grow, there is a growing concern for their genetic diversity, according to UC Davis’s animal science website.

In order to study the genetic diversity, the researchers developed a hypothetical ancestral population and compared it to the industrial and research stocks of chickens.

The team used a genome-wide scan to look at different loci – specific locations of a gene on a chromosome – to determine if there were single nucleotide polymorphisms. That is where they saw that the industrial stocks have reduced genetic diversity than their ancestral counterparts, Delany said.

“[The study showed that] the industrial stocks have lost some of the alleles the whole population once carried,” she said.

In the genome of an organism, there are four different nucleotides that make up DNA. The same gene in two different members of the same species can have differences in the sequence of nucleotides called alleles. This difference in the sequence, called single nucleotide polymorphisms, alters the traits that an organism has, causing genetic diversity.

“If you think of a gene that is important for disease resistance and everyone has that same allele, then the population can be decimated if that allele does not protect against a particular disease,” Delany said.

Delany explains that this reduced genetic diversity can be attributed to three main reasons – breed base, artificial selection and consolidation of companies.

Sixty years ago, the commercial chicken industry began and selected specific breeds of chicken to either lay eggs or to be raised for their meat.

The chicken breed chosen for its eggs was the single comb white leghorn. The meat type chickens were a cross between Cornish and Plymouth Rock. This breed base was the foundation for the reduced genetic diversity that is found today because the more they breed within their own populations, the more alleles are lost.

“[Today], we are down to using only one cross breed of chicken [for meat] – the Cornish cross – and a majority of the world is using only the single comb white leghorn breed for egg producing,” said Francine Bradley, a UC Davis cooperative extension poultry specialist.

Another reason for reduced genetic diversity is because of artificial selection. Companies with their breed base only breed within their own populations. They are also bred for economically appealing traits such as larger eggs or increased body mass, Bradley said.

The last cause is more of an economic reason. Many years ago, numerous companies were part of the chicken industry but as the world enters into a global market, companies have consolidated into fewer, larger companies.

This consolidation of companies has led to industry style chicken stocks that have less diversity, Delany said.

“These companies then push their genetics forward [causing reduced diversity],” she added.

Genetic diversity is not completely lost, however.

Ironically, most of the diversity in the species is owned by private “fanciers,” or private chicken owners who raise them as pets or for competitions.

These types include different breeds that are not specifically useful for meat and egg producing but are aesthetically pleasing, Bradley said.

The reduced genetic diversity is not a problem solely in the poultry industry. Other studies either in progress or recently completed have shown similar results in other commercialized species such as turkey, bovines and swine, Delany said.

NICK MARKWITH can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

Hearing a blast from our past can stir up vivid, poignant memories of a significant other or a significant event in our lives. Psychologists have evinced that this is a common human experience, but how music triggers mental flashbacks in our heads remained mostly a matter of speculation. Now, a new study reveals that the link between music and memories can be traced to a part of the brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC).

Study author Petr Janata, an associate professor of psychology at UC Davis‘ Center for Mind and Brain, says his project was motivated by studies with Alzheimer’s patients showing that the MPFC is relatively spared by the disease compared to other brain regions important for memory, and that patients with substantial memory loss can still recognize and “light up emotionally” to music from their past.

Janata previously tested and confirmed that music evokes a wide range of personal memories and emotions in people – from happy to nostalgic to sad. He also devised a visual tool to map and describe the dynamic shifts of song melodies and chord progressions through time.

“These patterns of movement are like signatures of the songs,” Janata said. “So I have a quantitative description of the song … and then I can ask what parts of the brain are tracking the movement of the music … and ask: Are they following music better for songs that [elicit autobiographical memories] versus songs that aren’t?”

Using MRI, Janata scanned and measured the brain activity of 13 UC Davis undergraduates as they listened to clips of 30 different Billboard Top 100 songs taken from their childhood and teenage years. After each excerpt, the students rated how familiar and enjoyable the song was, and how strongly it triggered personal memories.

Outside the scanner, subjects were further questioned about the content and clarity of memories associated with songs they had flagged as being personally relevant during the listening session.

The surveys showed that the students recognized a rough average of 17 out of the 30 tunes, and associated about 13 of the familiar songs to some degree with personal memories. The more familiar the song, the more pleasant the feelings and the more vivid the memories evoked.

Moreover, Janata found, greater personal responses to the songs correlated with brain activity in the upper part of the MPFC. The scans also showed the same region following the shifts in tone for each song’s musical signature, with higher tracking activity found in subjects who reported stronger personal memories.

These patterns suggest that when responding to familiar and evocative music, the MPFC serves as the main hub that links pieces of an associated memory that are stored in different parts of the brain, Janata explained. The emotions and images that make up the memory are then “stitched together into a mental movie” that plays inside our heads as we reminisce about the past.

“This finding corroborates what we have speculated for some time, and adds to the evidence linking music and autobiographical memory with the prefrontal cortex,” said Catriona Morrison, a psychologist at University of Leeds who was not involved in the study, in an e-mail interview.

Janata next plans to replicate the study in older adults and to document in more detail the emotional responses elicited in Alzheimer’s patients by music from their past.

“It’s not an earth-shattering insight, but I’m hopeful that this type of research can help convince people that doing something as simple as playing music from [Alzheimer’s patients‘] past would be reasonable … [to] try to enrich their lives a little bit,” he said.

Richard Harris, a professor of psychology at Kansas State University who was not involved in the study, said the research related to Alzheimer’s patients is intriguing.

“I have done research on autobiographical memory for music, but this is the first study I have seen looking at brain function in that regard,” Harris said in an e-mail interview. “The proposed application to help Alzheimer’s patients is quite interesting and promising.“

ELAINE HSIA can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

UC Davis‘ very own graduate student in International Agriculture Development Margaret Lloyd might someday be President Barack Obama’s personal White House Farmer.

The idea for position came from Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, who wants the president to devote five acres of the White House lawn to be a sustainable organic farm. While the Obama administration hasn’t yet agreed to the plan, Lloyd and her colleagues are hard at work lobbying to make the idea a reality.

Lloyd is one of four nominees for the position as the result of a national online poll. Produce from the farm would go straight to the White House dinner table, with surplus crops going to a local food bank.

The 28-year-old graduate of Tufts University began her own private business called Home Farming in the Bay Area setting up small backyard farms. She also spearheaded the effort to create the “Salad Bowl” in front of the Plant and Environmental Sciences building, which is a communal organic farm on campus.

Where did you grow up and do your undergrad?

I’m what they call a TCK: a third culture kid. I was born of parents from one culture, raised in a different culture and thus created my own cultural identity, which is a blend of those and therefore a “third culture.” I spent my childhood split between [California’s] Silicon Valley and Asia (Hong Kong and Tokyo).

I moved to Medford, Mass. to do my undergraduate studies in international relations and environmental science at Tufts University. From Medford, I found my way around several farms in Hawaii, Northern California and other places, to finally arrive back in school, here in Davis.

Why did you come to UC Davis?

It was my top choice because the College of Agricultural Sciences has a huge faculty working on an impressive range of topics, an active field research and farming effort including places [such as] the student farm, greenhouses and research fields, an extension service and the new Agriculture Sustainability Institute.

What’s the position of White House Farmer? How did the idea evolve?

Michael Pollan wrote an article in the New York Times on Oct. 9 for a ‘Farmer-in-Chief‘. He described digging up five acres of the White House lawn to plant organic vegetables, which could feed the first family and local food banks.

This inspired the Brockmans, a farm family in Illinois, to hold a national nomination for the position. Starting in November 2008, they accepted nominations, which were then voted on during a 10-day poll.

Over these 10 days, more than 55,000 American voted! I was nominated 6 days into the polling, and over 4 days received more than 5300 votes. I never knew that was possible, but it showed to me how strong our community is here in Davis and beyond, and that people were excited about a White House farm.

This has been an incredible reflection of the healthy network and how quickly it can mobilize when the moment is ripe. The other winners have also been impressed by both their community support and widespread interest, and we have collectively unified our efforts to get a farm to the White House.

How are you planning to lobby the administration?

The top four vote getters, along with the Brockmans, are working together to assemble a package for the president.

We’re taking this opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of our food system and food choices. A White House farm would send a powerful message across the country saying that change is here, that you can be an instrument of change and that President Obama’s promise of change includes our food system.

It would both provide a model of home scale food raising and in the broader message, prompt a stronger dialogue within the agricultural industry to design a more sustainable food system.

We are using a combination of letters of support from political and social leaders, design images, signatures of Americans and media coverage to compile a package in support of a White House farm.

UC Davis has been a tremendous source of support. They have been working hard to contact our state and national representatives. Landscape architecture is helping generate designs for the garden and the College of Agriculture is offering ideas for best practices.

Have you thought about what you would plant?

The food garden reflects what is served on the dinner plate, so the question is: what do [people] like to eat? Everybody has their food preferences whether it’s potatoes or arugula, and that’s what you plant.

Of course in this case, it’s wonderful to have master chefs who know the flavor and texture of food and a wide range of edibles, perhaps even better than the farmer, so the relationship of growing dynamic food for dynamic cuisine certainly deepens the experience for the both the farmer and chefs.

What grows in the Salad Bowl outside the Plant and Environmental Science Building? Who tends to it?

The garden grows a range of vegetables that are delicious when eaten raw. At the moment, we have arugula, lettuce, celery, fennel, chard, broccoli, Asian mustard, green onions, parsley, and several others. Because we grow year round at this site, we have soil-building crop of fava beans growing in two the beds currently. Before long, we’ll have the tomatoes planted, signaling the transition into our spring/summer crops.

The garden is tended by a group of graduate and undergraduate students, staff, faculty and UC Davis grounds services. Roughly once a month, we spend a few hours either transplanting or maintaining the 600 square feet of land. Anybody is welcome to join and it’s a wonderfully diverse and unique group of individuals who volunteer their time.

What’s your favorite vegetable?

I love potatoes. Perhaps it’s the Irish in me, but there’s nothing more thrilling than hunting through the soil with my potato fork, searching for those golden nuggets. And freshly harvested potatoes have a deliciously delicate texture that is lost with time.

I love the range of potatoes varieties to choose from which is much wider that the varieties in the stores and farmers markets. I can grow small purple potatoes, or oblong golden spuds, and my potato experience is completely different! Also, the fact that potatoes store well is also why I love them. I can save them in a dark, cool spot without processing them for a good many months. That’s very convenient!

What would be a good vegetable for students to plant in Davis to start off their garden?

In the spring or fall, I would recommend lettuce. Lettuce is very easy to grow because it doesn’t require ‘full sun‘, but can tolerate bright areas with only a handful of hours of sunlight a day. This can be a common situation around buildings and fences, so it’s nice to know what will thrive there.

Lettuce is also a great home grown crop because the crispness of lettuce is at its best the moment you pick it and it only deteriorates from then, so you get a ‘crisp‘ you can’t buy!

On a more practical sense, I often find myself in the situation where I have the fixings for lettuce, but the lettuce in the fridge is old, or I used it all up, so it’s convenient to have a homegrown source. Aesthetically, lettuce also has a beautiful rosette shape and a luminescence that glows in the sunlight.

ALYSOUN BONDE can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.