Meat products offer new flavors, health benefits
Tour Montana’s beef operations
Get the most out of networking opportunities at JAM
Western Section schedule for Wednesday
7:00 am – 6:00 pm, Registration, Museum of the Rockies, Lobby
7:30 am – 5:00 pm Beef Symposium: Sustainable Production and Management Practices of Ranches in Southwestern Montana. Read more 
Gene discovery leads to new OPP test
Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS
By Sandra Avant / USDA ARS
A new test is available to help sheep producers identify animals at high risk for ovine progressive pneumonia (OPP), thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.
An incurable, wasting disease, OPP affects millions of sheep worldwide. Infected sheep are less productive and have fewer lambs. In addition to pneumonia, animals show signs of lameness and “hard bag” syndrome, which causes udders to become hard and produce little milk.
Scientists at ARS’ Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) in Clay Center, Neb., found that the gene TMEM154 affects susceptibility to OPP virus infection in sheep. Read more
Book Review: Healthy Eating Made Easy
By Dr. Mary Beth Hall
As a ruminant nutritionist, I’ve tended to think that I have a pretty good understanding of nutrition in general, including how the basic concepts apply to people. I’ve also had more than enough of books and press releases on the latest, greatest fad diet that will cure all. “Healthy Eating Made Easy” by Michael Edmonds was an eye-opener for me. In a very practical fashion, Dr. Edmonds wrapped goals for a healthy diet with the physiology of why our bodies work as they do with what we eat. Dr. Edmonds combined that information with realistic ways of achieving our goals for our diet and body weight. And you do not have to be a PhD nutritionist to make sense of the information; the book was very easy to read and to understand. No hype. It was a refreshing approach on how to take control of what we eat and why we should. Read more
Animals in the news
Duck Combat: Fighting bird flu
Recent research on the genome of a duck has provided new insight on influenza viruses. Since February, a bird flu epidemic in China has killed 36 people and resulted in a $6.5 billion loss to China’s economy. Read more
Animal scientists invited to “Bee-nomics” seminar
The newest National C-FAR seminar focuses on the contributions of bee researchers. The seminar, titled “How the Honey Bee Genome Project is Revolution
The seminar is a chance to learn how entomology influences agriculture and the economy. The distinguished speaker is Dr. May Berenbaum, a researcher from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Berenbaum studies how insects interact with their hostplants.
