- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Scientists in labs across the world have used gene modification to create virus-resistant pigs, heat-tolerant cattle and fatter, more muscular lambs - potential improvements for animal agriculture - but will people ever eat them? asks reporter Carolyn Johnson in the Washington Post.
Johnson opened her story with a scene from UC Davis, where UC Cooperative Extension specialist Alison Van Eenennaam was conducting ultrasounds on cattle to determine whether they were pregnant. The animals had been implanted with embryos...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
As wildfires grow deadlier, officials search for solutions
(Associated Press) Matthew Brown and Ellen Knickmeyer, Nov. 14
…"There are ... so many ways that can go wrong, in the warning, the modes of getting the message out, the confusion ... the traffic jams," said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension program.
As deadly urban wildfires become more common, officials should also consider establishing "local retreat zones, local safety zones" in communities where residents can ride out the deadly firestorms if escape seems impossible, Moritz said.
… In the mid-20th century, California ranchers burned hundreds of thousands of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension specialist Alison Van Eenennaam, an animal geneticist based at UC Davis, was named a 'rising star' in the online magazine ozy.com.
Van Eenennaam operates at the forefront of biotechnology in animal agriculture, wrote reporter Marissa Fessenden. The researcher is raising cows in Davis whose genes were edited to omit horns, which spares the animals the painful process of horn removal.
The article says Van Eenennaam grew up as a 'horse-mad' city girl in Melbourne, Australia. She studied animal science at the University...