Articles for tag: AI in Agriculture, Animal Science, Bioinformatics, Cattle Health, Evolutionary Biology, Genome Sequencing, Livestock Genetics, Machine Learning, microbiome, Poultry Science

A vibrant microscopic view of plant cells highlighting intricate cellular patterns.

Bioinformatics Breakthroughs: The Digital Path to Healthier Animals

Jan Otte

By Jan Otte, DWS Contributor In today’s world, the barnyard and the motherboard are no longer worlds apart. Thanks to breakthroughs in bioinformatics, animal science is being transformed by data, algorithms, and a new wave of digital discovery. A New Era of Animal Science is Unfolding Digitally In a development that blurs the line between ...

From Grass to Gut: The Microbiome Magic Inside Cows

Annette Uy

Imagine if you could eat nothing but grass for your entire life and somehow transform it into rich, creamy milk and perfectly marbled beef. Sounds impossible, right? Yet every day, millions of cows around the world perform this incredible feat of biological alchemy. The secret isn’t in their hooves or their gentle eyes – it’s ...

The Antibiotic Dilemma

Not All Germs Are Bad: What You Should Know About the Ones That Help

Annette Uy

The word “germs” makes most people reach for hand sanitizer, but what if I told you that right now, trillions of microscopic allies are working around the clock to keep you alive? Your body hosts an entire universe of microorganisms that outnumber your human cells by a staggering ratio, and many of these tiny tenants ...

Engineers and technicians in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory display the thick-walled aluminum vault

The Microbial Vault: How Scientists Are Racing to Preserve Earth’s Invisible Biodiversity

April Joy Jovita

As Earth enters an age of rapid ecological change, a quiet revolution is taking place in freezers chilled to -80°C. Scientists around the world are building a “Microbial Noah’s Ark”—a global effort to preserve the planet’s microbial diversity before it’s lost to industrialization, climate shifts, and modern living. The Microbiota Vault Initiative, modeled in part ...

Is Your Catheter Safe? The Bacteria That’s Degrading Medical Plastic From the Inside Out

Jan Otte

Assuming these materials were inert and safe, hospitals have for decades depended on medical plastics used in everything from sutures to catheters. Unbelievably, though, some of the worst superbugs are eating rather than merely colonizing these devices. Researchers have found a strain of the well-known hospital pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa that generates an enzyme able to ...

Microbiome lab

How the Microbiome Affects Animal Behavior and Health

Annette Uy

The microbiome is a complex ecosystem of microorganisms that dwell in and on animals, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms. While these microscopic entities are tiny on their own, they collectively play pivotal roles in the lives of their host animals. In recent years, the scientific community has uncovered fascinating insights into how the ...