A little knowledge can be a bad thing. We see that with zoonotic diseases. Awareness is great. However, a little bit of awareness can be a problem if it’s enough make people paranoid but not enough to help them understand the real risks. This can lead to excessive and illogical responses (often ending with "…get
Projectile penguin poop
In my line of work, I deal with feces from a lot of different species. Never once, however, have I thought to model defecation pressure and distances.
Maybe I’m just strange.
A few years ago, German researchers felt the need to model the defecation habits of penguins. The title of the paper, published in Polar
Brucellosis from Aussie pigs
Australian Elmer Fudds beware… there are concerns that feral pig hunting is a risk factor for brucellosis in New South Wales. Brucellosis is a rare disease, but a report like this raises concern because it can be nasty, and it can also be hard to diagnose (or it’s not considered right away).
We
2012 US rabies recap
It’s that time of year again… time for the US annual rabies surveillance report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Dyer et al 2013).
Some highlights:
- There were 6162 cases of rabies diagnosed in animals in 2012. (This is a 2.1% increase from 2011, but I don’t put much stock
Human health impact of antibiotic use in animals
Antibiotic use in animals, and the impact on humans is a controversial area. At a conference a few years ago, one of the organizers posed the question, "What percentage of resistance in human pathogens is attributable to antibiotic use in animals?" They had people write their answers on cards, and later in the
The Darwin saga continues
Darwin’s back in the news. He’s a young macaque who is often called the "Ikea Monkey" since he was found wandering around a Toronto Ikea parking lot one day last winter in a designer winter coat. He was seized because of a Toronto bylaw prohibiting monkeys as pets, and transferred to a local primate sanctuary.
African dwarf frog Salmonella outbreak recap
I’ve written about the African dwarf frog and Salmonella issue before, but it’s worth a recap since an overview of the 2008-2011 outbreak was recently published in the journal Pediatrics (Mettee Zarecki et al 2013). The fact that reptiles and amphibians can carry Salmonella is nothing new, nor is the fact that outbreaks
Beware the mongoose
I’ve been bitten lots of times, some on the job (including the last dog I saw when I was in general practice) and some off (including a dog down the road a couple of years ago). Fortunately, I haven’t suffered any serious consequences. That’s what happens most of the time. However, bad things can and do
’tis the season for hatching chicks (and hopefully not Salmonella)
Allegedly, spring is here. The foot of snow on the ground and minus double-digit temperatures don’t really convince me, but the calendar can’t lie, I guess.
Anyway, spring brings with it many things, one of which is hatching chicks. I saw signs for them at a local farm supply store a couple of days ago
Petting zoo ramblings…
Today, we went to the University of Guelph‘s annual open house, College Royal. As per usual, we only covered a fraction of the events, but had to do the traditional visits with the animals and get some of the Food Science milkshakes (even thought it was -2C outside). Animals are a big part