https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Bird flu hits cats particularly hard. Just last week, an infected cat was euthanized in California after eating raw pet food. But a University of Maryland-led study appearing in One Health shows promising results when an infected cat gets early care and treatment. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-bird-flu-outbreak-house-cats.html Plants & Animals Thu, 18 Sep 2025 16:16:03 EDT news677430961 Knowing where, when and for how long mallard ducks—natural carriers of avian influenza—stop and rest as they migrate can help predict the probability that they will spread bird flu to backyard poultry flocks. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-backyard-poultry-bird-flu-migrating.html Ecology Mon, 24 Feb 2025 12:34:29 EST news659622865 Bronze cauldrons were used by the inhabitants of the Mongolian steppe around 2,700 years ago to process animal blood and milk. This is shown by a protein analysis of archaeological finds from this period. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-blood-sausages-yak-bronze-age.html Archaeology Wed, 05 Jun 2024 05:00:01 EDT news636735189 When we think of fossils it is usually of dinosaurs, or perhaps the beautiful spiral shape of an ammonite picked up on a beach during a summer holiday. We see fossils as ancient relics of the deep past that allow us to marvel at the history of life on Earth, of animals that walked or swam many millions of years ago, of the giant trees that became buried and crushed to form coal. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossils-today-humankind-disrupted-life.html Environment Mon, 13 May 2024 13:20:01 EDT news634823741 Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden, among others. The results, which are contrary to prevailing opinion, are based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scandinavia-farmers-slaughtered-hunter-population.html Archaeology Mon, 12 Feb 2024 09:45:18 EST news626953513 The high-altitude hero of the Himalayas, yak are among the few large animals that can survive the extremely cold, harsh and oxygen-poor conditions of the Tibetan Plateau. In the mountainous regions of Asia, yak and yak–cattle hybrids serve as vital sources of meat, milk, transportation and fuel. However, little is known about their history: when or where yak were domesticated. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-earliest-evidence-domestic-yak-archaeology.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 13 Dec 2023 14:00:01 EST news621689172 Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries of the Royal Government of Cambodia have documented the first case of lumpy skin disease (LSD) in wildlife in Cambodia. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-vaccination-campaign-endangered-wild-cattle.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Aug 2023 15:44:44 EDT news610728279 A comprehensive analysis of an archaeological site in Saudi Arabia sheds new light on mustatils—stone monuments from the Late Neolithic period thought to have been used for ritual purposes. Melissa Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, Perth, and colleagues, in conjunction with The Royal Commission for AlUla present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 15, 2023. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-uncovering-ritual-ancient-stone-monument.html Archaeology Wed, 15 Mar 2023 14:00:09 EDT news598098187 A Kansas State University-led study has found that reintroducing bison—a formerly dominant grazer—doubles plant diversity in a tallgrass prairie. The research involves more than 30 years of data collected at the Konza Prairie Biological Station and was recently published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, or PNAS. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-reintroducing-bison-grasslands-diversity-drought.html Ecology Mon, 29 Aug 2022 17:04:43 EDT news581011476 There are more chickens than any other species of bird on the planet. With three chickens for every human being, they are a food staple for millions of people around the world. But new research shows chickens were domesticated only relatively recently and were once revered. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-chickens-food-people-regarded-special.html Archaeology Thu, 23 Jun 2022 09:51:36 EDT news575196693 While Pakistan has managed to confine an outbreak of lumpy skin disease that affects cattle and buffaloes there are fears that cattle fairs ahead of the religious festival Eid-ul-Azha might trigger a second wave. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-lumpy-skin-disease-resurgence-eid.html Veterinary medicine Fri, 27 May 2022 11:36:06 EDT news572870163 A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports has revealed the strongest evidence to date that all bison in North America carry multiple small, but clearly identifiable, regions of DNA that originated from domestic cattle. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-documents-domestic-cattle-genetics-modern.html Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 10 May 2022 17:52:40 EDT news571423956 A scientific team from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) and Leipzig University conducted a comparative analysis of lipid profiles of sperm to obtain insights into their susceptibility to damaging oxidation as well as the antioxidant potential in the semen of different species. The team found that there were major differences in the composition of lipids in sperm and seminal fluid, with more closely related species such as domestic cattle, domestic pig and domestic horse showing similarities in lipid profile. This contrasts with the lipid composition of erythrocytes and blood plasma from different species, which is relatively uniform. The results help to improve our understanding of the effect of oxidative stress on reproductive processes and improve assisted reproduction measures in future. They were published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. https://phys.org/news/2022-03-sperm-membranes-oxidation-comparison-species.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 15 Mar 2022 10:55:52 EDT news566560536 When researchers at ETH Zurich compared the reference genomes between several breeds of domestic cattle and closely related wild cattle, they discovered genes with previously unknown functions. https://phys.org/news/2021-05-pangenome-reveals-bovine-genes.html Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 26 May 2021 09:01:39 EDT news541238495 Besides their graceful long necks and legs, giraffes are most recognizable by their distinctive spots. Now, conservationists are concerned about a different sort of spots on giraffes, made up of dead tissue and crusty sores that ooze blood or pus. https://phys.org/news/2019-07-skin-disease-wild-giraffes-parasitic.html Plants & Animals Fri, 12 Jul 2019 08:00:35 EDT news482137226 The keeping of livestock began in the Ancient Near East and underpinned the emergence of complex economies and then cities. Subsequently, it is there that the world's first empires rose and fell. Now, ancient DNA has revealed how the prehistory of the region's largest domestic animal, the cow, chimes with these events. https://phys.org/news/2019-07-ancient-genomics-rapid-turnover-cattle.html Archaeology Thu, 11 Jul 2019 14:00:14 EDT news482046448 Juha Kantanen, a research professor at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), has collected a large set of biological materials and data for the study of the genomes of Northern domestic animals, reindeer, cattle and horses during his expeditions in a project called Arctic Ark. https://phys.org/news/2018-12-genes-humans-domestic-animals-survive.html Evolution Fri, 21 Dec 2018 08:22:17 EST news464602927 The ancestry of domesticated cattle proves more complex than previously thought, reports a paper published today in the open access journal Genome Biology. The first nuclear genome sequence from an ancient wild ox reveals that some modern domestic cow breeds, including the Scottish Highland and Irish Kerry, had wild ancestors that were British, as well as Asian. https://phys.org/news/2015-10-ancient-wild-ox-genome-reveals.html Biotechnology Mon, 26 Oct 2015 04:04:13 EDT news365051045 A research team from the University of Basel made a surprising find in a Neolithic settlement at the boarders of Lake Biel in Switzerland: The DNA of a cattle bone shows genetic traces of the European aurochs and thus adds a further facet to the history of cattle domestication. The journal Scientific Reports has published the results. https://phys.org/news/2014-07-dna-reveals-insights-history-cattle.html Plants & Animals Tue, 29 Jul 2014 08:40:03 EDT news325841292 An international team of researchers, co-led by scientists at the University of York and Yunnan Normal University, has produced the first multi-disciplinary evidence for management of cattle populations in northern China, around the same time cattle domestication took place in the Near East, over 10,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2013-11-uncover-cattle-farming-china.html Plants & Animals Fri, 08 Nov 2013 05:00:01 EST news303061861 A new and cheaper method for screening ancient bones to determine whether they contain DNA has been described in a PhD thesis by a conservator at the University of Stavanger's Archaeological Museum. https://phys.org/news/2013-08-bone.html Archaeology Thu, 15 Aug 2013 09:29:47 EDT news295777734 Plains bison are an iconic symbol of America on everything from coins to state flags. Now scientists writing in Conservation Biology are exploring how the cross-breeding of bison with domestic cattle in the late 1800s may still have unwanted effects on modern populations of the species. https://phys.org/news/2012-08-reveals-impact-historical-domestic-cattle.html Ecology Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:08:17 EDT news263563662 The first unequivocal evidence that humans in prehistoric Saharan Africa used cattle for their milk nearly 7,000 years ago is described in research by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, UK, published today in Nature. https://phys.org/news/2012-06-chemical-analysis-pottery-reveals-dairying.html Archaeology Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:00:09 EDT news259415212 A parasite linked to dogs and responsible for an estimated $30 million loss to the national cattle industry each year is present throughout Australia, a University of Sydney study has revealed. https://phys.org/news/2012-05-cattle-parasite-australia.html Plants & Animals Wed, 30 May 2012 08:32:21 EDT news257585535 All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study. https://phys.org/news/2012-03-dna-cattle-small-herd-domesticated.html Evolution Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:49:25 EDT news252060543 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, researchers reveal the prehistoric remains of a BBQ in the valley of the River Tjonger in the Netherlands that took place over 7,700 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2011-06-prehistoric-bbq-bone-marrow-aurochs.html Archaeology Wed, 29 Jun 2011 07:20:01 EDT news228541179 The ban on a veterinary drug which caused an unprecedented decline in Asian vulture populations has shown the first signs of progress, according to scientists. However, the recovery of the wild vulture populations requires efforts to see the drug completely removed from the birds' food supply. https://phys.org/news/2011-05-indian-vultures-killer-drug.html Ecology Wed, 11 May 2011 18:20:01 EDT news224353686 (PhysOrg.com) -- Genetic information from an extinct species of bison preserved in permafrost for thousands of years could help improve modern agricultural livestock and breeding programs, according to University of Adelaide researchers. https://phys.org/news/2009-10-ancient-bison-genetic-treasure-trove.html Biotechnology Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:07:02 EDT news175251993 Pairing a new approach to prepare ancient DNA with a new scientific technique developed specifically to genotype a cow, an MU animal scientist, along with a team of international researchers, created a very accurate and widespread "family tree" for cows and other ruminants, going back as far as 29 million years. https://phys.org/news/2009-10-team-family-tree-cattle-ruminants.html Biotechnology Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:00:03 EDT news175191686 Dwindling federal funding jeopardizes important animal and biomedical research, together with the institutional research programs that focus on them, a group of Michigan State University scientists warn. https://phys.org/news/2009-04-shorts-critical-farm-animal-scientists.html Other Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:33:19 EDT news159715972