"Animal Culture" exhibit at the Great British Bioscience Festival

"Animal Culture: Nature's second inheritance system" is one of the engaging and exciting displays that will be on offer at the Great British Bioscience Festival on 14-16 November at the Museum Gardens in London's Bethnal Green, showcasing the best of British bioscience by BBSRC researchers.

The Animal Cultures team consists of Prof. Andy Whiten of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience as well as researchers from the University of Exeter, Newcastle University and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Edinburgh Zoo.

The research behind the exhibit revealed cultural processes of varying complexity in primates, birds and fish (e.g. "The scope of culture in chimpanzees, humans and ancestral apes". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, DOI:  10.1098/rstb.2010.0334; and further reading). Observational and experimental studies have identified cultural differences across different wild populations and have shown migrating individuals conforming to local group habits. Controlled experiments seeded foraging techniques in animal groups and mapped the spread of these techniques, creating local traditions. The team's discoveries highlight a potent ‘second inheritance system’ in animals that complements genetics. This illuminates human cultural evolution, and has implications in areas as varied as child development, robotics, welfare and conservation.

This free festival is accessible for all and will be the culmination of a yearlong programme of activities marking BBSRC's 20th anniversary – bringing together exciting exhibits from world-leading bioscience research groups.

The research is highlighted in the Leverhulme Trust Annual Review 2013.

Company launched with aim to improve fish quality

A new company, which aims to exploit cutting-edge genetics technology to improve the quality of the fish we eat, has been launched in St Andrews. With support from local law firm Murray Donald and the Biotechnological and Biological Research Council (BBSRC), Xelect, is primarily focusing on the development of genetic markers which will pinpoint the most valuable of the natural variations which occur in all fish. Xelect was formed by CEO and Co-Founder Professor Ian Johnston, Director, Scottish Oceans Institute and his former PhD student, Thomas Ashton, Executive Director and Co-Founder. The first products are markers for superior meat yield and flesh quality in Atlantic salmon, which are now available for licensing worldwide. [press release] [more..]

£5.6m project seeks new Foot and Mouth vaccine

A £5.6 million Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded research project, led by Professor Martin Ryan of the School of Biology, aims to find a new vaccine to combat Foot and Mouth Disease in livestock. The 5-year study, which will also involve the Pirbright Institute, and the Universities of Dundee, Edinburgh and Leeds will investigate how the virus grows in, and interacts with, cells to harness such knowledge to improve diagnosis and develop a new generation of more effective vaccines.

The Foot and Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV) is one of the most contagious viruses in domestic livestock including cattle, sheep, goats and pigs and can infect more than 70 species of wildlife, greatly increasing the difficulty of disease control, which is further complicated by the existence of seven distinct serotypes with thousands of strains of the virus.

Outbreaks of FMDV in the UK in 2001 and 2007 had devastating effects on farming. The 2001 outbreak cost the UK economy billions of pounds with millions of animals destroyed. [press release]