The study, published in the journal Veterinary Oncology, was led by Ingrid Marie Moberg and colleagues at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oslo University Hospital, and the University of Oslo. The team analyzed RNA sequencing data from 179 canine mammary tumors, drawn from a cohort of naturally occurring tumors removed from companion dogs during routine surgery. Their goal was twofold: to define molecular subgroups of canine mammary tumors without reference to histology, and then to ask whether tumors from the same dog share those molecular identities. The answer to the second question, in most cases, was no.

To classify the tumors, the researchers first reduced their high-dimensional gene expression data using principal component analysis, then applied unsupervised consensus clustering, an algorithm that groups samples based purely on expression similarity and stability across repeated resampling. This revealed five robust transcriptomic clusters. Crucially, the clusters did not map cleanly onto histological diagnosis. Each cluster contained a mixture of benign and malignant tumors, confirming that the microscopic appearance of these tumors tells only part of the story of their underlying biology.

Gene set enrichment analysis then revealed that the five clusters bear a remarkable resemblance to molecular subtypes long recognized in human breast cancer. Three of the clusters showed enrichment of hormone-related gene programs, including estrogen response, and were found to harbor the transcription factor GATA3, a classic marker of luminal breast cancer in humans. One cluster combined cell-cycle proliferation with immune and interferon signaling, evoking the aggressive basal-like or triple-negative phenotype, while a fifth cluster was defined by epithelial-mesenchymal transition, angiogenesis, and inflammatory modules, reminiscent of the claudin-low subtype. The parallel with human breast cancer taxonomy is not merely cosmetic; it strengthens the case for dogs as a comparative model in which the biology of mammary cancer can be studied in a spontaneously arising disease.

Beyond clustering, the team constructed a gene co-expression network using the hCoCena framework, identifying ten modules of genes that are expressed together and that encode distinct biological processes. One module captured hormone signaling, two captured immune and interferon responses, three reflected metabolism and proliferation through glycolysis, PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling, oxidative phosphorylation, and MYC targets, and others traced epithelial differentiation through WNT signaling, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, cell-cycle regulation through E2F targets and the G2M checkpoint, and tumor microenvironment features such as angiogenesis. Transcription factor enrichment within the modules pointed to GATA3 as a regulator of the hormonal program and E2F1 as a driver of the proliferative module, providing candidate master switches behind the observed phenotypes.

The heart of the study, however, lies in its analysis of synchronous tumors. The researchers focused on 45 dogs that each carried exactly two tumors, yielding 90 paired samples classified as benign-benign, malignant-benign, or malignant-malignant. When they compared cluster assignments within each pair, concordance was low. Only about 45 percent of tumor pairs landed in the same transcriptomic cluster overall, with malignant-malignant pairs showing the highest agreement at 56 percent, benign-benign pairs at 44 percent, and mixed malignant-benign pairs at just 36 percent. In other words, the majority of dogs carried two tumors with fundamentally different molecular identities.

To quantify this divergence at the level of individual genes, the team calculated intraclass correlation coefficients for every gene across the paired samples. Genes were scored as low, moderate, or high in correlation between a dog’s two tumors. The results were unambiguous: between roughly 76 and 90 percent of genes showed low correlation across all diagnostic categories, and fewer than one percent of genes were highly correlated within any category. This pattern of widespread discordance held regardless of whether both tumors were benign, both malignant, or one of each, indicating that molecular independence between synchronous tumors is the norm rather than the exception.

A small set of exceptions proved informative. The analysis identified a handful of genes, including OMD and EN1, whose expression is strongly correlated within certain categories of synchronous tumor pairs and which have been reported as prognostic markers in human cancers. The authors suggest that these genes may point to shared disease processes or protective mechanisms against malignant transformation, and that they deserve further investigation, potentially at the DNA level, to uncover any genetic factors underlying their coordinated behavior. Meanwhile, examination of module-level variation showed that programs linked to cell-cycle activity, hormone signaling, and immune responses fluctuated most between paired tumors, while modules tied to epithelial differentiation and metabolism remained comparatively stable within individuals.

The clinical implications of this work reach in two directions at once. For veterinary medicine, the findings suggest that each tumor in a multi-tumor patient should be evaluated as a biologically independent lesion rather than assumed to be representative of its neighbors. Because molecular subtypes in human breast cancer drive dramatically different treatment decisions, from endocrine therapy for hormone receptor-positive disease to chemotherapy and PARP inhibitors for triple-negative tumors, a biology-driven approach could eventually refine the limited therapeutic options currently available for canine patients. The authors note, for instance, that identifying hormone-positive subtypes could inform whether ovariohysterectomy offers real benefit at the time of tumor removal, a decision veterinarians currently make without molecular guidance.

For comparative oncology, the study reinforces the value of the canine model in a way that human cohorts cannot easily replicate. Synchronous bilateral breast cancer occurs in only around one percent of human patients, whereas synchronous mammary tumors affect the majority of affected dogs. Studying these paired tumors within the same genetic background eliminates many host-specific confounders, offering a natural experiment in tumor evolution and inter-individual heterogeneity. The authors acknowledge limitations inherent to bulk RNA sequencing, which averages expression across all cells in a tissue and may reflect tissue composition as much as tumor biology, and they caution that a single RNA sample may not represent an entire tumor. Even so, their conclusion stands firm: histopathology alone does not capture the molecular reality of canine mammary tumors, and expression-based profiling offers a more faithful map of the biological terrain that clinicians and researchers alike will need to navigate.

Subject of Research: Transcriptomic heterogeneity of synchronous canine mammary tumors and their molecular resemblance to human breast cancer subtypes

Article Title: High molecular heterogeneity in synchronous canine mammary tumors detected by transcriptomic analysis

Article References: Moberg, I. M., Murphy, S. L., Hansen, N., Borge, K. S., Gunnes, G., Sørlie, T., Lingaas, F., Bergholtz, H., & Solbakken, M. H. (2026). High molecular heterogeneity in synchronous canine mammary tumors detected by transcriptomic analysis. Veterinary Oncology, 3(1), Article 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s44356-026-00066-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s44356-026-00066-3

Keywords: canine mammary tumors, transcriptomics, RNA sequencing, tumor heterogeneity, synchronous tumors, breast cancer subtypes, gene co-expression network, consensus clustering, comparative oncology, veterinary pathology, High, molecular

The clinical picture that unfolded was unlike anything clinicians had managed during the fentanyl and xylazine eras. Experts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh documented a novel, clinically distinct withdrawal syndrome attributable to medetomidine exposure. Patients presented with the familiar hallmarks of opioid withdrawal but layered on top were profound hypertension, with blood pressures frequently exceeding 180/120 millimeters of mercury, and extreme tachycardia, with heart rates climbing above 140 beats per minute. Intractable vomiting, a peculiar tremor without clonus or hyper-reactivity, and even cases of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome and myocardial injury appeared in the case series. In one multicenter study of 175 patients, more than 90 percent required intensive care unit admission. Pharmacologically, the explanation lies in medetomidine’s mechanism: as an alpha-2 agonist, it hyperpolarizes norepinephrine-producing neurons in a negative feedback loop, dampening norepinephrine release and producing sedation, analgesia, muscle relaxation, and anxiolysis. When the drug leaves the system, a catastrophic rebound of noradrenergic activity ensues, driving the severe cardiovascular and gastrointestinal chaos clinicians observed.

Recognizing that no coordinated playbook existed for this new threat, the Division of Substance Use Prevention and Harm Reduction at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health partnered with the Health Federation of Philadelphia’s Substance Use Response, Guidance, and Education program to convene a citywide Medetomidine Withdrawal Summit on November 6, 2025. The event, accredited for continuing medical education, pharmacy, nursing, and social work credit, drew 115 attendees. Most were health professionals, including 44 working in medical settings and 45 in behavioral health, spanning physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, substance use navigators, certified recovery specialists, and harm reduction outreach workers from the city’s three academic health systems, correctional health, federally qualified health centers, crisis response centers, residential treatment facilities, and opioid treatment programs. Public health employees, academic researchers, and visitors from Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and New York rounded out the room, a testament to how far word of the emerging syndrome had traveled.

The summit’s architecture was deliberately case-driven, adapted from the structure of Fetal and Infant Mortality Review that the city had previously used to build xylazine wound care guidance. Four vignettes, based on real but de-identified patients, traced medetomidine withdrawal across four care settings. The first illustrated the power of low-barrier, co-located care: a young man with active injection drug use and housing instability living in supportive housing with an attached walk-in clinic, where staff could repeatedly check vital signs, adjust clonidine dosing as his blood pressure climbed to 164/91 mmHg, and escalate to emergency services if he developed vomiting, seizures, a blood pressure above 185/100 mmHg, an abnormal neurologic exam, or a Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale score over 20. The second case, an inpatient admission, showed how deceptively mild withdrawal could explode into severe symptoms within four to six hours, forcing escalation to the intensive care unit for a high-dose intravenous dexmedetomidine infusion, followed by an aggressive cross-taper to oral and transdermal alpha-2 agonists and a low-dose buprenorphine induction with transition to long-acting injectable buprenorphine.

The third and fourth vignettes exposed the fault lines in the system. In a residential rehabilitation program operating at ASAM 3.5 and 3.7 levels of care, a walk-in patient’s blood pressure rocketed from 174/98 to 203/108 mmHg within hours of admission, followed by intractable vomiting and an altered mental state that required a 911 call because the facility lacked a 24-hour on-site medical provider and sufficient staffing ratios. In the emergency department case, a young woman who received naloxone from both a bystander and emergency medical services arrived with hypotension and bradycardia, then flipped within two hours to severe hypertension, tachycardia, and intractable vomiting, requiring a demanding combination of intravenous, intramuscular, orally disintegrating, and transdermal medications before stabilizing on methadone maintenance. Together, the cases underscored the razor-thin therapeutic window for preemptive oral management and the critical importance of vigilant vital sign monitoring to track withdrawal progression.

A panel of emergency physicians, addiction medicine and toxicology consultants, primary care and opioid treatment physicians, and a clinical pharmacist distilled hard-won lessons for the audience. The Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale, long the standard instrument, appeared to underestimate severity in patients afflicted by a hypoactive delirium that many now recognize as a distinctive feature of severe medetomidine withdrawal. With no validated instrument for alpha-2 withdrawal, panelists urged clinicians to rely on elevated heart rate and blood pressure as more reliable indicators and to titrate treatments such as dexmedetomidine infusions to vital signs rather than mental status. Clonidine emerged as the mainstay of management, available in oral tablets and transdermal patches at three doses each, though the panel noted that patches may not be covered by outpatient insurance despite being on Pennsylvania’s medical assistance preferred drug list. Two pharmacokinetic insights proved especially valuable: transdermal clonidine takes 24 to 48 hours to deliver relief, and oral clonidine tablets can be absorbed sublingually with no loss of efficacy when patients cannot swallow, a practical workaround for a syndrome defined by vomiting.

Concurrent opioid replacement with intravenous or oral hydromorphone and methadone was identified as essential, with gabapentin serving as a helpful though dependency-risking adjunct for mild to moderate symptoms. Panelists also flagged that patients who become ‘quiet’ are often the most endangered, since decreased responsiveness signals the need for urgent transfer to a higher level of care. Managing withdrawal in pregnant patients proved especially thorny, as typical antiemetics proved ineffective and pregnancy antihypertensives failed to address the underlying withdrawal mechanism; the consensus held that clonidine’s benefits outweighed the risks of undertreated withdrawal, with lorazepam as the preferred benzodiazepine should one be needed during pregnancy. Dopamine antagonist agents such as metoclopramide, olanzapine, prochlorperazine, haloperidol, and chlorpromazine were reported anecdotally to control the syndrome’s relentless nausea and vomiting, thereby enabling patients to tolerate the oral clonidine that forms the backbone of treatment.

The breakout sessions generated 74 insights grouped into nine themes: overdose response, clinical recognition of withdrawal, monitoring, treatment approach, patient care navigation, workforce development, testing and surveillance, mobile outreach, and reimbursement. From these, the authors formulated twelve recommendations. Among them: fund community-based drug checking programs that deliver rapid, accurate results; include harm reduction networks in medetomidine information dissemination; keep naloxone as the first-line response to opioid overdose, redosing only when breathing is inadequate; monitor closely for rapid shifts between intoxication and withdrawal phases, using heart rate trends to distinguish bradycardic intoxication from tachycardic withdrawal; refer patients with profound hypertension for acute medical evaluation given the risk of neurologic and cardiac injury; treat a prior need for a dexmedetomidine infusion as the best predictor of future severe withdrawal, a better marker than current volume of drug use; align reimbursement with the true complexity of care; establish an ICD code for medetomidine withdrawal to enable surveillance and billing; and fund free accredited education for all medical and behavioral health team members.

Philadelphia’s broader response infrastructure offers a model worth emulating. The city’s health department has worked with the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education’s NPS Discovery early warning system since September 2020, collaborating with PA Groundhogs, an organization that conducts drug checking directly with people who use drugs. New rapid medetomidine testing strips now allow surveillance at the individual level. A cascade of Health Alerts began in May 2024, followed by more detailed alerts in December 2024, a CHART data publication in May 2025, and a June 2025 Health Update with granular guidance for non-hospital settings. The authors acknowledge the descriptive limitations of their summit report and call for quantitative evaluations of clinician confidence, compensation for people with lived experience in provider training, and stronger discharge planning and outpatient tapering protocols. But their central conclusion rings clear and increasingly urgent: proactive coordination among hospitals, community organizations, and public health agencies, grounded in case-based education and honest information exchange, is the essential foundation for confronting not just medetomidine, but the relentless, unpredictable evolution of the drug supply itself.

Subject of Research: The public health response to medetomidine, a new psychoactive adulterant in the illicit opioid supply causing a severe withdrawal syndrome in Philadelphia.

Article Title: Responding to medetomidine in Philadelphia: narrative summary of the public health response to a new psychoactive substance

Article References: Warrick-Stone, T., Simpson, S.-E., Durney, P., Goodstein, D., Abrams, C., Bobb, R., London, K., & Teixeira da Silva, D. (2026). Responding to medetomidine in Philadelphia: narrative summary of the public health response to a new psychoactive substance. Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, 21(1), Article 64. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13722-026-00713-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s13722-026-00713-y

Keywords: medetomidine, opioid crisis, withdrawal syndrome, Philadelphia, public health, fentanyl adulterants, harm reduction, drug checking, clonidine, alpha-2 agonist, substance use treatment, health surveillance

The first patient was a four-year-old neutered male Savannah cat from Inverness, Scotland, who was presented to his general practice veterinarian with an intermittent cough and mild weight loss lasting three weeks. The cat was strictly indoor-only and had been fed a commercially available raw meat-based diet containing poultry and supplemental beef offal. Initial treatment with the anti-inflammatory drug meloxicam produced no response, and over the following two weeks the cough became more persistent while the cat grew increasingly lethargic with a reduced appetite.

Thoracic radiographs revealed a marked broncho-interstitial lung pattern, and a blind bronchoalveolar lavage performed under anaesthesia showed moderate neutrophilic inflammation but was negative on routine bacterial culture. An empirical course of the antibiotic marbofloxacin also failed to help. By the time the cat was referred to a specialist institution, he had lost 30 percent of his body weight. A computed tomography scan showed severe, diffuse nodular to confluent soft tissue lesions affecting all lung lobes, together with enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes. Fine-needle aspirates of consolidated lung tissue revealed severe pyogranulomatous inflammation, and Ziehl-Neelsen staining identified small numbers of acid-fast bacilli with the slender, curved morphology typical of mycobacteria. Culture subsequently confirmed Mycobacterium caprae.

Treatment began with a triple antibiotic protocol comprising pradofloxacin at 5 mg/kg, rifampicin at 10 mg/kg and azithromycin at 15 mg/kg, each given orally once daily in liquid formulations. An oesophagostomy tube was placed to help the owners administer the prolonged medication with minimal stress. The cat was hospitalised in isolation for eight days with strict infection control precautions, including personal protective equipment for staff. Public health officials were notified once the diagnosis was confirmed, but no further testing of in-contact people was deemed necessary. Clinically, the cat improved rapidly, gaining weight within a month and coughing far less frequently. Although repeat radiographs at three-monthly intervals showed only mild improvement, treatment was stopped after eleven months when lung changes had remained static for more than two months. The cat remains clinically normal a year after therapy ended.

The second patient was a three-year-old neutered female British Shorthair from Hampshire, England, who was fed the same raw meat-based diet product and presented with a one-month history of cough, weight loss and fever. Radiographs revealed a cavitating mass in the caudal left lung field, a large nodule in the left cranial lung and multifocal areas of dense consolidation throughout the remaining lung fields. Cytology of a bronchoalveolar lavage sample showed marked neutrophilic and macrophagic inflammation with epithelioid macrophages containing non-staining ghost bacilli, and Ziehl-Neelsen staining again revealed intracellular acid-fast organisms. Polymerase chain reaction testing at a mycobacterial reference laboratory detected DNA of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, and sequencing confirmed M. caprae.

The same triple antibiotic regimen was prescribed, again using liquid formulations to support long-term daily compliance. The cat improved rapidly, gaining weight within a month, with coughing notably reduced by four months of therapy. Radiographs after five months showed significant improvement without complete normalisation, and after a further three months the findings were unchanged. Given the patient was clinically well and had completed nine months of treatment, therapy was discontinued. She remains clinically normal ten months after cessation.

The clinical significance of these cases extends beyond the rarity of the pathogen. In the United Kingdom, feline infections with the M. tuberculosis complex are usually caused by Mycobacterium bovis or Mycobacterium microti, and M. caprae has only recently been identified in domestic cats, previously documented in detail in a single post-mortem case. The treatment protocol used in both cats was adapted from human tuberculosis guidelines and consists of rifampicin, a fluoroquinolone and a macrolide continued for at least three months and for two months beyond resolution of clinical signs. Earlier retrospective work found that only 42 percent of treated cats achieved complete remission, often despite inappropriate therapy, whereas the updated multidrug approach has produced remission rates of approximately 80 percent.

Notably, neither cat achieved radiographic resolution despite extended therapy, yet both remained free of relapse. The authors draw an analogy with post-tuberculosis lung disease in humans, an increasingly recognised spectrum of structural and functional pulmonary abnormalities that persists after successful anti-mycobacterial therapy in 18 to 80 percent of treated patients. They suggest that stable radiographic changes could serve as a reasonable therapeutic endpoint in feline mycobacterial infections where initial lung damage is too severe to be expected to normalise.

The report also underscores the practical demands of treatment. Both cats required prolonged daily multidrug therapy with frequent follow-up visits, demanding substantial financial and emotional investment from their owners alongside excellent patient compliance. The authors caution that where such commitment is not feasible, euthanasia should be considered for severely affected animals, both for welfare reasons and to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance developing from inconsistent dosing. They further note that empirical treatment choices early in the diagnostic process, such as anti-inflammatory drugs, can complicate or worsen the clinical course and should be weighed carefully with owners.

Zoonotic considerations shaped the management of both cases. Transmission of M. bovis from cats to humans has been documented previously, although the risk is considered very low, and M. caprae transmission to humans has only been identified in proximity to infected goats, its reservoir host, never from cats. Because no in-contact humans had risk factors for zoonotic transmission, treatment of both cats was judged reasonable. The authors hope that raising awareness of this first reported successful treatment of M. caprae infection in UK domestic cats will aid patient management while mitigating zoonotic risks, and they highlight the oesophagostomy tube used in the first case as a practical aid that reduces stress and supports the owner-caregiver relationship throughout months of therapy.

Subject of Research: Successful treatment of Mycobacterium caprae tuberculosis infection in two domestic cats in the United Kingdom

Article Title: Successful Treatment of Mycobacterium caprae Infection in Two UK Cats

Article References: Clark, E., Gunn‐Moore, D., & O'Halloran, C. (2026). Successful Treatment of Mycobacterium caprae Infection in Two UK Cats. Veterinary Medicine and Science, 12(5), Article e71180. https://doi.org/10.1002/vms3.71180

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/vms3.71180

Keywords: Mycobacterium caprae, feline tuberculosis, zoonotic disease, veterinary medicine, triple antibiotic therapy, rifampicin, pradofloxacin, azithromycin, raw meat-based diet, post-tuberculosis lung disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, UK cats

The review, conducted by a single investigator using PubMed and Google Scholar, began with 1,608 publications and, after rigorous screening against modified PRISMA 2020 guidelines, distilled the evidence down to 34 peer-reviewed studies, comprising 31 research papers and three case studies. Nearly all of the included work was published between 2014 and 2025, underscoring how recently the topic has captured scientific attention. The United Kingdom and the United States together produced almost two-thirds of the studies, with additional contributions from Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, China, Pakistan, Portugal and Singapore. Mammals dominated the species roster, with non-human primates studied most often, but birds were also well represented, including flamingos, penguins, hornbills, kiwi and free-flight aviary collections, alongside a handful of reptiles such as an American alligator, a Siamese crocodilian and semi-aquatic turtles. Notably, no study examined teleost fish, and half of all investigations evaluated two or fewer individual animals, a small sample size that limits how broadly the results can be generalized.

Behavioural observation was by far the most common assessment tool, deployed in 28 of the studies through species-specific ethograms that catalogue activities such as resting, foraging, pacing and social interaction. The single most frequently documented response was increased vigilance, reported in ten studies across macaques, gibbons, capuchins, peccaries, orangutans, giraffes, hornbills, cheetahs and mixed aviary species. Vigilance, the scanning behaviour animals use to monitor their environment for threats, is widely interpreted as a sign of heightened arousal or anxiety. Other documented responses included retreating away from visitors or out of sight, decreased rest, increased self- or social grooming, increased pacing, reduced appetite, increased swimming, altered circadian activity patterns, greater time spent underwater in a Siamese crocodile, and even increased protectiveness of infants in orangutans. Importantly, six studies found no statistically significant behavioural change linked to noise, and no publication reported overt abnormalities such as self-inflicted trauma or serious aggression.

Physiological measurement, by contrast, was rare. Only six studies assessed glucocorticoid concentrations, the hormonal fingerprints of activity in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, with five pairing faecal or urinary hormone analysis with behavioural observation. Three of the six reported elevated glucocorticoids: one in okapis attributed to visitor presence, one in orangutans linked to ventilation system noise, and one in a giant panda later attributed to normal physiological variation unrelated to noise. The remaining studies found no elevation or no correlation with behaviour. The review’s authors note that the broader literature increasingly cautions against interpreting glucocorticoids as stand-alone welfare indicators, since levels can fluctuate with reproductive status, circadian rhythms and sampling methods, and argue that pairing hormone data with complementary measures, such as the cognitive bias testing used in one primate study, would produce far more robust welfare conclusions.

Perhaps the most surprising finding concerns the sources of the noise itself. Visitor noise was the focus of 27 studies, but construction noise appeared in five and concerts in two. Yet in two publications, researchers suspected that ventilation systems, not visitors, were the real acoustic culprit, because decibel levels did not rise appreciably when crowds grew. A third study found that behavioural changes tracked a habitat’s waterfall feature more closely than visitor noise. One investigation concluded that reducing visitor numbers or limiting opening hours did not guarantee a quieter environment, highlighting the persistent hum of mechanical infrastructure in zoo soundscapes. At the same time, enclosure acoustics can work in animals’ favour: one study showed that a habitat’s soundscape substantially buffered short-term fluctuations in external noise, suggesting that thoughtful acoustic design can be a protective factor rather than a hazard.

The objective acoustic data gathered across the studies spanned an extraordinary range, from 51.5 decibels to a peak of 122.2 decibels recorded near a sloth habitat in a walk-through enclosure. Concert noise reached a maximum of 88 decibels and construction noise 76 decibels. One study measured construction and non-construction days at different frequencies in hertz, while another compared how A-weighted and C-weighted decibel filters affected penguin species, finding that only southern rockhoppers responded positively to pool use under elevated C-weighted levels. These technical details matter because sound meters positioned on the public-facing side of a habitat may not accurately represent what an animal actually perceives, a limitation the review flags as a significant obstacle to drawing welfare conclusions from sound pressure levels alone.

When it came to characterizing welfare outcomes, the literature revealed a striking inconsistency. Eleven studies suspected a negative welfare impact from anthropogenic noise based on observed behavioural changes, nine could not determine whether welfare was affected, seven reported no substantial impact, and seven did not address welfare as an outcome at all. Welfare assessment protocols were rarely described in a standardized way, and many studies acknowledged confounding factors, including the visual presence of visitors, the sight of construction workers, species-level and individual differences in noise sensitivity, and even the acoustic interference of precipitation. Under the Five Domains model of animal welfare, which integrates nutrition, physical environment, health, behavioural interaction and mental state, these complications underscore that noise cannot be evaluated in isolation. The ventilation system example illustrates the dilemma: mechanical noise may be stressful, yet reducing ventilation could compromise thermal comfort and air quality, producing a net welfare loss across multiple domains.

Fourteen publications offered mitigation recommendations, clustering around three practical strategies. Public education, delivered through signage or trained staff, was the most frequently cited, and one study found that ‘watching eyes’ signage requesting quietness measurably reduced noise levels. The second strategy centred on giving animals choice and control over their location, an established contributor to positive welfare, with several studies documenting animals retreating to indoor or off-exhibit spaces to escape noise. Additional suggestions included controlling visitor numbers and timing, habituation training, adding soothing background sound, increasing vegetation, redesigning enclosures to dampen sound and continuing behavioural monitoring during disruptive periods. Operational planning, such as relocating noise-sensitive species during extended construction, could preserve visitor engagement while protecting animal welfare.

The review concludes that anthropogenic noise alone may not harm welfare in every case, since some studies could not disentangle acoustic from visual disturbances, and that species and individuals differ markedly in their responses. Individual-level welfare assessments, the authors argue, allow institutions to plan more appropriately and may prevent costly habitat reconstruction by identifying minor, targeted modifications before welfare is seriously compromised. As zoo accreditation standards evolve, the authors suggest that noise deserves more formal inclusion in welfare assessment frameworks, and that future research should explore how animals respond to different human-generated frequencies, whether reactions differ between chronic and acute exposure, and which documented behaviours genuinely reflect negative welfare states. For a field barely a decade old, the message is clear: the soundscape of the modern zoo is not just background noise, but a variable that zoological institutions can measure, design around and ultimately manage to the benefit of the animals in their care.

Subject of Research: The effects of anthropogenic noise on animal welfare in zoological settings

Article Title: A Scoping Review: The Effect of Anthropogenic Noise on Animal Welfare in Zoological Settings

Article References: Kruse, T. N., & Flint, M. (2026). A Scoping Review: The Effect of Anthropogenic Noise on Animal Welfare in Zoological Settings. Veterinary Medicine and Science, 12(5), Article e71197. https://doi.org/10.1002/vms3.71197

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1002/vms3.71197

Keywords: anthropogenic noise, zoo animal welfare, animal behaviour, soundscape, glucocorticoids, visitor effects, Five Domains model, noise mitigation, scoping review, captive animals, vigilance, zoo acoustics

The study, led by Rogers Kigoonya of the Namayingo District Local Government together with colleagues at Makerere University, was conducted between July and October 2024. Namayingo is an unusual place for cattle research. The district, which covers 532.9 square kilometers of Lake Victoria territory near the Kenyan border, historically depended on fishing. As fish stocks dwindled, communities transitioned into subsistence farming that integrates small-scale cattle and crop production. Today, of the 11,384 cattle-keeping households in the district, more than half own only one or two animals, and 98.6 percent of the district herd consists of indigenous breeds. Despite the economic importance of these animals, scientific data on their reproductive performance in the district had been almost entirely absent.

To fill this gap, the team used a multi-stage sampling design targeting smallholder farmers in the sub-counties of Buyinja, Buhemba, Banda, and Mutumba. Data came from three sources: physical examination of the cattle, direct observation of farm management practices, and a pre-tested structured questionnaire administered to 90 farmers. Pregnancy status was determined through a combination of farmers’ reports of non-return to heat, visual observation, and rectal palpation performed by a veterinarian using a standardized protocol. Body condition scores were recorded on a five-point scale, and calving intervals were calculated from the two most recent consecutive calvings to minimize recall bias. Farmers with more than six cattle were excluded, keeping the study firmly focused on the smallest production units.

The headline numbers reveal a system operating below its potential. The average calving interval was 13.8 months, exceeding the 12-to-13-month benchmark recommended for achieving one calf per cow per year, the standard reproduction index for profitable cattle keeping. Services per conception averaged 1.48, meaning cows typically required roughly one and a half matings or inseminations before conceiving. Repeat breeding, defined as failure to conceive after three or more services, affected only 2.1 percent of cows, a remarkably low figure that the researchers attribute to the resilience of indigenous breeds. Dystocia, or difficult calving requiring assistance, told a far grimmer story: at 15.2 percent, it was roughly three times the internationally reported rate of less than 5 percent and well above figures documented elsewhere in East Africa.

The dystocia finding is particularly consequential for calf and cow survival. The researchers suggest the high prevalence may stem from the composition of the study herd, since 40.2 percent of cows were primiparous, meaning they were calving for the first time with pelvic structures that are not yet fully developed. In addition, the dominance of indigenous cattle raises the likelihood of mismatches between sire and dam sizes, both through artificial insemination with inappropriate semen and through uncontrolled natural mating with bulls of unknown conformation. Difficult calvings delay the return of ovarian activity, lengthen the time to the next conception, and can permanently damage fertility, making this single statistic a plausible driver of the extended calving intervals observed across the district.

When the team ran multivariable binary logistic regression on pregnancy status, three factors emerged as decisive. Body condition score, a direct proxy for nutritional status, was highly significant, echoing decades of evidence that thin cows suffer from anestrus, delayed conception, and reduced fertility. Housing mattered as well: cows kept in shelters had more than four times the odds of being pregnant compared with cows without any housing (odds ratio 4.24, 95 percent confidence interval 1.34 to 13.45). Shelter reduces environmental stress and protects animals from injuries that compromise fertility. Management system also exerted a strong effect, with tethered cattle showing drastically reduced odds of pregnancy compared with zero-grazed animals, an odds ratio of just 0.033. Alarmingly, 83.3 percent of farmers in the study provided no cattle housing at all, and 76.7 percent relied on communal grazing of natural pastures with no sown or conserved feed.

A generalized linear model applied to calving interval painted a complementary picture of which cows breed back fastest. Age was significant, with cows aged four to eight years showing shorter intervals than animals older than eight, consistent with the declining fertility of aged cows and the delayed ovarian recovery of young ones. Parity also mattered: multiparous cows had shorter calving intervals than biparous cows, likely reflecting physiological adaptations from previous calvings that allow a faster return to estrus, whereas second-calf cows often need longer postpartum recovery. Most strikingly, breeding method proved influential. Cows bred by artificial insemination had significantly shorter calving intervals than those mated naturally, a difference the authors link to planned mating and timely insemination rather than to the biology of the semen itself. Yet in practice, natural mating dominated the district, and only a quarter of farmers kept any records, mostly health or visitor logs, leaving most producers blind to the reproductive trajectories of their own animals.

The findings carry clear implications for extension services and policy. Because housing, body condition, and management system all shaped pregnancy outcomes, interventions do not need to be high-tech to be transformative. Simple shelters, strategic supplementation to improve body condition before breeding, and a shift from tethering toward managed grazing or zero-grazing units could raise pregnancy rates substantially. Expanding access to artificial insemination, paired with sire selection that accounts for the size of indigenous dams, could simultaneously shorten calving intervals and reduce the dystocia rate that currently endangers both cows and calves. Basic record keeping, even a simple notebook of calving and mating dates, would allow farmers to identify non-productive animals and cull or treat them in time. The study’s authors recommend appropriate housing and breeding interventions as the priority actions for Namayingo and for comparable smallholder systems across the region.

Beyond the local context, the research contributes to a broader scientific conversation about why cattle fertility lags across African smallholder systems, where livestock underpin more than 70 percent of rural Ugandan livelihoods and cattle account for roughly 73 percent of the gross value of livestock output. Suboptimal reproduction ripples outward: fewer calves mean fewer replacement animals, less milk, less meat, lower household income, and diminished resilience against climate and market shocks. By identifying specific, modifiable risk factors in a non-traditional cattle-keeping district that transitioned from fishing to farming, the study demonstrates that reproductive decline in small herds is neither inevitable nor purely biological. It is, to a large degree, a management problem with management solutions, and the evidence from Namayingo suggests those solutions are well within reach of the farmers who need them most.

Subject of Research: Risk factors affecting reproductive efficiency of cattle in smallholder production systems in Namayingo district, Uganda

Article Title: Risk factors that undermine reproductive efficiency of cattle in smallholder production systems in Namayingo district in Uganda

Article References: Risk factors that undermine reproductive efficiency of cattle in smallholder production systems in Namayingo district in Uganda. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44338-026-00241-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44338-026-00241-8

Keywords: cattle, reproductive efficiency, smallholder farmers, Uganda, calving interval, dystocia, body condition score, artificial insemination, animal housing, pregnancy status, indigenous breeds, livestock production

The scale of the material is far from trivial. An adult horse of roughly 500 kilograms produces an estimated 20 to 31 kilograms of manure and bedding per day, amounting to some 9 to 11 tonnes annually. In regions with dense horse populations, those figures rival municipal bio-waste streams. The County of Wesel in Germany’s Lower Rhine basin, for example, counts more than 8,500 horses alongside 458,000 inhabitants; in 2024 the area collected 32,700 tonnes of bio-waste and 23,300 tonnes of green waste, while horse manure is estimated at around 75,000 tonnes. Yet because many stables sit far from farmland that could recycle those nutrients, manure increasingly generates disposal costs and storage constraints rather than agronomic value.

Chemically, horse manure is a distinctive feedstock. Pure manure contains about 1.0 to 1.7 percent nitrogen on a dry basis, much of it water-soluble and plant-available, along with 0.5 to 1.3 percent phosphorus as P2O5, roughly 1.1 percent potassium as K2O, and 84 to 95 percent organic matter. Its carbon-to-nitrogen ratio typically ranges from 20:1 to 32:1, but bedding materials such as straw or wood shavings can push mixtures above 50:1. That matters agronomically: high C:N materials trigger net nitrogen immobilisation in soil, reducing short-term plant-available nitrogen and potentially depressing yields. If manure is marketed as a fertiliser substitute, customers may perceive weak or even negative fertiliser effects, undermining willingness to pay. The bedding is therefore not a passive bulking agent but a design variable that shapes composting behaviour, nutrient dynamics, and ultimately market positioning.

Controlled composting resolves many of these problems. Thermophilic phases thermally degrade pathogens, parasite eggs, and weed seeds, while microbial activity stabilises labile nitrogen compounds into more predictable, plant-available forms. Finished horse manure composts reported in the literature contain total nitrogen of 1.7 to 2.3 percent, phosphorus up to 1.3 percent, potassium around 1.2 percent, and a near-neutral pH of 6.4 to 6.7, with the C:N ratio falling from an initial 27.3:1 to roughly 15.9:1 and moisture dropping to between 8 and 15 percent. Practical benchmarks, such as the German Organic Waste Ordinance, converge on sustaining temperatures above 55 degrees Celsius for more than two weeks. Studies of small-scale composting of manure with wood shavings show that weekly turning improves hygienisation uniformity, since outer pile layers can otherwise remain insufficiently sanitised. That quality assurance is what opens quality-sensitive horticulture, landscaping, and growing-media markets to manure-derived products.

Emissions, however, constitute the central technical trade-off. Composting generally suppresses methane relative to passive storage because aerobic conditions inhibit methanogenesis, but poorly managed piles can still release considerable methane. Meanwhile, ammonia volatilisation and nitrous oxide emissions can rise, eroding the product’s nitrogen content and contributing to eutrophication and climate forcing. Turning aerates the pile and cuts methane, yet can simultaneously increase ammonia losses by exposing ammonium-rich zones during thermophilic, alkaline phases. Research on dairy manure even shows that pile mixing can raise total measured greenhouse gas emissions while lowering methane alone. The authors conclude that good composting is not a compliance exercise but a core production competence: process control determines hygiene, nitrogen retention, odour, and customer-perceived value. Facilities with optimal aeration and exhaust gas treatment are preferable, which favours centralised processing where horse density or cooperative logistics allow efficient feedstock aggregation.

The systematic EU mapping reveals a structured, application-driven compost market in which soil improvement dominates, followed by fertilising functions and a smaller but meaningful segment for growing-media components. Solid composts prevail, while compost-biochar blends and vermicomposts are increasingly documented. Application fields extend beyond agriculture into horticulture, landscaping, urban greening, engineered soils, remediation, and green roof substrates. That breadth is strategically significant for horse manure, because peri-urban stables are often spatially closer to urban green infrastructure markets than to bulk agricultural outlets, reducing transport costs and enabling circularity branding that raises willingness to pay. The trade-off is that these markets demand higher product consistency and safety, reinforcing the case for controlled composting and rigorous quality management rather than passive pile storage.

Organisational form emerges as a decisive determinant of economic viability. Centralised private plants exploit economies of scale and professional quality assurance but require collection logistics and sufficient horse density. Municipal and public-private systems monetise composting partly through avoided disposal costs and internal use of compost in public green spaces, aligning well with the peri-urban geography of horse keeping. Decentralised models suit small holdings with limited investment capacity, where the business case rests on avoided container rental, haulage, and disposal contracts rather than product sales, though governance mechanisms are needed if products leave the site. Notably, the literature review found no documented cases of co-composting horse manure with municipal bio-waste, despite the apparent synergy: blending manure with kitchen and garden waste would raise nitrogen and potassium in the finished compost and could improve the economics of both streams.

Product differentiation offers the most promising frontier. Vermicomposting can unlock premium horticultural markets through higher microbial activity and nutrient availability, but it demands prior hygienisation and careful process management, raising complexity and risk. Compost-biochar blends present a more scalable strategy: biochar incorporated during composting improves nutrient retention and microbial habitat, and its carbon can persist in soils for decades to centuries, qualifying as a plausible carbon dioxide removal pathway. Voluntary carbon markets have begun recognising biochar-based removals, suggesting that carbon monetisation is more credible in compost-biochar models than in composting alone, provided monitoring, reporting, and verification frameworks are in place. Formulation design also follows application logic: fertiliser-oriented composts target C:N ratios of 8:1 to 12:1, soil improvers sit between 12:1 and 18:1, and carbon-storage or remediation blends exceed 18:1, often above 30:1 with woody biomass or biochar.

Regulation threads through every business model. Under the EU Fertilising Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/1009) and national frameworks such as Germany’s Fertilizer Act, Fertilizer Ordinance, and Bio-waste Ordinance, requirements for storage capacity, spreading periods, and waste classification shape what is legally and commercially feasible. Directive 2008/98/EC mandates separate biowaste collection, and the EU Soil Strategy for 2030 raises demand for organic matter inputs in degradation-prone regions such as Southern Europe. The authors’ central message is that viable models must treat regulatory conformity and quality assurance as core capabilities enabling market access, not external constraints. Horse-specific data on emissions, pharmaceuticals, and antibiotic resistance genes remain sparse compared with cattle and pig systems, and systematic evaluation of decentralised peri-urban systems is scarce. Future work combining horse-specific process monitoring with economic modelling across organisational structures would strengthen the evidence base for policy and investment. The larger conclusion is striking: Europe’s horse manure problem is really a design problem, and its solution lies in engineering purpose-built compost products, organisational models, and carbon strategies around the material’s distinctive chemistry.

Subject of Research: Business models for utilising horse manure through compost-based value chains in the European Union

Article Title: Business Models for Horse Manure Utilisation in the European Union: Compost-Based Products, Market Pathways, and Carbon Integration

Article References: Pleissner, D., Podßun, P., Hölscher, P., & Friege, H. (2026). Business Models for Horse Manure Utilisation in the European Union: Compost-Based Products, Market Pathways, and Carbon Integration. Waste and Biomass Valorization. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-026-03776-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12649-026-03776-9

Keywords: horse manure, composting, circular economy, soil improver, biochar, carbon credits, peri-urban agriculture, EU Fertilising Products Regulation, waste valorization, growing media, greenhouse gas emissions, business models

Short tandem repeats are stretches of DNA in which a short sequence of two to six base pairs is repeated over and over, such as ATATATAT. Because the number of repeats varies widely between individuals, STRs form the backbone of DNA profiling in human forensics. Standardized human STR genotyping systems, built on carefully validated panels of markers, allow laboratories around the world to produce comparable, court-admissible profiles. Animal forensics has never enjoyed that level of coordination. Validated STR markers for most domestic and wild species are scarce, and the markers that do exist are often dinucleotide STRs, repeats of just two base pairs, which are notoriously prone to genotyping artifacts such as stutter, the generation of spurious off-by-one peaks that complicate interpretation. Population data, which allow forensic scientists to calculate the statistical weight of a match, are frequently missing altogether.

The team behind pSTRminer, led by Jiajun Liu, Zhentang Liu, and senior authors Hongyu Sun and Riga Wu of the Faculty of Forensic Medicine at Zhongshan School of Medicine, set out to close these gaps with a single, scalable computational framework. The software automates what has traditionally been a fragmented, largely manual workflow: scanning a reference genome for STR loci, genotyping those loci in large collections of whole-genome sequencing data, and then scoring each locus for the properties that matter in forensic practice, including genotyping success rate and polymorphism information content, a standard measure of how informative a genetic marker is for distinguishing individuals.

To demonstrate the power of the approach, the researchers turned to domestic cattle, Bos taurus, one of the most economically and forensically significant livestock species in the world. Applying pSTRminer to the cattle reference genome, they identified 775,444 STRs de novo, a catalog of repeat loci far exceeding anything previously assembled for the species. They then genotyped this catalog using whole-genome sequencing data from 60 Chinese cattle and 111 African cattle, two populations chosen to represent sharply divergent genetic backgrounds. The logic is straightforward but important: a marker that appears highly variable in only one breed or region may be nearly useless elsewhere, so evaluating polymorphism across diverse lineages is essential before any locus can be recommended for global forensic use.

From this population-scale analysis, the team constructed the cattle STR database, or CSDB, a curated resource containing only those loci that met stringent quality criteria: a genotyping success rate of at least 40 percent and a polymorphism information content of at least 0.5. These thresholds ensure that the database holds markers that both amplify reliably in the laboratory and carry enough variation to discriminate between individuals. The sensitivity of the database to the genotyping success rate threshold was examined in supplementary analyses, giving future users a transparent view of how the marker set changes as criteria are tightened or relaxed.

Computational screening alone, however, is not enough for forensic work. Markers destined for casework must survive contact with real samples. The researchers therefore experimentally validated a panel of loci in a local Chinese cattle population of 145 animals using next-generation sequencing. Thirty tetranucleotide STRs, repeats of four base pairs, and 33 dinucleotide STRs were randomly selected from the database and tested. The validation confirmed that the markers were reliable, and it produced a nuanced picture of the trade-offs between repeat types. Tetranucleotide STRs showed lower average polymorphism than their dinucleotide counterparts, meaning they tend to be somewhat less variable across individuals. But they carried a decisive advantage: significantly lower stutter ratios, a difference the authors report as statistically significant at p less than 0.05. In practical terms, four-base-pair repeats generate fewer genotyping artifacts, producing cleaner, easier-to-interpret profiles.

That finding matters because stutter is one of the most persistent headaches in STR analysis. When a polymerase copies a repeat tract, it occasionally slips, adding or dropping a repeat unit and creating a minor artifact peak one repeat shorter or longer than the true allele. Dinucleotide repeats, with their short two-base motif, are especially vulnerable to this slippage. A marker with high stutter can obscure genuine alleles, particularly in degraded or low-template samples common in forensic contexts. By demonstrating that certain tetranucleotide STRs can actually surpass dinucleotide STRs in polymorphism while producing far fewer artifacts, the study lays out a viable path toward building animal STR panels that are both highly discriminative and technically robust. Systematic screening across the CSDB revealed that such high-performing tetranucleotide loci are not rare exceptions but a discoverable resource waiting to be tapped.

The broader significance of pSTRminer extends well beyond cattle. The software integrates established components of the modern genomics pipeline, drawing on widely used tools for read preprocessing, alignment, and STR genotyping, and wraps them into a reproducible workflow that reduces the manual operations required to move from raw sequencing data to a validated marker panel. The authors provide detailed documentation of the commands needed to reproduce their analyses, and supplementary tables include the formulas used to calculate forensic parameters, the overlap between STRs currently in use and those newly identified in cattle, and recommended analytical thresholds for heterozygote balance at validated loci. In effect, the study offers not just a database but a blueprint that other laboratories can follow to develop standardized STR systems for dogs, cats, horses, yaks, wildlife species, or any organism with a reference genome and population sequencing data.

The need for such tools is well documented in the forensic literature. Individual identification systems based on STR panels have been developed for domestic cats, dogs, and horses, and microsatellite marker sets have been proposed for parentage testing in cattle, yaks, and Chinese Holstein bulls. Yet each of these efforts has relied on comparatively small collections of markers, often selected without genome-wide polymorphism data or population-scale validation. Human forensics, by contrast, has moved decisively toward expanded multiplex systems and sequencing-based genotyping, supported by open population databases built from large-scale sequencing projects such as the 1000 Genomes Project. pSTRminer aims to bring animal forensics closer to that standard, enabling marker discovery at the scale the human field now takes for granted.

The work, supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Sun Yat-sen University, and the authors acknowledge the publicly available whole-genome sequencing data from the NCBI Sequence Read Archive that made the population analyses possible. For forensic scientists, the arrival of pSTRminer and the CSDB marks a shift from ad hoc marker selection to systematic, data-driven panel design. A single hair from a stolen calf, a bloodstain on a suspect’s boot, or a trace of tissue from a poached animal could soon be profiled with the same rigor and statistical confidence that human DNA evidence enjoys. As genome sequencing becomes cheaper and reference genomes accumulate for more species, the framework promises to make animal forensic genetics faster, cleaner, and more defensible, one well-validated repeat at a time.

Subject of Research: Genome-wide identification and population-scale evaluation of polymorphic short tandem repeats for animal forensic genetics

Article Title: pSTRminer: integrated bioinformatic software for genome-wide identification and population-scale evaluation of polymorphic short tandem repeats

Article References: pSTRminer: integrated bioinformatic software for genome-wide identification and population-scale evaluation of polymorphic short tandem repeats. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-026-04002-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00414-026-04002-w

Keywords: pSTRminer, short tandem repeats, forensic genetics, cattle, bioinformatics, genotyping, polymorphism, next-generation sequencing, STR database, animal forensics, population genetics, tetranucleotide STRs

The urgency behind the research is easy to grasp. The United Nations projects a global population of roughly 9.8 billion by 2050, and the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 70 percent more food will be needed to feed it. Meat demand is rising fastest in developing economies, where growing incomes translate into appetite for premium animal products. According to the OECD and FAO, world meat output reached an estimated 365 to 373 million tons in 2024 and could exceed 400 million tons by 2034, with Asia driving much of the increase. Conventional livestock farming already accounts for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, 29 percent of agricultural freshwater use, and 40 percent of land utilization, which makes the search for alternatives increasingly pressing.

Technically, cultured meat production rests on three pillars: sourcing and expanding the right cells, growing them at scale in bioreactors, and structuring the resulting tissue into something that resembles real meat. The review traces the cell biology in detail. Satellite cells, the muscle stem cells first identified by Alexander Mauro in 1961, readily differentiate into myotubes and remain a favored starting material. Embryonic stem cells from pigs and cattle are still difficult to maintain in an undifferentiated state, but induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, offer an ethically cleaner and more scalable route, since adult cells can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent state and then directed to become muscle or fat. Immortalized cell lines, which replicate indefinitely in culture, are also under investigation as a way to avoid repeated animal biopsies.

Scaling up is where the engineering gets hard. Conventional stirred-tank bioreactors, the workhorses of pharmaceutical cell culture, struggle with cost, energy demand, and shear stress when adapted to meat production. Microcarrier-based expansion, in which adherent muscle and fat cells grow on tiny suspended particles, has emerged as a promising strategy because it dramatically increases the surface area available for cell attachment. But microcarriers bring their own problems: uneven cell distribution, particle aggregation, mass-transfer limits, and the challenge of separating cells from carriers. The review highlights edible and biodegradable microcarriers as a critical innovation, citing recent work on macroporous edible carriers used to 3D-print cultured fish fillets. Perfusion, packed-bed, and hollow-fiber bioreactor designs are also being explored, each trading off nutrient delivery, shear, and scalability in different ways.

Scaffolding technology, the third pillar, determines whether cultured meat can ever match the texture of a steak. An effective scaffold must mimic the mechanical and biochemical properties of native muscle while remaining edible, cheap, and food-safe. Collagen and gelatin have long been the materials of choice, but their animal-derived origins raise sustainability concerns, pushing researchers toward plant, algal, fungal, and marine alternatives, including proteins recovered from fish-processing by-products. The review emphasizes that scaffold stiffness and viscoelasticity directly regulate myoblast behavior, so tuning stress relaxation and elasticity is now a central design goal. Hydrogels, bioinks, and decellularized plant tissues are among the most promising platforms, and crosslinking strategies, from thermal gelation to enzymatic methods, are being refined to keep scaffolds stable under dynamic culture conditions.

On the environmental question, the review refuses to declare a winner. The landmark 2011 life cycle assessment by Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos found that cultured meat could use 7 to 45 percent less energy, emit 78 to 96 percent fewer greenhouse gases, require 99 percent less land, and consume 82 to 96 percent less water than European-produced meat. Those figures have been cited endlessly, but the new review urges caution. Anticipatory life cycle assessments are scenarios, not predictions, and future production methods may differ fundamentally from the models. More strikingly, a cradle-to-gate assessment by Risner and colleagues found that cultured meat produced with highly refined growth media could have a greater environmental impact than conventional beef, because the pharmaceutical-grade ingredients are so energy-intensive to make.

The climate accounting is subtler than it first appears. Lynch and Pierrehumbert showed that because cattle emit methane, a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas, their warming effect can peak and stabilize, whereas cultured meat production releases carbon dioxide, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries. Over long time horizons, the persistent CO2 from cell-culture facilities could outweigh the avoided methane, particularly in scenarios with modest meat consumption. Energy demand is a recurring theme: producing a kilogram of beef, pork, or sheep requires roughly 27,410, 16,300, and 23,100 megajoules respectively, while cultured meat is estimated at 32,710 megajoules, even though it needs the least land. Improving energy efficiency, the authors conclude, will be essential to realizing any environmental benefit.

Economics may be the toughest barrier of all. Culturing animal cells demands precise temperature, pH, and oxygen control, continuous electricity, and expensive growth media, with growth factors and serum alternatives accounting for a large share of total cost. Fetal bovine serum, long the standard supplement, is being replaced in research labs but not yet at industrial scale. Until production costs fall substantially, cultured meat remains financially inaccessible to most consumers, especially in low- and middle-income countries where meat demand is growing fastest. The review also notes that cultured meat competes not only with conventional meat but with plant-based alternatives that are already widely accepted, cheaper, and on supermarket shelves.

Consumer psychology adds another layer of complexity. Surveys suggest likely early adopters tend to be young, well-educated meat eaters who are open to reducing their consumption of slaughtered meat, but food neophobia and perceptions of unnaturalness remain powerful deterrents, particularly in parts of Asia. Even the name matters: labels like in vitro meat, clean meat, lab-grown meat, and cultured meat each shape public perception differently, and advocates worry that any term implying the product is fake could undermine acceptance. Sensory fidelity is a related challenge, since cultured tissue lacks the blood vessels, nerves, intramuscular fat, and connective tissue that contribute so much to the flavor of conventional beef.

Ethically, the picture is genuinely mixed. Cultured meat would spare billions of animals the confinement and slaughter of factory farming, and some scientists even classify it as a vegetarian product, an appealing prospect for vegans and conscientious omnivores. Yet cells must still be harvested from living animals by biopsy, raising welfare questions of its own, and the continued reliance on animal-derived materials in media and scaffolds complicates the slaughter-free narrative. The review closes with a call for serum-free media, energy-efficient bioreactors, vascularized tissue engineering, real-world life cycle data, transparent labeling, and clear regulatory frameworks, arguing that only sustained interdisciplinary collaboration among biotechnologists, food scientists, policymakers, and industry will determine whether cultured meat becomes a transformative food system technology or an expensive niche experiment.

Subject of Research: Environmental, technological, and socio-economic assessment of cultured meat as an alternative to conventional livestock production

Article Title: A review of environmental, technological, and socio-economic aspects of cultured meat

Article References: Singh, R., Prasad, S., Younis, K., & Yousuf, O. (2026). A review of environmental, technological, and socio-economic aspects of cultured meat. Discover Biotechnology, 3(1), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44340-026-00052-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44340-026-00052-3

Keywords: cultured meat, cellular agriculture, food security, sustainability, tissue engineering, bioreactors, greenhouse gas emissions, animal welfare, consumer acceptance, life cycle assessment, stem cells, food technology

A team at Korea’s National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation, led by Ye-Bin Jang and corresponding author Mi-Ok Kim, has now closed that gap. Writing in Food Science of Animal Resources, the researchers describe an optimized liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) method that simultaneously quantifies 18 structurally diverse anthelmintic and antiparasitic compounds across nine animal-derived food matrices: beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, porcine fat, flatfish, eel, and shrimp. Beyond niclosamide, the method brings rarely monitored compounds such as derquantel, bithionol, and nitroxinil into quantitative reach, expanding both the chemical and the biological scope of routine residue surveillance.

The analytical challenge is formidable because the target compounds span six major chemical classes with very different physicochemical personalities. Benzimidazoles such as triclabendazole attack larval and adult parasites alike; salicylanilides including closantel, rafoxanide, and niclosamide also knock down ectoparasites like ticks; tetrahydropyrimidines such as morantel and pyrantel act as nicotinic receptor agonists; imidazothiazoles like levamisole target roundworms; and the macrocyclic lactones—abamectin, ivermectin, doramectin, eprinomectin, and moxidectin—are large, extremely lipophilic molecules that cling stubbornly to fatty tissue. Add praziquantel and nitroxinil to the list, and a single run must coax compounds ranging from small polar bases to sprawling lipid-like structures through the same column and ion source.

Sample preparation began with the QuEChERS approach—Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe—which uses salt-induced phase separation to pull analytes from homogenized tissue into acetonitrile. The team compared three salt formulations: the unbuffered Original method with magnesium sulfate and sodium chloride, the citrate-buffered EN 15662 version, and the acetate-buffered AOAC variant. The verdict was decisive. In flatfish, the buffered methods produced calibration curves for abamectin with coefficients of determination of just 0.2304 and 0.0385—essentially useless—while the Original salts delivered R² values above 0.99 for all 18 compounds. The researchers attribute the failure of buffered systems to citrate and acetate ions altering salting-out efficiency and promoting co-extraction of lipids, proteins, and phospholipids, which then suppress ionization of the lipophilic macrocyclic lactones during electrospray.

Extraction used acetonitrile acidified with 0.1% formic acid, a combination known to improve recovery and precision for veterinary drugs in animal tissue. Clean-up followed with dispersive solid-phase extraction, and here the sorbent recipe mattered enormously. C18 alone left chlorfluazuron, levamisole, triclabendazole, and keto-triclabendazole with substandard linearity; PSA alone failed for chlorfluazuron and triclabendazole. Only the pairing of 400 milligrams of PSA with 400 milligrams of C18, plus 1,200 milligrams of magnesium sulfate, achieved R² values of at least 0.99 across the entire panel. PSA’s amino groups mop up organic acids and sugars, while C18 adsorbs nonpolar fats and fat-soluble interferences—a synergy the team standardized by purifying a fixed 8-milliliter extract volume for every matrix.

On the instrument side, chromatographic separation ran on a Waters Xbridge C18 column with a gradient of water containing 5 millimolar ammonium formate and 0.1% formic acid against acetonitrile with 0.1% formic acid. Retention times spanned from 1.9 minutes for morantel to 6.4 minutes for ivermectin. Detection used a Shimadzu LCMS-8060 triple quadrupole in multiple reaction monitoring mode, switching between positive and negative electrospray ionization, with precursor ions, product ions, and collision energies optimized by direct infusion of standards. The most intense transition served for quantification while secondary transitions confirmed identity.

Matrix effects proved to be the method’s central analytical adversary. Co-extracted lipids and proteins distort electrospray ionization, and the team measured signal changes of at least 20% for most analytes. Ion suppression dominated, ranging down to −96.08%, with abamectin, levamisole, pyrantel, and triclabendazole suppressed in every single matrix. Moxidectin, by contrast, showed ion enhancement in several foods, including chicken, milk, and all three fishery products. Rather than turning to isotope-labeled internal standards—impractical and costly for an 18-compound panel—the researchers built matrix-matched calibration curves in blank extracts of each food, so standards and samples ionize under identical chemical conditions and systematic signal bias cancels out at the quantification stage.

Validated under CODEX guideline CAC/GL-71, the method met every performance criterion. Matrix-matched calibration curves exceeded R² of 0.99 for all compounds in all nine matrices. Limits of quantification ranged from 0.0033 to 0.0054 milligrams per kilogram, all below half of the established MRLs. Intraday recovery and precision across the matrices fell between 72.0 and 119.1% with coefficients of variation no higher than 18.2%, comfortably inside CODEX windows, and interday testing on three consecutive days with two analysts held recoveries between 72.0 and 118.7% with CVs at or below 19.0%.

To test real-world utility, the team analyzed 60 market samples—30 livestock and 30 fishery products chosen for high Korean consumption. None of the 18 target analytes was detected, a reassuring snapshot of the domestic supply, though the authors stress that continued surveillance remains essential. The method’s true significance lies in what it enables going forward: quantitative enforcement for drugs like niclosamide that previously escaped numeric scrutiny, a single validated workflow spanning meat, dairy, eggs, and seafood, and a technical foundation for setting and revising safety standards. As veterinary drug use intensifies globally and resistant parasites push dosing upward, tools like this one turn regulatory limits from paper promises into measurable, enforceable protections for the food supply.

Subject of Research: Development and validation of a QuEChERS-based LC–MS/MS method for quantifying multiclass veterinary anthelmintic residues in animal-derived foods

Article Title: Optimized LC–MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of multiclass veterinary anthelmintic residues in animal-derived matrices

Article References: Optimized LC–MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of multiclass veterinary anthelmintic residues in animal-derived matrices. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44463-026-00098-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44463-026-00098-1

Keywords: anthelmintics, LC-MS/MS, veterinary drug residues, QuEChERS, food safety, maximum residue limits, matrix-matched calibration, livestock products, fishery products, niclosamide, mass spectrometry, residue monitoring

The pilot study was conducted during the summer of 2023 at two very different UK institutions: the small Fenn Bell Conservation Project in Kent, where 76 visitors observed a pair of Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinereus), and the much larger Twycross Zoo in the Midlands, where 155 visitors studied two Rothschild giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi). Participants were recruited through posters with QR codes at the enclosures and asked to watch the animals for two minutes before completing an online questionnaire built on a pre-defined ethogram, a structured list of species-typical behaviours including positive, negative and neutral welfare indicators. The questionnaire also invited optional sections on how the animals seemed to be feeling, what animal welfare meant to the visitors themselves, and how they had found the citizen science experience.

Technically, the design was deliberately cautious. Because visitor observations could not be paired with simultaneous video observations from the same individual, and because the two data sources differed in duration, the researchers did not treat the comparison as a validation exercise. Instead, they used systematically coded CCTV footage as a reference dataset, applying instantaneous scan sampling with one-minute intervals between 11am and 3pm, and summarising both datasets as hourly and daily presence or absence records. At the daily level, both data sources captured walking or running in the otters on all study days and chewing the cud, eating and drinking, standing and locomotion in the giraffe, while the largest discrepancies appeared for infrequent or harder-to-identify behaviours such as grooming and social interactions.

The psychological results proved equally instructive. Visitors scored the animals on eight qualitative terms, including content, relaxed, agitated, frustrated, comfortable, wary, confident and distressed, and then gave an overall welfare rating from 1 to 10. Spearman’s rank correlations revealed a coherent pattern at both sites: welfare scores rose alongside positively valenced adjectives such as content, comfortable, confident and lively or engaged, and fell alongside negative terms such as frustrated, agitated and wary. For the otters, the correlation with contentment was particularly strong, while for the giraffe even wary and agitated scores tracked downward with welfare ratings. Although participants were told in advance which terms indicated positive or negative welfare, the authors note these exploratory associations provide preliminary evidence of construct validity in public assessments of animal affective states.

Perhaps the most encouraging finding concerned how visitors conceptualised welfare itself. Asked to define or describe animal welfare, most respondents produced answers that mapped cleanly onto the Five Domains model, the contemporary framework covering nutrition, environment, health, behaviour and mental state. At Fenn Bell, 86 percent referenced physiological welfare, 64 percent mental state and 41 percent behaviour; at Twycross the figures were 93, 54 and 24 percent respectively. Fifteen otter visitors and thirteen giraffe visitors touched on all three broad themes, offering definitions such as meeting an animal’s emotional, physical, mental and health needs as naturally as possible through diet, environment and enrichment. The researchers observed, however, that visitors leaned towards input-based measures such as food and space rather than output-based measures such as behaviour, and that behavioural domains were the hardest for the public to articulate.

Where visitors learned their welfare concepts also carried a clear message for the zoo sector. Zoos themselves ranked among the most frequently cited sources of knowledge, with 45 of the Twycross respondents attributing their understanding to that zoo alone, ahead of television documentaries and educational facilities. The authors interpret this as evidence that educational material provided by zoos is being positively received, and they recommend that zoos place greater emphasis on positive behavioural interactions within their welfare science communication. Given that negative public perceptions of welfare can erode trust in zoos and reduce willingness to engage in conservation efforts, effective communication of welfare science is not a luxury but a strategic necessity for modern institutions.

Engagement levels were striking. At Twycross, where a researcher was present at the enclosure to encourage participation, an average of 27 visitors per day completed the survey; at the smaller Fenn Bell site, where participation was self-directed, the mean was 3.4 per day. Across both sites, 93 to 95 percent of respondents said they would take part in a similar activity again, and 79 percent overall described the process as rewarding. Crucially, the majority of participants were infrequent zoo visitors, with the largest group attending less than once a year, suggesting that citizen science could reach beyond the committed membership base of season-pass holders. Most participants also expressed confidence in their ability to identify the behaviours on the ethogram, which the researchers attribute to the deliberately simple design of the observation task.

The study is candid about the limitations of visitor-generated behavioural data. The otters were out of sight of the cameras for 67 percent of video observations, and both visitors and cameras faced blind spots and varying viewing opportunities. Behaviours that were infrequent or complex, such as positive social interactions in the otters or grooming in the giraffe, showed the greatest divergence between the two datasets. The authors stress that their analyses are exploratory descriptions of behavioural occurrence rather than measures of observer accuracy or reliability, and they call for future studies using time-matched designs, cameras positioned to replicate the visitor’s view, and controlled comparisons with trained observers to enable formal inter-rater reliability assessment. Training, structured prompts and simplified measures such as active versus inactive states are proposed as ways to improve data quality.

Beyond the data, the researchers argue, the process itself may deliver benefits that matter to the mission of the modern zoo. Watching animals closely is known to foster empathy and a sense of connectedness, visiting zoos has been linked to improved human wellbeing, and citizen science participation has been associated with gains in scientific understanding. Longer dwell times at exhibits may not automatically translate into learning, but they can deepen the visitor experience and support lasting connections with nature. As biodiversity losses reach unprecedented levels and conservation science becomes an ever more urgent discipline, the authors conclude that engaging zoo visitors in behavioural citizen science deserves far wider consideration, both as a source of data on how animals spend their opening hours and as a pathway to a more empathetic, conservation-minded public.

The study sits within a broader rethinking of what zoos are for. Traditional frameworks described zoos through four pillars of conservation, education, research and recreation, but more recent models have proposed adding a fifth pillar of wellbeing that applies to both animals and people, alongside a ‘sphere of influence’ recognising that zoos operate at local, national and global scales. Within that framing, communicating welfare science to the public is not peripheral but central, since public trust depends heavily on whether visitors believe the animals they are watching are thriving.

Citizen science itself is usually understood as having two distinct strands. In one, the priority is collecting usable data at scale, as in large wildlife monitoring programmes; in the other, the priority is engaging citizens, with data quality a secondary concern. The zoo project deliberately straddled both, and the tension between them explains much of the authors’ caution about the behavioural records. Previous zoo-based citizen science in the UK, such as campaigns encouraging visitors to log native species seen on site, has built ecological awareness but stopped short of fostering connections with the zoo’s own animals, a gap this study sought to address.

The choice of study species was pragmatic rather than incidental. Asian small-clawed otters and Rothschild giraffe were selected because they were consistently visible from public viewing areas, attracted longer dwell times, and could accommodate camera installations allowing simultaneous remote observation. Behavioural research is already the dominant form of zoo science, valued for capturing real-time information about animal experiences at low cost, yet large-scale data collection can be impractical for busy animal care staff. Distributing observation across millions of annual visitors offers one possible solution, provided questions of validity and reliability are resolved.

Earlier work also suggests the timing matters: visitors report more positive experiences and stronger feelings of connection after watching animals, particularly active ones, meaning the observation task itself may amplify the very engagement the projects aim to cultivate.

Subject of Research: Citizen science engagement of zoo visitors in animal behaviour and welfare assessment

Article Title: Exploring citizen science as a tool for engaging zoo visitors with animal welfare

Article References: Stephens, D., Wright, D., Rowden, L., Frost, N., Carter, A., Ward, S. J., & Williams, E. (2026). Exploring citizen science as a tool for engaging zoo visitors with animal welfare. Discover Animals, 3(1), Article 85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44338-026-00247-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44338-026-00247-2

Keywords: citizen science, zoos, animal welfare, animal behaviour, Five Domains model, ethogram, visitor engagement, giraffe, Asian small-clawed otter, conservation education, public engagement, affective state