When Sean Crosson was a child growing up in rural Texas, he learned about vaccinating cattle against Bang’s disease from his high school agriculture teacher. The disease’s name amused him at the time. 

 

Now, Crosson, a Professor Rudolph Hugh Endowed Chair in Michigan State University’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics and Immunology, has been awarded a $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the cause of that very disease, Brucella abortus.

A new study from Stanford researchers shows central California’s vast San Joaquin Valley has sunk at record pace since 2006. Strategic recharging of aquifers could help slow or stop the sinking.

Shifting our diets to be more sustainable can be a powerful way for each of us to address both climate change and global food insecurity, however making such adjustments at the large scales necessary to make a difference globally can be a delicate matter.

Researchers are providing new information and guidance on monitoring and managing viruses that cause life-threatening diseases in amphibians, reptiles and fish, as detailed in the second edition of Ranaviruses: Emerging Pathogens of Ectothermic Vertebrates. The new book is edited by Matt Gray, associate director of the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture Center for Wildlife Health and professor in the School of Natural Resources, and V. Gregory Chinchar, a professor emeritus at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.