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Fish Oil Can Help Congestive Heart Failure

Here is a new published study showing that taking fish oil can reduce the risk of death in patients with heart failure. An Italian study showing the benefits of fish oil was just published in the Lancet (a prestigious medical journal). This study also showed that heart patients who take fish oil are less likely to be hospitalized.
The results show that those given the fish oil were 9% less likely to die during that 4 year period. The difference went from 9% to 14% when researchers examined the 5,000 patients who took the capsules once a day as directed (I think this means some patients didn’t take their medicine as directed). The number of those admitted to hospital for arrhythmias fell by 28% during the same period.

Luigi Tavazzi of the National Association of Hospital Cardiologists (Italy) said ”Our study shows that the long-term administration of one gram per day of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid was effective in reducing both all-cause mortality and admissions to hospital for cardiovascular reasons.

More information can be found at: http://stem-cell-therapy.blogspot.com/2008/09/fish-oil-can-help-congestive-heart.html

Fish brains help design feed of the future

UQ researchers are analysing fish brains and fish feeding behaviour so they can help create new environmentally friendly feed for aquaculture.
UQ PhD student Jeremy Ullmann has been studying farmed barramundi at UQ’s Moreton Bay Research Station for the last year and a half.

Mr Ullmann said he was assessing how important sensory systems were to the barramundi so he could tailor fish feed which could be applied to other fish species and reduce the aquaculture’s reliance on fishmeal.
The aim of this research is to first identify which sensory systems are important to feeding, and then determine abilities and preferences with the goal to increase feeding and eventually create alternative protein diets,” Mr Ullmann said

More information canbe found at: http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=12123

Oldest Live-Birth Fossil Found; Fish Had Umbilical Cord

Carolyn Barry in Sydney, Australia
for National Geographic News
May 28, 2008
Remains of the world’s oldest known mother have been unearthed in the Australian outback, scientists say.

The remarkably well-preserved fossil—about 375 to 380 million years old—shows an embryo connected to its mother fish by an umbilical cord.

It is the earliest evidence of a vertebrate giving birth to live young, shifting back the date some 200 million years, said John Long, head of sciences at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and lead author of a new study describing the find.

(See a prehistoric time line.)

The fossil is also the earliest record of vertebrate sex, since live birth occurs when an ovum, or egg, has been fertilized internally by male sex cells.

“Having such advanced reproduction for a fish that primitive is amazing,” Long said.

Evidence of live birth—as opposed to egg laying—is extremely rare and has only been found in a few fossils of dolphin-like reptiles called ichthyosaurs and marine lizards known as mosasaurs, Long said.

The new fossil captures a long-extinct placoderm, a primitive, shark-like armored fish.

(Related: “Shark Ate Amphibian Ate Fish: First ‘Food-Chain Fossil’” [November 8, 2007].)

Dinosaurs of the Sea

Often called the “dinosaurs of the sea,” placoderms were the ruling class of marine creatures for 70 million years—in the middle of the Paleozoic period—until their extinction about 360 million years ago.

Evolutionary Innovation

Michael Lee, an evolutionary biologist at the South Australian Museum, was not involved in the new research.

“Live-bearing and maternal nourishment of embryos is a very important evolutionary innovation, which we ourselves exhibit,” Lee said.

“The evidence that the included individual is an embryo [rather than ingested prey] is very strong—it’s the same species, the right size to be an embryo, in the correct location within the body, and has what appear to be umbilical structures.”

Live birth “might be preserved more commonly than we thought. Now that we know what to look for, it might be noticed more often,” he added.

In fact, a reevaluation of a fossil found in 1986 reveals that it is a second placoderm fossil with three embryos nestled inside the mother. Study author Long had found the second specimen, a Gogonasus fossil, on an expedition to Gogo funded by a National Geographic Society grant. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society).

More information can be found at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080528-mother-fossil_2.html

Aquaculture Investment Opportunity

I note with interest ath at The Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre (Seafood CRC) has an opportunity for existing Seafood CRC industry participants, or new industry participants, to invest up to $2,450,000 over six years in research that will deliver transformation improvement to the Australian seafood industry. 

The Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre (Seafood CRC) has an opportunity for existing Seafood CRC industry participants, or new industry participants, to invest up to $2,450,000 over six years in research that will deliver transformation improvement to the Australian seafood industry. 

The full article is below, but may be of interest to a number of participants

http://www.growfish.com.au/content.asp?contentid=12339&utm_source=Aquafeed+English+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e38be53bea-Aquafeed_Newsletter_-+11+-+6+-+2008&utm_medium=email

Offshore Aquaculture Economics: Key US Report

Globally, interest in aquaculture and the benefits it brings, is continually increasing. The US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently published a report examining the economic potential and prospect for success of offshore aquaculture in the US.

The report, titled Offshore Aquaculture in the United States: Economic Considerations, Implications & Opportunities, was developed by leading fisheries and resource economists and business experts. The report examined the following in the context of the US:

  • Trends and factors shaping aquaculture today;
  • Forces that will drive it in the future;
  • Inputs and outputs necessary to sustain its growth;
  • Economic consequences of offshore aquaculture development in the United States; and
  • Benefits and costs of such a domestic industry to the nation.

Additional information on the report can be found on the NOAA website at this link.

Aquaculture Research Funding Grant

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration has recently awarded three grants aimed at furthering offshore aquaculture in the US.

Great Bay Aquaculture in Portsmouth, N.H., and the University of New Hampshire in nearby Durham will receive funding for aquaculture research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) announced yesterday.

Great Bay Aquaculture will land a $250,000 grant for a pilot Atlantic cod farm in the Gulf of Maine that will explore sustainable farming practices. UNH will receive two grants: $212,304 to support its offshore longline mussel farm project and $474,999 to research the economic viability of offshore fish farming.

For the full article from Seafood Source News, please follow the link here.

National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service has established a National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center in Franklin, Maine. The Center is currently focusing it’s efforts on genetic improvement of Atlantic Salmon.

Form more information on the Center’s research efforts, please follow the link here.