The influence of egg white lysozyme on the size, shape, crystallography, and chemical composition of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) particles obtained from aqueous CaCl2-dimethyl carbonate (DMC)-NaOH solutions was studied. At the onset of precipitation, the presence of lysozyme led to much smaller particles (50-400 nm spherical amorphous lysozyme-calcium carbonate particles (Ly-ACC)) than th...

Leptomonas wallacei is a trypanosomatid that develops promastigotes and cystic forms in the gut of the hemipteran insect Oncopeltus fasciatus. Insect trypanosomatids are thought to be solely transmitted from one host to another through the ingestion of parasite-contaminated feces. However, here we show that L. wallacei cysts present on the eggshells of eggs laid by O. fasciatus can also act as ...

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of sunflower meal (SFM) and niacin on laying hens performances, biochemical parameters, antioxidant status, and egg yolk cholesterol concentration. A total of 960, White Leghorn (Hy-Line W-36) commercial layers were randomly assigned to 12 groupsof 8 replicates with 10 hens each. Hens were allocated to diets 1 through 12 in a 3...

Ministry of the Flemish Community, Agricultural Research Centre, Department of Animal Product Quality and Transformation Technology, Brusselsesteenweg 370, 9090 Melle, Belgium Laboratory of Agricultural Machinery and Processing, Department of Agro-Engineering and Economics, Catholic University Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 30, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium Laboratory of Food Microbiology and Food Prese...

Morphogenesis of the respiratory appendages on eggshells of Drosophila species provides a powerful experimental system for studying how cell sheets give rise to complex three-dimensional structures. In Drosophila melanogaster, each of the two tubular eggshell appendages is derived from a primordium comprising two distinct cell types. Using live imaging and three-dimensional image reconstruction...

Unquestionably, the sanitary quality of the hatching eggs will affect the quality of the day-old chicks. The egg leaves the oviduct free of any microorganisms (except for vertically-transmitted pathologies), but even eggs which are laid « clean » present a wide diversity of bacteria on the shell. Furthermore, after being laid, the egg’s temperature drops (from 41 to 21°C), which causes embryoni...

The effect of either hot or cool brooding litter temperature on feed consumption, BW, and mortality of broiler chicks that had been exposed to either normal or high temperature during latter stages of incubation was studied in 2 experiments. The duration of experiments 1 and 2 was 14 and 21 d, respectively, with BW and feed consumption determined at 2, 5, 7, and 14 d of age in experiment 1 and ...

Studies in Europe have reported negative effects of acid deposition on forest birds, and research in North America has identified links between forest bird abundance and rates of acid deposition. We examined the bird community in an acidified forest in central Pennsylvania (USA) and evaluated the effects of terrestrial lime application on birds. We used a before-after control-impact (BACI) stud...

The well-known Late Cretaceous Lameta Ghat locality (Jabalpur, India) provides a window of opportunity to study a large stable, near shore sandy beach, which was widely used by sauropod dinosaurs as a hatchery. In this paper, we revisit the eggs and eggshell fragments previously assigned to lizards from this locality and reassign them to crocodylomorphs. Several features point to a crocodilian ...