Profile: Michael Bertoldo

Mysteriously nicknamed 'Big Bad' for reasons unknown to the Eds, this second year PhD student has been busy jetting off around the globe in his quest to improve the reproductive performance of sows during seasonal infertility.

I was born... 1/1/1984

Friends say I'm... a d**k

If I wasn't me I'd like to be... dunno

At the moment I'm reading... The Costello Memoirs

My worst job was... Kitchen Hand

At the moment I'm... procrastinating

... which is interesting because... right now you probably are too!
Read more...

Profile: Meg Donahoo

Meg is a second year PhD student investigating the immune responses to vaccination against an intestinal disease in pigs. If she can find immune cells in the pig that are linked to vaccine protection then it might be possible to use these in the pig industry to determine whether vaccinated pigs are protected against future infection.

I was born... in the baby factory in Melbourne- that's right, I'm not a two headed Tasmanian

At school I… got picked on for being rosey in the cheeks, apparently I looked like a tomato

My first relationship was... with the floor, I couldn't walk until i was 3 so I polished the floor with my bum

Friends say I'm... feral because I could happily go a week or two without a shower, and showering when you go camping is sacrilege in my books!!

If I wasn't me I'd like to be... one of those hot looking tv presenters who gets to travel to cool places for free.

At the moment I'm reading... a quirky book about horsie people.

My worst job was... cleaning old people's toilets!!

At the moment I'm... playing with lots of poo, blood and intestines- it's fun, really!

... which is interesting because... you can find out a lot of information about someone (pigs) from their poo!

Meg facing her fears and making friends with a chook

Read more...

Flying pigs

Marijuana grows wild in Bhutan and only a few people, mostly poor subsistence farmers, take notice of it. But they don’t consume it- instead this wild weed is fed to the pigs to fatten them, keep them quiet at night, and restrain restless behavior during oestrous.

Perhaps this Himalayan Shangri-La Kingdom may be the only country where pigs do ‘fly’. My research involves unveiling the phylogenetics and phylogeography of these ‘flying pigs’ using FAO/ISAG-recommended microsatellite markers and partial sequences of mitochondrial DNA. My wishful thinking is that findings from this study could be useful for drawing up a program for strategic conservation and sustainable utilization of indigenous pig genetic resources in Bhutan.


By Karma Nidup
Read more...