JERUSALEM, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers have successfully manipulated cows' microbiome for the first time, Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in southern Israel said on Thursday.
According to BGU, by learning to control the microbiome, scientists can prevent cows from emitting methane, one of the most serious greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming.
The microbiome exerts great control over many aspects of animal and human physical systems.
Microbes begin to be introduced at birth and produce a unique microbiome which then evolves over time.
In a research published in the journal Nature Communications, a BGU group has been running a three-year experiment with a group of 50 cows, as half of them gave birth naturally, and the others gave birth through cesarean section.
That difference was enough to change the development and composition of the microbiome of the cows from each group.
This finding essentially enabled the development of an algorithm to predict the microbiome development over time based on its present composition.
"With this new knowledge we can modulate microbiome composition to lower the environmental impact of cows on our planet by guiding them to our desired outcomes," the researchers said. Enditem
