In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast shows how the 34 steps in their Rube Goldberg invention use everything from gravity to carbon dioxide gas in order to accomplish one simple task: pouring a glass of milk.

"Cows in the Parlor: A Visit to a Dairy Farm" is an expository article about the daily running of a dairy farm. Students learn about a day in the life of a cow, Maggie, including what she eats, how shes milked, and other interesting facts.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Ruminants’ ability to break down human-inedible plant fibers stems from the microbes in their rumen. This process is primarily driven by microbes that can ferment plant fibers into volatile fatty acids (VFAs), followed by the rumen epithelial layer absorbing and partially metabolizing these VFAs. Recently, researchers examined how microbes and epithelial cells interact and contribute to VFA metabolism in lactating dairy cows. Metagenomic binning allowed researchers to categorize and examine the metabolic capacity of even uncultivated microbes and identify bacterial genomes with both cellulose/xylan/pectin degradation capabilities and associations with VFA biosynthesis. They then used gene expression data to construct a single-cell map of the rumen epithelial cell subtypes. Searching gene expression profiles for VFA transporters highlighted key epithelial cell subtypes. Leveraging this data highlighted interactions where microbes potentially influenced the gene expression of host epithelial cells..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In the fight against global hunger, dairy milk plays an important part. Now, according to new research, there might be a way to make milk even more nutritious. Researchers previously discovered that even when fed the same diet, some cows make higher-protein milk than others. To find out why, they recently examined the microbiome of cows’ rumens. Multi-omics analysis showed that a large proportion of variations in milk protein yield, or MPY, could be traced to differences in rumen microbiota. A closer look revealed that cows producing high-protein milk hosted a high abundance of certain species of bacteria, including Prevotella, and lower abundances of methane-producing bacteria. This unique assembly of microbes could help cows increase their microbial protein synthesis and amino acid supply, improving their MPY. These findings could help clarify the microbiome- and host-dependent contributions to MPY and inform precision feeding and genetic strategies to increase milk quality and production..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In microbiome research, quality control is essential to the repeatability and reproducibility of results. This is especially true for samples with a low bacterial load such as breast milk, where samples can easily become contaminated by reagents. In a new study, researchers propose a framework for an approach to address this challenge. The framework consists of three independent stages: 1) Verification of sequencing accuracy by assessing technical repeatability and reproducibility, 2) Contaminant removal and batch variability correction, and 3) Corroborating the repeatability and reproducibility of the microbiome composition and downstream analysis. The approach was validated using milk microbiota data from the CHILD Cohort, generated in two batches in 2016 and 2019. The framework helped to identify potential contaminant reagents that were missed with standard algorithms, substantially reducing contaminant-induced batch variability..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Trendy health foods are taking off in the United States, but one new trend may do more harm than good. Unpasteurized, or “raw,” milk is purported to have probiotic health benefits. Unfortunately, despite the proposed benefits, contamination with pathogenic bacteria has occurred. and little is known about the extent of antibiotic-resistant microbes present in raw milk sold at retail stores. A new study evaluated the microbiomes of cow's milk samples using DNA sequencing and metagenomics. including over 2,000 retail milk samples from 5 states – both raw milk and milk pasteurized in different ways. Raw milk samples had the highest prevalence of viable bacteria, with Pseudomonadaceae dominating. Probiotic lactic acid bacteria levels were limited in raw milk, and storage outside of a refrigerator dramatically increased bacterial populations expressing antibiotic-resistance genes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

In this lesson, students will taste soymilk and make a smoothie from soymilk with additives. They will observe how soymilk is made as well as discuss the definition of milk.