Chicken

It's nearly 15 years since the first modern air fryer hit the market, but food companies and consumers are still catching up when it comes to food safety and these game-changing kitchen gadgets. Experts share what needs to be done to safeguard health.

For the first time, researchers found that chickens fluff their facial feathers and blush in response to varied stimulation, likely as a way to reveal their inner emotional states. The link could help improve our stewardship of the birds.

Gaining an understanding of how an egg's hard outer shell is anchored securely to a soft inner membrane, researchers believe could improve reconstructive surgeries like the repair of torn ligaments, which requires integration of soft and hard materials.

There are signs the next pandemic is already cooking up – bird flu. Scientists have now demonstrated that genetically engineering chickens can reduce their chances of catching and spreading the disease, but it’s not foolproof.

Every day in hen hatcheries around the world, all male chicks are tossed alive into a grinder. A new system could keep those chicks from ever existing, by analyzing the scent of eggs to ascertain the sex of the embryo inside.

In the commercial production of apple juice and cider, large quantities of fibrous waste – known as pomace – is generated as a byproduct. And while that material is currently just discarded, new research suggests that it could be used to boost the health of chickens.

A striking study has found eggs from hens in urban backyards can contain up to 40 times more lead than eggs from commercially farmed hens. The researchers recommend those in inner-city locations test their soil before raising chickens or growing food.

In a typical poultry processing facility, much of the waste is simply dumped in a landfill or burned. Two new processes, however, make use of the feathers, blood and bones – plus one of them may ironically reduce the number of chickens slaughtered.

Making inroads in the world of lab-grown meats is Israeli startup Future Meats, which has just received the largest investment ever seen in the cultured meat industry and is rapidly reducing the production costs of its cultured chicken.

Chickens have never had a reputation as intellectual heavyweights and scientists may have found the reason why. Experimental breeding suggests the domestication of the chicken 10,00 years ago caused the bird's brain to shrink and made them less fearful.

Last year, we heard how KFC was introducing a plant-based chicken substitute on its menu. Now, the company is going a step further, by looking into bioprinted meat made from lab-grown chicken cells.

​Ordinarily, when scientists want to produce proteins for use in medicine, they have to utilize techniques that are costly and complex. Recently, however, Scottish researchers have created genetically-modified hens that simply lay eggs containing significant quantities of such proteins.