Please don’t eat foie gras

Foie gras (pronounced ‘fwah grah’) has been exalted in some gourmet food circles as a prized delicacy, but if most people knew how foie gras is produced, they would be horrified.

Foie gras, the French term for “fatty liver,” is the product of extreme animal cruelty. It is the swollen, diseased liver of ducks and geese who are force-fed just up until the point of death before being slaughtered. Birds suffer tremendously, both during and after the force-feeding process, as their physical condition rapidly deteriorates. In just a few weeks, their livers swell up to ten times their normal size, and the birds can scarcely stand, walk, or even breathe. At this point, they are slaughtered, and their livers are peddled as a “gourmet” delicacy.

This brutal treatment is devastating to the health of the birds. In a matter of weeks, their livers swell up to ten times their normal size. Breathing and walking become difficult as the liver pushes against other organs, causing respiratory stress due to decreased air sac space in their lungs, and forcing the legs to move outward at an unnatural angle. Ducks at foie gras farms have been observed panting and struggling to stand, using their wings to push themselves forward when their crippled legs can no longer support them. Struggling to move causes infection-prone open pressure sores to develop and fester on their hocks (legs) and keels (chest area).

In this compromised state, depressed birds can no longer engage in normal preening behaviors, and this is compounded by the fact that they are denied access to water sufficient for them to engage in normal, instinctual behaviors. Their plumage becomes encrusted with filth, and most of them develop what foie gras farmers call “wet neck”-when their unpreened feathers curl up and become coated with dirt and oil.

http://www.nofoiegras.org/about.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSEDmyaJMKs

Should apes have human rights?

Should apes have human rights?

By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine

Apes and humans have common ancestors but should they have the same rights? An international movement to give them “personhood” is gathering pace.

What would Aristotle make of it? More than 2,000 years after the Greek philosopher declared Mother Nature had made all animals for the sake of man, there are moves to put the relationship on a more equal footing.

Judges in Austria are considering whether a British woman, Paula Stibbe, should become legal guardian of a chimpanzee called Hiasl which was abducted from its family tribe in West Africa 25 years ago.

The animal sanctuary where he has lived is about to close and to stop him being sold to a zoo, Ms Stibbe hopes that she can persuade the court he deserves the same protection as a child.

APES AND US Gorillas, bonobos, orang-utans and chimps are great apes Chimpanzees and bonobos differ from humans by only 1% of DNA and could accept a blood transfusion or a kidney All great apes recognise themselves in a mirror Elephants and dolphins show similar self-awareness Great apes can learn and use human languages through signs or symbols but lack the vocal anatomy to master speech Great apes have displayed love, fear, anxiety and jealousy In 1997 the UK government banned experiments on great apes but not on primates such as marmosets and macaques Sources: Ian Redmond, Charlotte Uhlenbroek Chimps genetically close to humans

Spanish MPs are also being urged to back a similar principle, one already endorsed by the Balearic parliament and held dear by the international organisation The Great Ape Project – that apes be granted the right to life, freedom and protection from torture.

So should apes such as those at London Zoo, which opens its Gorilla Kingdom on Thursday complete with gym and climbing wall, get the same rights as their zookeepers?

They need greater protection in the eyes of the law, says Ian Redmond of the UN’s Great Apes Survival Project, who believes welfare groups could use guardianship as a way to rescue ill-treated apes.

Some rights are conferred on apes but only because they are endangered. And the international trade ban is flouted in Africa and South-East Asia, where mothers are shot and their infants shipped off as pets, circus performers or lab animals. Vivisection on apes is banned in much of Europe but still goes on in the US and Japan.

“Apes are special because they are so closely related to us,” says Mr Redmond. “Chimpanzees and bonobos are our joint closest living relatives, differing by only one per cent of DNA – so close we could accept a blood transfusion or a kidney. Gorillas are next, then orang-utans.”

If you take a chimp away from its family groups it’s a real wrench Charlotte Uhlenbroek Hiasl the chimp

But there is a stronger cognitive argument, he says, because the apes’ intelligence and ability to reason demands our respect.

“Show a gibbon a mirror and the reaction suggests he or she thinks the reflection is another gibbon. But all the great apes have passed the ‘mirror self-recognition’ test and soon begin checking their teeth or examining parts of their body they couldn’t see without the mirror. This self-awareness surely suggests that they know they exist.”

Family ties

Apes also share a range of human emotions, says zoologist Charlotte Uhlenbroek, who thinks they should be afforded legal protection enshrined in law.

The great apes: Status check In pictures

They have a similar lifespan to humans and form strong family bonds which they maintain for life, she says. And apes have displayed a tenderness which could be described as love, anxiety when separated, and fear, jealousy and trauma.

“If I was an alien from Mars and looked at human society and a society of apes then in terms of the emotional life I would see no distinct difference, although we live very different lives because of language and technology.”

Giving them rights does not mean throwing open all the cage doors because some zoos are important to preserve the species, but it is vital to establish a principle that apes should not be treated like objects, she says.

Daniel Sokol, a medical ethicist, says apes possess cognitive and emotional faculties that make them worthy of moral consideration.

Orang-utans can kiss and cuddle

“Justice and consistent thinking require that we treat non-human animals who share morally-relevant properties in a respectful way, and that surely means giving them the opportunity to flourish and not be tortured or subject to cruel or degrading treatment.”

But Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University of London, says human rights are a construct which can’t be imposed on animals.

“Where do you stop? It seems to be that being human is unique and nothing to do with biology. Say that apes share 98% of human DNA and therefore should have 98% of human rights. Well mice share 90% of human DNA. Should they get 90% of human rights? And plants have more DNA than humans.”

I’ve yet to see a chimp imprisoned for stealing a banana Professor Steve Jones

Chimps can’t speak but parrots can. Defining creatures and allowing them rights based on criteria invented by one group is itself an enormous breach of human rights, he says, and one need look no further than Austria in 1939 to see why.

“Rights and responsibilities go together and I’ve yet to see a chimp imprisoned for stealing a banana because they don’t have a moral sense of what’s right and wrong. To give them rights is to give them something without asking for anything in return.”

There is a moral case to make about animal welfare, he says, but it has nothing to do with science.

Arctic sea ice melt ‘even faster’

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BB News website

A widespread Arctic melt would have major impacts on wildlife

Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter.

Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007.

But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss.

Scientists on the project say much of the ice is so thin as to melt easily, and the Arctic seas may be ice-free in summer within five to 10 years.

I think we’re going to beat last year’s record, though I’d love to be wrong Julienne Stroeve

“We had a bit more ice in the winter, although we were still way below the long-term average,” said Julienne Stroeve from NSIDC in Boulder, Colorado.

“So we had a partial recovery. But the real issue is that most of the pack ice has become really thin, and if we have a regular summer now, it can just melt away,” she told BBC News.

In March, Nasa reported that the area covered by sea ice was slightly larger than in 2007, but much of it consisted of thin floes that had formed during the previous winter. These are much less robust than thicker, less saline floes that have already survived for several years.

After a colder winter, ice has been melting even faster than last year

A few years ago, scientists were predicting that Arctic waters would be ice-free in summers by about 2080.

Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050.

Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980.

By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013.

“I think we’re going to beat last year’s record melt, though I’d love to be wrong,” said Dr Stroeve.

“If we do, then I don’t think 2013 is far off any more. If what we think is going to happen does happen, then it’ll be within a decade anyway.”

Rising tide

Countries surrounding the Arctic are eyeing the economic opportunities that melting ice might bring.

Canada and Russia are exploring sovereignty claims over tracts of Arctic seafloor, while just this week US President George Bush has urged more oil exploration in US waters – which could point the way to exploitation of reserves off the Alaskan coast.

But from a climate point of view, the melt could bring global impacts accelerating the rate of warming and of sea level rise.

“This is a positive feedback process,” commented Dr Ian Willis, from the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge.

“Sea ice has a higher albedo (reflectivity) than ocean water; so as the ice melts, the water absorbs more of the Sun’s energy and warms up more, and that in turn warms the atmosphere more – including the atmosphere over the Greenland ice sheet.”

Greenland is already losing ice to the oceans, contributing to the gradual rise in sea levels. The ice cap holds enough water to lift sea levels globally by about seven metres (22ft) if it all melted.

Natural climatic cycles such as the Arctic Oscillation play a role in year-to-year variations in ice cover. But Julienne Stroeve believes the sea ice is now so thin that there is little chance of the melting trend turning round.

“If the ice were as thick as it was in the 1970s, last year’s conditions would have brought a dip in cover, but nothing exceptional.

“But now it’s so thin that you would have to have an exceptional sequence of cold winters and cold summers in order for it to rebuild.”

Cat resucitated with oxygen mask

Sookee had to spend the night at the vets in Dundee A cat who was rescued from a blazing house was resuscitated by firefighters using a child’s oxygen mask. Officers pulled the unconscious black cat named Sookee from the fire in Baluniefield Road, Dundee, after it had been overcome by smoke. They fitted the oxygen mask over the elderly animal’s face and it quickly regained consciousness. Another two cats and a dog were safely removed from the burning house on Sunday afternoon. The fire started when an electrical fault caused a blender to burst into flames. Joan Docherty, who owns Sookee and the other animals, said: “We weren’t in. The cats couldn’t get out because the cat flap is in the kitchen and they couldn’t get past. “The wee boys across the road were saying that the cats were clawing at the windows trying to get out and the dog was throwing herself at the door. “He [Sookee] has a heart murmur. He was unconscious, so they took him outside and they revived him with the children’s oxygen mask. “He’s doing alright. We’ve got to pick him up from the vets. They’re going to give him a bath as well but he seemed to be okay.” Neil McKay, from Tayside Fire and Rescue, told the BBC Scotland news website that when they arrived at the home, smoke was coming out all of the windows. Eventually the cat turned round and was sick, and got rid of a lot of soot and stuff it had breathed in during the incident Neil McKay Tayside Fire and Rescue “As the crews pulled up they could see a cat trying to climb the blinds in the front room window and trying to get out of the window,” he said. “But after a couple of attempts the cat was overcome and passed out. “Crews applied the oxygen mask to the cat’s head and started stroking it. It didn’t work for a considerable time. “Then they charged a second oxygen bottle and kept trying. Eventually the cat turned round and was sick, and got rid of a lot of soot and stuff it had breathed in during the incident.” Sookee, 16, spent the night at the vet, where he was given more oxygen and steroid injections. Eve Ireland, from Parkside Veterinary Group, said: “Today he’s a much brighter and happier cat – eating, drinking, and the plan is to give him a bath, because he’s full of soot.”

Dog´s tricks are “better than TV”

Dog’s tricks are ‘better than TV’

Cindy’s ‘piece de resistance’ – balancing tubs on all four paws Dog’s tricks

An eight-year-old dog is amazing her owners and neighbours with an astonishing array of tricks. Cindy, a pedigree cavalier King Charles spaniel, can balance objects on all four paws while lying down.

She can also keep a golf ball in a spoon held in her mouth while balancing objects on her head.

Proud owner Mark Bucknell, from Wednesfield, in the West Midlands, said: “Who needs the telly when you’ve got a dog like this?”

He said the family started teaching Cindy tricks when they took her in as an eight-month old.

Cindy is also a dab hand with a golf ball and a spoon

Ron Bucknell, 75, said the family had run out of tricks to teach her.

It took her six months to learn to wait for her reward but, despite having undergone two leg operations since, her circus skills have remained intact.

Mr Bucknell had this advice for his envious fellow dog owners.

“You don’t do the dog any favours if you leave it as a dumb mut.

“Put the effort in, get your dog some intelligence, get it to understand you will have yourself a better, more fun dog.”

Yap-lication unlocks canine moods

Yap-lication unlocks canine moods

BBC tests ‘translator’

The nuances of a dog’s barks, howls, yaps and growls can now apparently be discerned by a new computer program developed by Hungarian scientists. The software is said to distinguish the emotional reaction of 14 dogs of the Hungarian Mudi breed.

After analysing 6,000 barks, it aims to determine when a dog has seen a ball, when it is fighting, playing, meeting a stranger or when it wants a walk.

But the scientists admit the technology only just out-performs humans.

While the computer correctly recognised the emotional state of 43% of dogs, humans did almost as well with 40%.

But the author of the research – Csaba Molnar, from Eotvos University in Budapest – says the software can be improved, and told the BBC it may have applications for analysis of human communication.

“I would say that we proved there are very strong contextual differences between the barks, but that very long further work is needed to determine which emotional states and which characteristics belong to each (different breed).

He added: “In the future we can use this software for any other vocal or any other signal categorisation.”

The scientist also believes that later versions of the software could help owners and dog trainers identify more about dogs’ well-being.

“A possible commercial application could be a device for dog-human communication,” the scientist told Reuters news agency.

In pictures: From edible to incredible

In pictures: From edible to incredible

<!– document.write(‘ YOUR PICTURE GALLERY IS NOW LOADING… ‘) //–> YOUR PICTURE GALLERY IS NOW LOADING… Incredibly, everything you see in this image can be found in the kitchen. Photographer Carl Warner has painstakingly captured all kinds of food in a series of still lifes. He says his ‘Foodscapes’ were partly inspired by healthy eating campaigns. But they have not persuaded his own children to take up the five-a-day pledge. The Forest of Dean or the Forest of Greens? The road is paved with cumin, peas hang from broccoli trees and cauliflower clouds adorn the sky with bread for mountains. Edible ingredients in this Italian-inspired rural scene include a lasagne cart, fields of pasta, a pine nut wall, mozzarella clouds, trees of peppers and chillies and a parmesan village. To give a realistic three-dimensional feel to the photographs, each still life is composed on a table measuring 8ft by 4ft. The foreground is only about 2ft across. Each scene is photographed in separate layers to prevent the food from wilting. “I like the way smaller aspects of nature resembled larger ones,” says Carl Warner. A winter landscape for carnivores – Parma ham and breadsticks are fashioned into a sled which is pulled across a snow-covered road made from a selection of cold meats. The red sky at night in this landscape is actually made from salmon. The beautiful pea-green boat wouldn’t be out of place in Edward Lear’s nonsense poem, ‘The Owl and The Pussycat’. Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next

Australians vote on word of 2007

Australians vote on word of 2007

Are these Sydney beachgoers running the risk of tanorexia?

Are you suffering from password fatigue? Ever considered manscaping? Do you know any tanorexics? These phrases and more are contenders in an online vote organised by Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary to select the Word of the Year 2007.

Seventeen categories contain a total of 85 words from which voters can choose.

Options include globesity – the problem of rising obesity around the globe – and floordrobe – the use of the floor as a substitute wardrobe.

Some words appear to be unique to Australia.

Salad dodger is included as a term for an overweight person, while a surfer under the age of 10 can now be called a microgrom.

AUSSIE WORDS 2007 Password fatigue: Frustration caused by having too many passwords and failing to remember them Manscaping: Male grooming procedures involving the removal of body hair Tanorexia: An obsessive desire to have tanned skin Credit card tart: Someone who transfers loans to a new card when the interest-free period of the first card expires Your comments: Word of 2007

But many of the new words seem to reflect global developments and trends.

Chindia is used as a noun to refer to China and India as a collective unit, in terms of economic power and strategic importance.

There are also five new words related to carbon emissions and how to deal with them, reflecting growing concern about climate change.

Several of the new words relate to advances in technology.

Pod slurping is described as the practice of downloading large quantities of data to an MP3 player or memory stick from a computer.

Griefers, meanwhile, are players who deliberately sabotage online computer games instead of abiding by the rules.

Other words represent new definitions for old concepts.

Kippers are adult children who fail to leave home – a contraction of Kids In Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings.

Man flu, meanwhile, refers to a minor cold contracted by a man who then proceeds to exaggerate the symptoms, the dictionary said.

Voting closes on 31 January and Australia’s Word of the Year 2007 will be announced in the first week of February.

No flight of fantasy – scientists develop instructions to make a magic carpet

No flight of fantasy – scientists develop instructions to make a magic carpet

Perfectly timed for pantomime season, a team of scientists has come up with instructions for how to make a flying carpet. The magical device may owe more to Walt Disney than to The Arabian Nights , but it is not pure fantasy, according to Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his co-workers.

The researchers have studied the aerodynamics of a flexible, rippling sheet moving through a fluid, and find that it should be possible to make one that will stay aloft in air.

Pure fantasy? A team of US scientists has come up with instructions for how to make a flying carpet

No such carpet is going to ferry people around, though.

The researchers say that to stay afloat in air, a sheet measuring about 10 centimetres long and 0.1 millimetres thick would need to vibrate at about 10 hertz with an amplitude of about 0.25 millimetres.

Making a heavier carpet “fly” is not forbidden by the laws of physics.

But the researchers say that their “computations and scaling laws suggest it will remain in the magical, mystical and virtual realm”, as the engine driving the necessary vibrations would need to be so powerful.

The key to a magic carpet is to create uplift by making ripples that push against fluids such as air or water.

If it is close to a horizontal surface, like a piece of foil settling down onto the floor, such rippling movements create a high pressure in the gap between the sheet and the floor.

“As waves propagate along a flexible foil, they generate a fluid flow that leads to a pressure that lifts the foil, roughly balancing its weight,” Mahadevan explains.

But as well as lifting it, the ripples can drive the foil forward — a trait required by any respectable magic carpet.

“If the waves propagate from one edge,” says Mahadevan, “this causes the foil to tilt ever so slightly and then move in one direction towards the edge that is slightly higher. Fluid is then squeezed from this end to the other, causing the sheet to progress like a submarine ray.”

To travel at speed, the carpet would have to undulate in big ripples, comparable to the size of the carpet. This would make the ride very bumpy.

“If you want a smooth ride, you can generate a lot of small ripples,” says Mahadevan. “But you’ll be slower.”

“It’s cute, it’s charming,” says physicist Tom Witten at the University of Chicago in Illinois, who is intrigued that the researchers thought to study such an unusual engineering feat.

Hindu gods get summons from court

The gods have many temples in their name Pic: Vivek

A judge in India has summoned two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to help resolve a property dispute. Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in the eastern state of Jharkhand has issued adverts in newspapers asking the gods to “appear before the court personally”.

The gods have been asked to appear before the court on Tuesday, after the judge said that letters addressed to them had gone unanswered.

Ram and Hanuman are among the most popular Indian Hindu gods.

Judge Singh presides in a “fast track” court – designed to resolve disputes quickly – in the city of Dhanbad.

The dispute is now 20 years old and revolves around the ownership of a 1.4 acre plot of land housing two temples.

You failed to appear in the court despite notices sent by a peon and post Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in letter to Lord Ram and Hanuman

The deities of Ram and Hanuman, the monkey god, are worshipped at the two temples on the land.

Temple priest Manmohan Pathak claims the land belongs to him. Locals say it belongs to the two deities.

The two sides first went to court in 1987.

A few years ago, the dispute was settled in favour of the locals. Then Mr Pathak challenged the verdict in a fast track court.

Gift

Judge Singh sent out two notices to the deities, but they were returned as the addresses were found to be “incomplete”.

Local say the temple belongs to the gods Pic: Mahadeo Sen

This prompted him to put out adverts in local newspapers summoning the gods.

“You failed to appear in court despite notices sent by a peon and later through registered post. You are herby directed to appear before the court personally”, Judge Singh’s notice said.

The two Hindu gods have been summoned as the defence claimed that they were owners of the disputed land.

“Since the land has been donated to the gods, it is necessary to make them a party to the case,” local lawyer Bijan Rawani said.

Mr Pathak said the land was given to his grandfather by a former local king.