• Friday on Oprah: Taking a cue from HSUS, Lisa Ling uses a hidden camera to investigate the cruelty of puppy mills. (When did Ling become the reporter of all things freegan and animal-related?)
• The San Francisco Art Institute has taken down an exhibit that featured videos of six animals being bludgeoned to death. Unfortunately, it did so before the public forum was held because of death threats to its staffers. Go hypocrisy!
• The Canadian seal hunt began earlier this week.
• The Rotterdam Zoo is making all of its animals go veg, for health reasons. Even the carnivores...?
• Meanwhile, in Germany, apparently ”zoo” is synonymous with “factory farm.”
• In another giant step for I don’t know what, scientists are hoping to train fish to “catch” themselves. Because why do the harvesting, too, when you can confine your actions to killing and consuming? (At least then maybe there'd be no call for shows like this.)
• And because I can’t handle any more depressing stuff today: Enter your film, poem, needlepoint, etc., in NAVS’ 19th Annual Art for Animals Classic. If your piece wins, it will grace National Anti-Vivisection Society materials (plus you’ll get some cash). Click here for the PDF entry form and rules, or call 800-888-NAVS (6287). The deadline is May 2.

• It's the 15th National Vegetarian Week in the UK. This year's focus is on the environmental benefits of vegetarianism.
• Scientists at Free University Berlin have deemed that fruit flies have free will. While I can't endorse the research used to prove such a thing, this will help convince people that animals aren't just reactive machines.
• A litter of two-legged chihuahuas serves as a disturbing (but still darn cute) reminder of why dog breeding is maybe not such a good thing. (via Poop City)
• A Long Island man was arrested for stealing copper pipes from an abandoned house to pay the vet bill for his cat who was injured in that same house. Do your animal-dependents have health insurance? (also via Poop City)
• Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was recently a guest on animal activist Bill Maher's talk show (video, transcript). Towards the end of the segment there's an odd, circuitous discussion of Kucinich's veganism, mostly as it relates to health. It seems like Kucinich is going out of his way to not explicitly identify as a vegan. Hmm.

I'm usually the guy at SuperVegan HQ yelling from my carrel "No cute animal stories! What do they have to do with veganism?!" But I just have to show ya'll Felix's Cute Video Collection. Police chickens interceding with quarreling rabbits? A bouncy German music video of kleine eisbär Knut (the one who "animal rights activists [didn't] advocate killing")? Otters holding hands? I can't not share.

The prize for the newest genius use of cow excretions and byproducts goes to the German scientists who have developed a pill to curb bovine burping. Cow burps are a perfectly natural result of having a rumen, which is a stomach where food is fermented and methane is released to eventually come out their mouths (among other places). Methane is a far stronger heat-trapping gas then carbon dioxide (20 times stronger, to be exact), and is a significant contributor to global warming. It also comes from other ruminants such as sheep, goats and buffalo, as well as from coal mining, drilling for oil and natural gas, landfills, burning forests and fields, and even living plants and thawing permafrost.

The fist-sized, anti-burp pill will have the added bonus of boosting the metabolism of the cows and increasing the amount of milk they produce. I wish I could say there was something in it for the cows, but once again they're just machines being tweaked for maximum milk output.

A new study has determined that Neolithic European farmers couldn't digest dairy. Scientists at University College London and Mainz University in Germany examined skeletons from between 5480BC and 5000BC, in search of the gene that produces lactase (the enzyme which enables the digestion of the milk sugar lactose). Some time between then and now, Europeans mutated to produce the gene, while many non-Europeans never developed it, and have suffered the imposition of dairy on their diets.

UCL's Dr Mark Thomas seems hopelessly Eurocentric in his assessment that "this is probably the single most advantageous gene trait in humans in the last 30,000 years." But some of his other arguments hold more water: being able to digest milk gave ancient Europeans a "big survival advantage" as it was less contaminated than stream water; and it was available year-round, unlike crops.

So, while civilized people in the rest of the world learned to store crops through non-productive seasons, white people mutated to drink milk.

A recent initiative through Parliament in Hessen, a federation state of Germany, is asking for animals facing ritual slaughter (called schächten in German) to be stunned before throat-cutting. After an unsuccessful attempt in 2005, state secretary Karl–Winfried Seif is determined to make a change: "Animals are creatures that are able to suffer and feel pain. Substantial suffering through ritual slaughter must be excluded."

Ritual slaughter is an ongoing international controversy. Countries such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and parts of Austria require stunning prior to slaughter, while Denmark, Finland and the lower Austrian provinces require stunning right after the killing.

Via the still excellent FoodFight! blog: Drinking black tea can reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease – when it’s not diluted with cow’s milk. Reuters reports that a group of German researchers have found that the casein proteins in milk decrease tea’s healthful catechin compounds, the stuff that helps arteries to dilate and relax, and improves blood flow. Next the scientists will explore how milk might also reduce tea's anti-cancer effects.

PETA doesn’t think you should drink milk either, but they aim to convince with less science and more rubber udders (arguably NSFW).

Dr. Kristin Mitte and Dr. Nicole Kaempfe of the Institute of Psychology in Jena, Germany, wanted to know more about the motivations of vegetarians. According to their recent study, rather than for health reasons, vegetarians overwhelmingly stated that they choose a plant–based diet because of the certain death of animals raised for meat, the inherent violation of their rights, and the pain and suffering they endure.

Reason for their curiosity was the fact that the vegetarian population of Germany is steadily growing: From 0.6 % in 1983 to a whopping 8 % in 2001.

They found out that vegetarians have no elevated risk of eating unhealthy, no more than any carnivore might have. They also differentiated between “emotional” vegetarians who refused meat on the basis of taste and visual appeal, they find it disgusting. “Moral” vegetarians, on the other hand, refuse meat for ethical reasons. This group is angrier when seeing others consuming meat.

Another result reports that vegetarians are more open for experience, and are more likely to try new things more often. Universal values such as tolerance, understanding, and the well–being of humans and the environment are more important to them, while might, social status, or authority is less significant.

According to the study, vegetarians are not any more conscientious, extroverted, or content than a carnivore, which concludes that after all, in this respect, we are just like everybody else.

Oh, and by the way, this great University not only has these two amazing Psychologists on staff, but also offers daily vegetarian options in the dining halls! Echt genial!

Controversy has broken out in Germany over the recent slaying of a brown bear named Bruno in Bavaria. Bruno was the first bear to be sighted in Germany in the past 170 years. After weeks of attempts to catch him alive proved unsuccessful, the environmental ministry gave the go ahead to kill Bruno.

Now hundreds are protesting the murder, and the story has spread internationally. Recent coverage by CNN reads:

“The Association for the Protection of Animals and Human Rights organized the demonstration in the Alpine village where the bear was slain on June 26 by hunters ordered by Bavarian state officials.

Many hotel and restaurant owners in Schliersee have complained of losing hundreds of clients during the normally busy summer season, after tourists decided not to take vacations in the village out of protest over the bear's killing.”