smelly days are here again

if the ragweed allergies haven't brought your nose to its knees yet this might.

one of the university's "corpse" plants will be blooming by week's end and stinking it up to high heaven.  not sure why, but, i feel compelled to head to the greenhouse to see if it's as bad as they say.

maybe we could recommend a little petastic to drive the stink away.

get yer cuddle on

hey uw kids... need a break from studying for finals? stop by the library mall today for a little bit of canine comfort.

it's been proven that pets can reduce stress. even just petting a dog can lower your blood pressure.

so take a break from that book, stretch your legs and go get a little puppy love.

peta sues uw-madison

the isthmus' bill lueders brings us more news regarding uw-madison's animal research department, adding more fuel to the ethics debate.

it seems that after teaming up with the alliance for animals last month, peta is now suing the university for with-holding documents regarding eye experiments on monkeys and cats, a violation of the state's open records law.

we are still waiting for a decision from the court on the previously-mentioned criminal charges.  stay tuned for more info as it becomes available.  we'll be following this one to the end.

primate research debate

last night's debate on the ethics of non-human primate research at the uw was interesting but went nowhere. kinda like congress and health care reform, only more civil.

some highlights:
rick bogle of alliance for animals - "we are going to die. we can't fool ourselves into thinking that by experimenting on animals that we are going to find some magic bullet to make us immortal."

paul kaufman, uw chair of ophthalmics dept. - "if you're going to argue we're all equal, then this discussion is over. There's no reason to go on. but in fact there are differences. ... if you say an animal shares some characteristics with humans, that doesn't make them human beings."

in the end, we are monkeys, too. monkeys testing on monkeys. dance monkey dance.

stealing your own dog

what would you do if you couldn't afford your dog's vet bill and the dog was going to be put to sleep? probably what this guy did. isn't it amazing what a little help from the community can do? no kill now.

more news regarding the ethics of uw's animal testing. chancellor biddy responded in favor of the decision that testing is alright. we wonder what the student body thinks of all this?

ethics

last week's animal welfare charges at the uw have led to more discussion on animal testing. this week it's the university's all animal care and use committee finding on campus primate research to be ethical.

"we currently allow research that causes harm and premature death."

not everyone in madison agrees.

more on uw-madison's animal welfare charges

we mentioned the university's run-in with the u.s. department of agriculture and resulting 20 charges on tuesday.

now the national institutes of health is chiming in with mixed reviews. they praise the department for certain things, like primate socialization, but also found 12 areas in which the u. needs to fix their programs and increase oversight.

animal research in madison

the uw-madison got some unwanted attention recently when federal animal welfare inspectors cited the university's animal research department with 20 violations .

"one major finding is that in five studies, UW-Madison researchers did not show that they tried to find an alternative to painful experiments on animals."

click here to watch a local news piece on this story featuring alliance for animals co-director, rick bogle.