Songbird Self, Hot Rod Heros, and Virtual-Meat

1. BIRD IN THE MIRROR: One of the major arguments made to rationalize cruelty toward non-human animals is that they have no sense of self. However, there is a test that researches have used to see if an animal can recognize that a mirror image belongs to its own body. Among those that have passed this test are apes, bottlenose dolphins and elephants. A new study suggests that a magpie (as well as crows and ravens) recognizes itself in the mirror, too. Signs of self-recognition are illustrated above: a bird looking in the mirror attempts to remove a paint spot, using its beak and then its foot. Full story.

2. THE NEW YORK TIMES reported yesterday on a group of tattooed bikers that rescue animals and are vegetarians.

“I’m a vegetarian,” said Mike Tattoo (real name Mike Ostrosky), a former bodybuilding champion with a shaved head, great arms covered in art and a probing clarity in his blue eyes...

Having run in crowds where animal abuse was rampant, often involving pit bull fights, the men volunteered at shelters and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty Toward Animals, and they tried to solve cases of missing or abused animals that other organizations had neither the time nor the resources to address...Next month, the bikers will begin a program in the city’s public schools to educate children about being kind to all animals...

3. iMeat

Welcome to the not-too-distant future, where meat is "grown" without factory farms, slaughterhouses, or the killing of animals. Sound like science fiction? Maybe. But a group of determined scientists believes it could be possible to mass-produce meat using cloned animal cells well within the next decade. They claim this lab-grown "cultured meat" will be healthier and safer to eat than meat sliced from slaughtered animals, and will produce less pollution and require fewer resources than harvesting livestock for human consumption. Full Article