Free Republic

Antler animal rights protest, Toronto, Canada. (Image via Twitter.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Animal rights activists were in for a grisly surprise over the weekend when protesters in front of a popular Toronto restaurant were treated to a live demonstration on how to properly butcher the hind quarter of a deer. Chef Michael Hunter is co-owner of Antler, a restaurant that serves "local seasonal and wild foods" that are native to Canada, "such as bison, boar, rabbit, duck and deer." When vegan protesters returned to his restaurant for the fourth time in recent days with signs bearing messages like "animals are not ours...

Forget small nomadic tribes and pristine jungle: the southern Amazon was likely covered in a network of large villages and ceremonial centers before Columbus. Geoglyphs in the southern Amazon are evidence of a once-thriving population. Photograph courtesy of University of Exeter ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Before Spanish invaders conquered South America, sparse groups of nomadic people clustered around the Amazon River, leaving the surrounding rain forest pristine and untouched. Or did they? New research suggests a very different story—an Amazonian region peppered with rain forest villages, ceremonial earthworks, and a much larger population than previously thought. The research, funded in part by the...

A more sustainable pint of craft beer possibly coming to a pub near you +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hoppy beer is all the rage among craft brewers and beer lovers, and now UC Berkeley biologists have come up with a way to create these unique flavors and aromas without using hops. The researchers created strains of brewer's yeast that not only ferment the beer but also provide two of the prominent flavor notes provided by hops. In double-blind taste tests, employees of Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California, characterized beer made from the engineered strains as more hoppy than a control beer...

PEOPLE have been asked whether they would consider chowing down on human meat after science boffins starting growing flesh in a lab. Celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins recently tweeted asking his followers’ thoughts on starting a cannibal diet. Linking to an article about lab-grown flesh, the evolutionary biologist wrote: "I've long been looking forward to this," he wrote. "What if human meat is grown? Could we overcome our taboo against cannibalism?” He went to say the scientific breakthrough will be an “interesting test case for the consequentialist morality versus ‘yuck reaction’ absolutism.” The question of whether people would eat artificially created...

President Donald Trump is getting ready to crack down on China. Trump told Cabinet secretaries and top advisers during a meeting at the White House last week that he wanted to soon hit China with steep tariffs and investment restrictions in response to allegations of intellectual property theft, according to three people familiar with the internal discussions. During the meeting, which hasn’t been previously been reported, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer presented Trump with a package of tariffs that would target the equivalent of $30 billion a year in Chinese imports. In response, Trump urged Lighthizer to aim for an...

Oxytocin-enforced norm compliance reduces xenophobic outgroup rejection Nina Marsh, Dirk Scheele, Justin S. Feinstein, Holger Gerhardt, Sabrina Strang, Wolfgang Maier and René Hurlemann PNAS 2017 August, 114 (35) 9314-9319. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1705853114 Edited by Bruce S. McEwen, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, and approved July 10, 2017 (received for review April 7, 2017) Article Figures & SI Authors & Info PDF Significance In the midst of rapid globalization, the peaceful coexistence of cultures requires a deeper understanding of the forces that compel prosocial behavior and thwart xenophobia. Yet, the conditions promoting such outgroup-directed altruism have not been determined. Here we report...

Researchers are on a critical mission in the heart of Broward County — bashing in the brains of iguanas in an attempt to eliminate the reptiles that have overtaken South Florida. A 15-member team from the University of Florida is using a tool called a captive bolt gun that sends a bolt into the brain, similar to what is used in the livestock industry. They’re also smashing the creatures’ heads against solid objects, including a truck and boat they’re using to track them down. “Most of what we’re doing is blunt force trauma,” said Jenny Ketterlin, a wildlife biologist and...

The discovery was made when the piglet was spotted next to its mother after she gave birth to eight young in the rural area of Santo Domingo in Santiago del Estero Province in northern Argentina. However, the human-like piglet died a few hours later due to breathing difficulties. Pig and goat breeders Walter Oscar Velez and wife Roxana Noemi Villarreal, who also produce charcoal at their farm, said that they are at a loss for an explanation. It is the latest in a number of horrific mutations in the country which is at the centre of a row over the...

So far, these are some of the things posted today on Free Republic that we should all worry about: 1. Global warming drowning San Francisco. 2. A big volcano erupting somewhere. 3. The poles flipping. 4. Global warming starving fish. 5. Giant canaries swooping down and grabbing people. OK, I made the canary one up. What other earth-ending problems did I miss?

They walk like chickens, they cluck like chickens, and they cost $350 a bird. Last week, a viral Washington Post story chronicled the life and times of the Bay Area's well-heeled pet chickens and their luxe digs, calling the birds "the Silicon Valley elite's latest status symbol." "Egg-laying chickens are now a trendy, eco-conscious humblebrag on par with driving a Tesla," the Post reported. The catalogue of surreal luxuries that followed would not be out of place on a reality television show: The Real Chickens of Silicon Valley. One woman, whom the Post dubbed the "chicken whisperer," offers her consultation...

<p>Accompanying the routine payments and price forecasts sent to some Northeast dairy farmers last month were a list of mental health services and the number of a suicide prevention hotline.</p> <p>The Agri-Mark dairy cooperative got the resources out to its 1,000 farmers in New England and New York following the suicide of a member farmer in January, and one the year before.</p>

Last week, at least two dozen producers who ship milk to Dean Foods in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Ohio were told they have until May 31, 2018 to find a new home for their milk. “Unfortunately, Dean Foods has made the difficult decision to end milk procurement contracts with a number of farmers in about 90 days,” says Reace Smith director of corporate communications at Dean Foods. “We regret this decision had to be made.” If this sounds familiar that’s because, almost one year ago, producers in Wisconsin were told by their processor, Grassland Dairy, that they...

The world needs to do more to prepare for the next huge volcanic eruption, a team of leading scientists says. The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and the Tōhoku earthquake in Japan in 2011 highlighted some of the worst-case scenarios for natural disasters. But humanity has not had to deal with a cataclysmic volcanic disaster since at least 1815, when the eruption of Tambora in Indonesia killed tens of thousands of people and led to a ‘year without a summer’ in Europe and North America. Such world-altering blasts rank at 7 or more on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI)...

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin––Five years ago today, on March 6, 2013, two pit bulls raised from puppyhood in a loving home environment killed Daxton James Borchardt, age 14 months, and badly injured his babysitter, Susan Iwicki, whose pit bulls turned on both of them. “The horrific attack started,” Borchardt recalls, “while Susan was carrying my son at the hip and letting her dogs back in from a potty break. Susan’s well-raised, loved and cared-for pit bulls ripped my son from her arms. A metal gate was ripped from the gatepost during the struggle. This unprovoked, prolonged, and unstoppable attack lasted an entire...

A robot wolf designed to protect farms has proved to be such a success in trials that it is going into mass production next month. The "Super Monster Wolf" is a 65cm-long, 50cm-tall robot animal covered with realistic-looking fur, featuring huge white fangs and flashing red eyes, Asahi Television reports. It's been designed to keep wild boar away from rice and chestnut crops, and was deployed on a trial basis near Kisarazu City in Japan's eastern Chiba prefecture last July. When it detects an approaching animal, its eyes light up and it starts to howl, Asahi TV says. Its manufacturers...

A three-mile strtech of road was ploughed by Devon farm workers to ensure the RD&E's executive director and a consultant radiologist could get to work this morningDevon farmers are being hailed as heroes for bringing in doctors and nurses to work today so that they can care for patients. GP Susan Taheri swapped her usual mode of transport today for a tractor to get Bow Medical Practice near Crediton. It was driven by local farmer Chris Burrows who has been among the many caring people across Devon to have shown true community spirit by volunteering to take health workers to...

Police arrested a tomato grower in Aichi Prefecture on Thursday on suspicion of stealing about 160 Chinese cabbages from a nearby field, as the price of the leafy vegetable has remained high in the country since late last year. Ikuo Shiono, 40, is suspected of taking Chinese cabbages worth ¥80,000 ($750) on Jan. 29 and 30 from a field in the city of Toyohashi. According to the police Shiono has admitted to the allegation, saying he thought he could sell the produce at a high price. He also said he was involved in three other Chinese cabbage thefts in the...

A British Columbia resident who adopted a potbellied pig named Molly from the SPCA and then ate it has been banned from future SPCA adoptions. Molly was one of 57 potbellied pigs to be seized following an animal cruelty investigation on Vancouver Island a year ago. SPCA staff say they spent months nursing the pigs back to health before they could be adopted. Someone adopted Molly in January, but the SPCA has been informed the pig’s owner ate the animal last week. Lorie Chortyk, a spokesperson for the B.C. SPCA said staff are "extremely upset" because they did everything in...

A runaway cow that avoided captivity for weeks died Thursday after it was caught and put on a truck to be taken to a farm, a local official said. The red Limousin beef cow fled Jan. 23 as it was to be transported to a slaughterhouse. It gained celebrity status as it defended its life and freedom, tricking searchers, swimming from island to island and roaming a lake-filled region near Nysa, in southwestern Poland.

President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday promised measures to help prevent foreign investors buying agricultural land in France after a string of international controversies over Chinese purchases. “For me, French agricultural lands are strategic investments on which our sovereignty depends, so we can’t allow hundreds of hectares of land to be bought by foreign powers without us knowing the aims of these purchases,” Macron told a crowd of young farmers at the presidential palace. He was referring to news last year that a Chinese fund had bought 900 hectares of land in the cereal-growing Allier region in central France, following an...