Posted by Mouflon under blog's category : Communications & media

In Not a Chimp: the hunt for the genes that make us human, former BBC producer Jeremy Taylor explores our true relationship with chimps while looking into the latest research from genetics, cognition and neuroscience to help inform a century long debate.

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Posted by Zebedee under blog's category : Antivivisection & extremism

The editorial in today's Financial Times about responding to the appalling animal rights extremist attacks in Switzerland is spot on.

In essence, it says that the authorities must respond swiftly and firmly to violence and intimidation, which seems to be escalating in contintental Europe and the USA. This may be an unfortunate consequence of successful action to crack down on extremism in the UK. The FT recipe for success mirrors the strategy that the UK government put in place four years ago.

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Posted by Zebedee under blog's category : Communications & media

Why is the concept of animal research so difficult to grasp? Perhaps it's because the preferred antivivisection terms are animal testing (ie safety testing, representing about one eighth of animal research) and vivisection (ie surgery, representing less than one third of animal research).

While the antivivisection groups continue to use this flawed terminology they appeal mainly to their supporters and not to the research community. Perhaps we need some research to find out what the wider public understands by the phrase 'animal testing'.

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