DOGS CAN REASON; CAN PEOPLE?

In the latest animal behavior study that has "stunned many researchers" because an animal is capable of something "we thought ... was very sophisticated, something seen only in humans," dogs have proven themselves capable of reasoning - i.e. deciding how to imitate a behavior based on the specific circumstances in which the action takes place.

You can click through to read the specifics, but the point is, dogs showed the same level of intellectual processing as (at least) 14-month-old humans and indicated an ability to see the world through another animal's eyes.

In this latter, they may have outpaced the majority of humans, who not only seem unable to see that animals have any interior life, but cannot make the inference that if dogs can do this "human" thing, it's likely that a) other animals, including food animals, also can do it, and b) many other processes/abilities that "separate us from the animals" will prove specious once an appropriate experiment is devised to test them, and therefore, that c) we can have no moral justification for eating animals unles we're also willing to justify eating humans.

E.COLI STRIKES BACK - AGAIN

Looks like we still haven't quite turned the corner in that War on E. Coli: Four people were sickened by bad meat once again, leading to a recall of over 37 tons of beef products in multiple states.

But don't worry, I'm sure the E.Coli in the meat originated from spinach. We all know how dangerous spinach is.