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Baboons can stand in for humans during cross-species transplantation studies. Now, for the first time, researchers have kept baboons alive and healthy for up to six months on transplanted pig hearts. Credit: Paul A. Sounders ========================================================================= In four adjacent enclosures transplantation researcher Bruno Reichart kept four happy baboons. “They can hop around, eat, drink and they are enjoying life,” he says. “They watch TV—their favorite is the cartoon with the chipmunk.” Most importantly, he says, they were healthy and normal—which is astonishing, given the fact that the hearts beating life in their chests were anything but normal for a baboon....

LOGANSPORT, Ind. - A fast-moving virus that has infected hogs across half of the nation since it was first detected in the U.S. less than a year ago has become rampant in Indiana, agriculture officials say. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PED, has infected farms in 43 of Indiana's 92 counties, according to March 14 data from the Indiana State Board of Animal Health. Twenty-six other states have reported cases of the virus as of March 12, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network indicates. While the flu-like sickness doesn't affect people and is not a food safety concern, it can...

"Neither Denmark nor Norway has a prohibition on sex with animals, as long as the animals do not suffer. On the Internet Danish animal owners advertise openly that they offer sex with animals, without intervention from police or other authorities, Danish newspaper 24timer reports. In correspondence with the animal owners, the newspaper was told that the animals involved have many years of experience and that the animals themselves wanted sex. The cost to the client varied from DKK 500-1,000 (USD 85-170). ... According to the 24timer report, Germans, Dutchmen, Swedes and Norwegians visit the Danish bordellos, and a web site...

A Bulgarian farmer has gone to court to demand substantial damages after claiming the prize-winning pedigree pig he bought from a breeder was a homosexual. Farmer Galen Dobrev, 43, from Shumen in Bulgaria told the court: "It's a disgrace, all he was interested in was other male pigs." The farmer took pictures of the gay pig to prove the 220-pound boar was homosexual and had fellow farmers testify on his behalf as to the pig's sexual preferences. He told the court that when his fellow farmers heard about the gay pig it had also been impossible to sell him -...