Free Republic

Black soldier fly larvae (BSF) can replace soybean meal (SBM) as protein source in the diet for growing pigs. That was discovered by a multidisciplinary research team of Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and Leiden University, the Netherlands. There is increasing pressure against the use of SBM as a source of dietary protein source in animal feed, as cultivating SBM requires cropland that could also be used to grow food crops. BSF is potentially a more suitable and sustainable protein source, as it can be grown on waste and residual streams from food production. Trials The researchers studied two groups...

A porn star was kicked out of a conservative event targeted at high schoolers after complaints from outraged parents. Brandi Love, 48, attended the 'Student Action Summit' with Turning Point USA in Tampa, Florida Saturday, and posed for photos in front of exhibits and a 'save America' tour bus. But was suddenly kicked out after backlash from parents and Christian organizers. But Love is capitalizing on the attention by selling t-shirts poking fun at one of the conference's founders. She is selling shirts with the slogan 'I triggered Charlie Kirk' on her Only Fans website. Kirk founded the pro-Trump organization...

President Biden’s choice of University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann to be U.S. ambassador to Germany is spurring new controversy – and not just over quid pro quo concerns about her decision to pay Biden $911,000 in salary for an ambiguous professorial role at the prestigious college. Gutmann is the second-highest-paid Ivy League president, receiving roughly $3.9 million in total compensation in 2020, according to the university’s latest publicly available 990 tax forms. Only Columbia University’s Lee Bollinger makes more — reportedly $4.6 million in 2018 — while all other Ivy League presidents earn less than $2 million annually, according...

WHILE we are all applauding the roll-out of the various vaccines for Covid-19, it is time to take stock of well, stocks. The supply of the vaccine has been sparse - not just in Canada, but around the world. Stock prices for the few companies which have been able to rush through the emergency approvals for their respective vaccines have soared while the pandemic has killed millions, put hundreds of millions out of work, and reset all our lives. It may come to pass that in order to travel in years to come, we may need a different array of...

The four swine in the study always wanted to be the first at the computer each dayThere are three bright blue walls displayed on a black screen. Move the cursor to a wall, the computer goes bloop! and a treat pops out. After some success, one wall disappears. With only two walls, it’s a little bit harder. Then, after more bloops and treats, the screen drops down to one blue wall. For a pig moving the joystick with its snout, it takes serious skills to get the cursor to that one blue wall. Read More But four pigs, named Omelet,...

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which recently passed the House, contains $1400 stimulus checks. But some federal workers will have more than one check. They can get paid time off with up to 15 checks of $1400 each. Emergency Federal Employee Leave Fund Neatly tucked within the $1.9 trillion emergency aid package is the $570 million Emergency Federal Employee Leave Fund. This budget is exclusive for federal workers who need to stay home to tend to their kids. Thus, this will fund the paid time off for federal workers with children enrolled in schools yet to return to...

Democrats set aside $50 million for "family planning." As of now, the Hyde Amendment is in place, which bars taxpayer funds from being used for abortion. This, however, could set the stage for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment down the road. If this bill is passed and Congress later repeals Hyde, money that was funded in this relief bill could theoretically be used for abortion. Although higher education has teetered because of the virus, Howard University is the only higher education facility that would be given money to recoup funds lost during the pandemic. Gallaudet University is listed in...

Federal regulators have approved genetically modified pigs for food and medical uses in the United States, marking just the second time they have signed off on a biologically modified animal for a consumer purpose. The Food and Drug Administration gave approval this week to pigs that have been engineered to cut out "alpha-gal" sugar in their cells that can cause severe allergic reactions in humans if eaten. The sugar is also found in red meat like beef and lamb. The FDA determined that the domestic line of "GalSafe" pigs are safe to eat and said the absence of alpha-gal sugar...

A strain of coronavirus that has been infecting pigs in China since 2016 — causing them severe diarrhoea and vomiting — could spread to humans, a study has warned. The strain — 'swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus', or SADS-CoV — is thought to have come from bats, and has been concerning the livestock industry. It is most dangerous to piglets. A wider outbreak of SADS-CoV could cause severe economic damage in those countries that rely on pork production and sales.

The United States is on the cusp of a huge pig 'time bomb' with the number feral hogs increasing in huge numbers. Research scientist Dr. Jack Mayer, a zoologist who has been researching wild pigs for 40 years, has warned that the population could keep on growing unless there is a sudden swine flu epidemic. 'It's a crazy situation with everything that's happened in what I call the Pig Bomb, which has exploded in North America,' Jack Mayer told The Daily Beast about the wild population of six million and two million in Texas alone. Florida, Georgia, and California also...

Musk demoed the company’s brain-computer interface technology on Friday in live pigs. He described it as “like a Fitbit in your skull.” Musk said the Neuralink can help fight blindness, memory loss, insomnia, and other medical conditions. lon Musk’s brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, conducted a live demo of its technology on Friday, showing a coin-sized device without wires. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO brought along three pigs, who had varying levels of interest in cooperating. Eventually, the audience was shown real-time neural signals from one of the pigs, which Musk named Gertrude. According to Musk, Gertrude has had the implant...

Some liberals keep ruining the idea that public radio is an oasis of civility and nonpartisanship. Take Bob Collins, a longtime political editor at Minnesota Public Radio. Anthony Gockowski of the Minnesota Sun site pointed out some Twitter savagery from Collins (account name @MyLittleBloggie). Many of his recent tweets are just the usual Democrat hack stuff -- Trump should resign, his supporters are rats. But on Friday, Collins erupted in hate, suggesting Republicans should commit suicide by shooting themselves in the chest.

With Smithfield Foods' Sioux Falls pork plant closed by a COVID-19 outbreak, Minnesota hog farmer Greg Boerboom may face a grim choice. The South Dakota plant had been scheduled this week to slaughter about 1,400 of Boerboom's pigs. Smithfield directed 25% of that shipment to another Smithfield plant in Illinois — with Boerboom paying the extra $1,500 in freight costs. The remaining 850 hogs are in limbo. Boerboom is seeking a destination for them before they grow too big for market and thus face euthanization. Over 3,000 healthy pigs were put down in Minnesota this week, and 200,000 more could...

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against the Marquette County sheriff and a patrol sergeant after they reportedly threatened to arrest an Oxford, Wis. teen for posting on Instagram that she had the coronavirus. WILL is suing Marquette County Sheriff Joseph Konrath and Sergeant Cameron Klump, alleging they violated Amyiah Cohoon’s First Amendment rights. The Milwaukee-based public interest law firm is representing the girl and her parents, Rick and Angela Cohoon. As Empower Wisconsin reported, on March 27 Klump threatened to cite or jail Amyiah or her parents if she did not remove...

For years, there has been a lack of awareness of the true horrors within the sex industry. For the first time in a long time, people are beginning to see that everything isn’t exactly as it seems. One of those realizations is that pornography performers aren’t always participating by choice. Rather, some are forced, coerced, manipulated, and even unwillingly thrown into this dark industry. This truth is often hard to combat in our current cultural climate. Many actors, singers, and Hollywood elitists glamorize sex work, making it appear to be a “well-paying job.” In reality, it is a devastating lifestyle...

he has also cleaned up in Portland, Oregon, but it was his trip to San Francisco that put a new spotlight on the blight in one of America’s once shining cities. “You saw some horrible things in San Francisco,” Breitbart News asked Pressler. “Can you share what you saw, because it wasn’t just coke bottles and water bottles.” “I can just tell you I have been to some of America’s most dirtiest and dangerous cities — I’ve been to Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco — San Francisco was the only city where you had to watch...

Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A trio of escaped pigs wandered into a supermarket in Russia and were caught on camera raiding the liquor aisle. A video taken at the store in Tyumen, Siberia, shows the three pigs perusing the liquor aisle and knocking over bottles of cognac, which they then proceeded to lap up off the floor. Witnesses said the three pigs were found to have escaped from a nearby home. The pigs were returned to their owner unharmed. VIDEO AT LINK................

Karma Forget the billions spent on China’s massive military build-up, the ongoing attempt to make the Chinese Communist Party the most powerful and feared force on the planet. The yellow peril is being decimated by tiny foes, one of them microscopic. All the chest-thumping and saber-rattling, and it finally comes down to a stand-off with a lowly bug that happens to hate communists. Boy, they didn’t see that coming! African Swine Fever (ASF) With a mortality rate near 100%, ASF has swept through China’s hog industry, decimating their primary source of protein. Best estimates put losses at 30-35% of China’s...

An epidemic of African Swine Fever is sweeping through China's hog farms, and the effects are rippling across the globe, because China is a superpower of pork. Half of the world's pigs live in China — or at least they did before the epidemic began a year ago. "Every day, we hear of more outbreaks," says Christine McCracken, a senior analyst at RaboResearch, which is affiliated with the global financial firm Rabobank. McCracken and her colleagues now estimate that by the end of 2019, China's production of pork could be cut in half. "That's roughly 300 million to 350 million...

<p>SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Watermelons are set to replace piglets in an annual event celebrating agriculture at a California fair.</p> <p>The Press Democrat reported Saturday that the Sonoma County Fair has eliminated the pig scramble from Farmers Day due to rising public concern and protests over animal welfare.</p>