Chocolate-covered pork fat? A glow-in-the-dark rabbit? Live fish ornaments? Sometimes human creativity is not in the animals’ best interests. For example, experimenters have created a green rabbit by using jellyfish genes, and other inventions are equally appalling. But human ingenuity can help animals, too. Here are a few of our favorite animal-friendly innovations. Hole-y Shoes, Batman! - It Breathes U.K.-based Vegetarian Shoes of Brighton, England, offers breathable faux suede, pleather, nubuck, and micro fabrics in a slew of styles. There are no moo’s in the shoes! Visit www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk or PETAMall.com. This Dog Never Needs a Walk-Good Dog! For people who lack the patience and commitment needed to be pals to pooches, there’s Aibo! Aibo weighs less than a real Chihuahua-and walks, talks, and wags his tail. He won’t wet on the wall-to-wall, and feeding is cheap-just recharge his battery. But because Aibo is just a machine, there’s no harm done when his owners stop caring about him. For more information, check out www.aibo.com. Spaced-Out Vegetarians NASA-funded researchers at Cornell University who are designing the recipes for future lunar and Martian colonies are choosing ONLY veggie foods. Astronauts will be trained to grow crops on space farms and prepare foods like tempeh sloppy Joes and tofu “cheesecake”! Synthetic Swordfish What did Hollywood blockbusters Magnolia and A Perfect Storm have in common? Both films swapped live frogs and swordfish for amazingly life-like animatronics (even the tiger in Gladiator was a computerized “living image”). See the “In” Visible Human! Now you can explore the inside of a human body, thanks to the National Library of Medicine, which offers a digital atlas of the human body. The Visible Human has produced computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and physical cross-sections of a cadaver. Find out more at www.crd.ge.com/esl/cgsp/projects/vm/. Spiders Climb the Ladder of Success Imagine being trapped at the bottom of an enormous well with towering, slippery porcelain walls, and a huge flood could happen at any moment. Panic turns to relief when you notice a hand made 12-wooden-rung rope ladder that you quickly climb to safety. The Spider Ladder is that kind of lifesaver for eight-leggers who would otherwise be trapped (and possibly drowned!) in your bathtub. Contact Hawkin’s Bazaar, St. Margaret, Harleston, Norfolk IP20 0HN; tel.: 01986 782536—or visit www.hawkin.co.uk. Test Tube T-Bone Dutch inventors are creating a way to mass-produce meat by taking a small sample of cells from one animal, allowing them to “grow” huge quantities of meat without factory farms or slaughterhouses. Looks and Tastes Just Like Shrimp-Shrimp Mocktail! One bite of these flesh-free “prawns” and you’ll double-check the ingredients. They’re vegan ... and they’re amazing! Order online at vegieworld.com or PETAMall.com. A Real “Live” Stuffed Animal?-Life-like "Pulse" Ditch the animal lab. Now there are realistic training dog and cat models, like “Advanced Airway Jerry,” which boasts two lungs and a pulse. Medical students can learn to insert catheters, suture “skin,” draw “blood” and more-without using real animals. More than a dozen different models are available, and others are in the works. For details, visit www.rescuecritters.com, or contact Rescue Critters at P.O. Box 261972, Encino, CA 91426-1972; emsca@aol.com.