abc / CC

It's a good day for mice and rats in the Republic of China (aka Taiwan)! Thanks to a whistleblower, PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department got a tip that led us into high-level talks with National Yang-Ming University's president about her school's cruel pharmacology experiments. And what do you know—the university has decided to end not one but two of these outdated tests in less than nine days and instead use humane non-animal alternatives!

Part of the first experiment called for students to pump the chemical strychnine into the stomachs of approximately 150 mice through surgically-attached stomach tubes. That's right, strychnine—and then the students were required to observe and record the animals' convulsions. The second experiment required the students to inject pentylenetetrazol, a convulsion-causing chemical, into approximately 135 mice. The students then had to inject acetic acid into the animals, which caused their bodies to contort painfully.

Now, both experiments have been canceled—and nearly 300 mice will be spared these terrible procedures every semester. The university will still conduct experiments on animals—including one cruel blood-pressure manipulation experiment in which students slice open animals' windpipes and blood vessels—but the university has also agreed to dramatically reduce the number of rats who are used in that experiment—to just one.

These victories come after PETA successfully convinced National Taiwan University College of Medicine to end similar experiments on animals earlier this year.

This is a great start for National Yang-Ming University and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, where school officials are beginning to realize that animal experimentation is not just unnecessary—it's inaccurate and completely inhumane.

Written by Amanda Schinke

Though we can all agree that neglecting to feed an animal companion is pretty low, what about knowingly starving or denying an animal water until he or she dies? Well, that's what glue traps do, which is why selling them makes Lowe's the lowest of the low.

We've sent out one of our custom campaign vans to visit Lowe's stores in North Carolina, to remind shoppers of what, exactly, the glue traps that Lowe's sells inevitably do—cause immense suffering and ensure a slow death to whatever animal is unlucky enough to touch one.

Check out the photos from our demo (and just imagine what you'd think if you passed this van with our mouse friend here in the driver's seat … yeah, we're good at grabbing attention):

Unlike other major retailers, such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Albertsons, and Safeway, Lowe's has refused to drop these deadly devices from its inventory. Join Ms. Giant Rat in encouraging Lowe's to change its cruel policy.

Written by Sean Conner

msnbcmedia1 / CC

You know those commercials we all laugh at? The ones for whatever weight-loss pill, claiming something to the effect of "It's SO easy! You don't have to exercise OR change your diet"? The ones that you laugh at with your friends and that make you say, "Yeah, right"?

Get this—the vivisectors at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences have announced a new wonder drug, a magical pill that would, they say, mimic the effects of exercise. Just swallow a little pill, their report says, and experience increased muscle endurance and doubled fat-burning muscle. It's SO easy!

The mice who were subjected to the drug apparently showed a decrease in fat and an increase in oxygen consumption—but not any of the other benefits from exercise. People are asking serious questions about the "just like exercise" claim.

It seems to me that the vivisectors at Salk got vaguely promising results from the mice and decided to cash in on America's fascination with weight loss and reluctance to exercise—not to mention all the Olympics-related fitness hubbub that's going on right now!

But come on, we really shouldn't be surprised that these "scientists" are grossly exaggerating their lab results in order to make headlines—think about all the other "scientific breakthroughs" that have been "proven" by mouse vivisection. As Yale University's Dr. David Katz writes, "Extrapolation from rodent research to outcomes in people is notoriously uncertain and fraught with danger. Basic science studies and animal experiments have resulted over the years in headlines about cures for cancer, a definitive obesity gene and effective AIDS vaccines, to name a few. None of these has yet to materialize, and early hyperbole in each case gave way to disappointment."

Well, I'm sure people will be disappointed—disappointed that animal testing is still going on, despite its cruelty, its inaccuracies, and the better alternatives that exist.

Written by Amanda Schinke

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Beyond her heavy-caliber lack of compassion for not realizing that mice can be controlled humanely (like, without the use of firearms in a small enclosed space), this woman gets extra points for managing to shoot two people by accident. Her domestic hunting expedition was cut short when she dropped the Magnum, causing it to fire. The bullet struck her in the kneecap (pwnd!) and went on to graze a nearby man's groin (dbl pwnd!) before ending up in his pocket. Hard to know what to say, really!

I love Fox news, my preferred news source for all things weird, for closing the story by reassuring everyone that "[t]he mice escaped the shooting unharmed."

If you run into this woman on the street, let her know we’ll be happy to send her a humane mousetrap to help her make a better decision next time, just in case her self-inflicted knee-capping wasn’t enough.

Have you heard about this? It’s a pretty amazing story out of the UK about researchers at Queen Mary's School of Medicine in London, who developed a unique three-dimensional model of human breast cancer in a test tube. Pretty cool.

Mice are not test tubes with whiskers . . .

This development has the potential to save countless animals from horrible suffering, and it also has amazing potential to save human lives, since the results will actually be applicable to curing cancer in humans, unlike animal experiments.

Hats off to the Queen Mary’s researchers who came up with this exciting new breakthrough. It puts us one step closer to a world without animal testing . . .

As I may have mentioned before, POM Wonderful has apparently decided that the juice industry is just too damn wholesome. The images of healthy kids and smiling parents guzzling delicious, vitamin-filled beverages are fine and all, but there's just not enough blood for POM's tastes. The company's ingenious solution has been to start doing all sorts of animal tests. Not, like, taste tests, but proper suffocating-mice and slicing-up-live-rabbits kind of tests.

We have found this to be somewhat upsetting. Yesterday, we launched our campaign against POM's animal experiments outside their headquarters in Los Angeles. The pictures and video tell most of the story, but a lovely little side note was when POM's security tried to block the protesters from public view by parking a big truck in front of the demonstration. Except they parked in a red zone, the LAPD got involved, tickets were issued, and everybody except POM thought the whole thing was kind of wonderful. Anyway, moral of the story: Test juice on animals and face the combined wrath of PETA, the LAPD, and a giant rabbit on your doorstep. Nobody wants that.