Olympian Michael Phelps adopted his new pooch, Stella, and promptly started honing her ability to swim. We're sure Michael already qualifies as a hero to Stella even before the London games!

Paul McCartney has schooled many a musician in rock 'n' roll, and now he wants to school children in going vegetarian. He's encouraging schools to join his "Meat Free Mondays" campaign and offer students vegetarian options at lunch.

Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky and Switched at Birth actor Constance Marie joined Paul's chorus, jumping in with the host of other celebs tweeting for animals this week and promoting "Meat Free Mondays" and the veggie life.

The role of WNBA star Candace Parker in the L.A. Sparks' win last Wednesday earned her a Player of the Week nod, but she plays for animals every week by working with PETA to fight fur. 

Photo: Jason Grow/www.jasongrow.com|Hair and makeup: Lauren Genatossio for Team Artist Representative

With another fur foe, Aimee Teegarden, cast in the starring role, you can bet that the CW Television Network's new show, The Selection, billed as "the next Hunger Games," will be decidedly fur-free.

To keep up with what all your fave stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.

Long before Michael Phelps swam his way into our cultural consciousness—104 years before, to be exact—vegetarian swimmers were already wowing people with their superhuman stamina. Check out this 1904 headline from Montréal's The Gazette:

Vegetarians aren't weighed down by all that cholesterol-laden animal fat or their own guilty conscience. The advantages are clear: Vegetarians make better lovers, better fighters, and better swimmers!

Written by Logan Scherer

Last week, in honor of our favorite Olympic stoner, we decided to run a billboard that declared, "Say No to Pot Roast." When the billboard made a huge splash in headlines, we started getting requests for a T-shirt sporting the slogan. Take a deep breath and get ready for this one:

Buy your own "Say No to Pot (Roast)" T-shirt here.

Are you listening, Mr. Phelps? Maybe your enormous lung capacity could be put to better use letting the world know about the benefits of going vegetarian.

Written by Lianne Turner

The buzz surrounding the photos of Michael Phelps paying more attention to the bong water than to the pool water makes this an appropriate time to run our own pot billboard, don't you think?

Michael recently admitted that he was, in fact, smoking reefer and apologized—but doesn't everyone know that the hazards of ingesting pot roast are perhaps even more worrying?

So here's our little contribution to liven up the debate:

No one knows if marijuana is addictive (although some people swear it is), but eating meat sure seems to be. Witness all the grownups who can't even contemplate "giving up meat" even when they are fat, impotent, and at risk for a heart attack. And these are the same people who say that they love animals but go right on causing them immense suffering.

Maybe Michael will see our billboard and abandon the pot roast too—or at least speak up for those other cute swimmers … the sea kittens! I can see it now …

Written by Christine Doré

Blind and sighted, man or macaque—we all celebrate in the same way. A recent study from scientists at the University of British Columbia and San Francisco State University shows that the "victory dance"—arms raised, chest puffed out—is an instinctive trait of all primates.

You mean I have something in common with Michael Phelps? All right, then!

cnn / CC

It turns out that the victory dance closely resembles the dominance displays of chimpanzees and monkeys—"Yes, I'm strong, and I'm bigger than you"—and is universal among all athletes, from all cultures, including blind Paralympians. Since the blind athletes couldn't have learned this behavior from others, the victory dance has to be innate.

Similarly, poses of defeat—heads down, shoulders slumped—are also the same for all primates (and not only primates), with the exception of some sighted athletes from the U.S. and Western Europe. The lead author of the study speculates that "the athletes were intentionally hiding their feelings—consciously overriding their innate urge to signal defeat—because losing is so stigmatized in their cultures." Tellingly, blind athletes from the same countries did exhibit the same defeat poses as other primates—showing again that this is innate behavior.

More and more studies confirm what we already know—that we are all one under the skin. Hopefully, these studies will bring humans one step closer toward having respect for all primates.

Written by Amanda Schinke