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No rights for apes in New Zealand - The New Zealand legislature will not extend legal rights to great apes after a parliamentary committee there studied and rejected a proposal by the Great Ape Project to amend an Animal Welfare Bill to grant such rights. "We do not agree with the proposed great apes rights amendment as it would change the intent and approach of the bill from welfare to rights," said Eric Roy, chairman of the committee that decided to reject the Great Ape Project bill.
Meat eating and evolution - A study by University of California Berkeley anthropology professor Katharine Milton suggests that the addition of meat to the diets of early proto-humans was essential in influencing homo sapiens evolutionary development toward the big brains we all know and love. According to Milton, "Without meat, it's unlikely that proto-humans could have secured enough energy and nutrition from the plants available in their African environment at that time to evolve into the active sociable, intelligent creatures they became."
Milton arrived at her conclusion by comparing the digestive physiology of primates, noting that those primates primarily reliant on vegetation tend to be sedentary and relatively sluggish such as the orangutan and the gorilla, whereas those that also include meat in their diet, such as the chimpanzee, are extremely active food gatherers.