Lauren Wildbolz

Perhaps you didn’t realize that if you want to smell better, you can spray broken-elephant spray on your arms.

And thus unwittingly promote the hunting of an endangered species, as the valuable substance is found in particularly large quantities – up to 400 kg lumps – in the stomachs of the animals. This is because when sperm whales swallow indigestible items such as beaks, sharp mussel shells or crab claws, their bodies form ambergris – a sticky mass that surrounds them to protect the organs. The waxy substance is then either stored in the stomach, excreted or vomited – and the initial fecal odor gradually develops into a sweet, earthy scent with an aphrodisiac note. This is used around the world as a base note for perfumes and amber is sometimes traded as expensively as gold.

However, the problem is not only that sperm whales are threatened with extinction, but that the production of ambergris may also be the result of a metabolic disorder: Only one in 100 sperm whales produces the substance. So it’s no wonder that their fragrance has also been produced artificially for some time. The extraction of an essence of balsam fir that comes very close to the smell is highly inefficient, however, as only 30 percent of the material is subsequently usable. Now researchers at the University of British Columbia have found a sustainable alternative: They have cracked the genetic code of the fragrant pine substance, extracted it, transplanted it into yeast cells and allowed it to grow there. Also good to know for night owls: in future, the beguiling scent of the other person will probably be a sustainably produced organic product and no longer the vomit of a sick whale.

http://www.ecomagination.com/the-sweet-smell-of-synthetic-whale-ambergris

Source:

Abstarkt Issue No.10 from W.I.R.E

It is clear to everyone that the pharmaceutical industry uses animal experiments when researching new active ingredients. But cigarettes and animal testing?

In the Philip Morris laboratory in the Belgian city of Leuven alone, up to 6,000 animals die in the laboratories every year, allegedly for scientific experiments.

According to the responsible authorities, the cigarette manufacturer wants to “test the harmful effects of smoking new types of cigarettes. However, this is in contradiction to research that is intended to benefit human well-being.”

On the Philip Morris website , the justification is the rather absurd claim that animal testing also serves to “avoid animal testing in the future”. How the cigarette manufacturer intends to reduce the number of animal tests by increasing the number of animal tests remains a mystery, as do the many years (or perhaps decades?) that will pass until then.

“The animal tests were used to make the company’s products less harmful. There is no scientific alternative to these tests.” Yet even the layman now realizes that it could be much simpler. Around 40 years ago, a cigarette was essentially just tobacco. In the meantime, however, it has become common practice to add a veritable cocktail of chemicals to tobacco. The harmfulness of smoking could be reduced simply by eliminating all these additives. Not a single animal would have to sacrifice its life for this realization – which is, however, deliberately ignored by the tobacco industry.

In any case, the validity of such studies is more than doubtful, as even the tobacco industry itself has demonstrated. For decades, she denied the causal link between smoking and lung cancer, which has since been scientifically proven and recognized in humans as well. The reason given was that this connection could not be established in mice.

vegan kitchen & Peta recommends:

Spiegel Online: Tobacco experiments Philio Morris

“Pueblo” cigarettes and tobacco

Peta report, Smoking beagles: Science in the public interest?