Against the backdrop of BSAVA Congress (3-6 April), the biggest veterinary gathering outside the USA, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) is launching a pilot of VETS.TV and invites all delegates to visit stand 916 to sample this new and innovative service. VETS.TV is an internet television site run jointly by the BVA and Ten Alps Publishing which will be available via a microsite of www.bva.co.uk.

A few weeks ago, on a Hawaiian island, a man concerned to help his sick relative make a good recovery, took his favourite pet to visit him in hospital. The only problem was the pet was not a cat or a dog, or even a gerbil in a cage, but a horse.Wilcox Hospital in Lihue, a town of about 6,000 people on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, is generally accommodating when it comes to pets visiting their owners.

Ferrets, frogs and finches are becoming more common as pets, but the list of unusual species adopted into human households now includes some of the most exotic creatures on the planet. The trade in exotic pets has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, but expansion of the industry sometimes outpaces veterinary knowledge of how to treat the maladies that afflict these unusual animals.

For the first time, veterinary students participated in the Intercollegiate Animal Welfare Judging and Assessment Competition, highlighting the increased attention veterinarians are receiving for their role in ensuring animal welfare. Now in its seventh year, the Animal Welfare Judging and Assessment Competition was originally created to help students enrolled in undergraduate animal science programs understand the importance of animal welfare in agricultural systems.

With the end of the vector-free period and the threat of more cases of bluetongue, organisations from across all elements of the livestock sector have come together to launch a Joint campaign Against Bluetongue (JAB).

The canine influenza virus, first identified in 2004, had been circulating in the greyhound population for at least five years prior to its discovery and may have been responsible for numerous outbreaks of respiratory disease among dogs at racing tracks during that period, according to research presented at the 2008 International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.

Many different approaches are being used to increase milk production of dairy cows. A study recently completed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) indicates that improving drinking water through a technology created by EAU Technologies, has the potential to produce the desired results. Penn Vet worked with EAU Technologies, Inc.

The U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention has announced the release of a new edition of the Pharmacists' Pharmacopeia, a comprehensive resource containing critical information for advancing the practice of safe and effective pharmacy and veterinary compounding.

Osteochondrosis, or so-called "joint mice", is a very common illness of Norwegian horses, although its cause is as yet unknown. A recent Ph. D. degree by veterinary surgeon Kristin Olstad of the equine clinic of the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science concluded that failure of blood supply to the developing joint cartilage can lead to the development of the disease.

Without a ripple in the water, alligators dive, surface or roll sideways, even though they lack flippers or fins. University of Utah biologists discovered gators maneuver silently by using their diaphragm, pelvic, abdominal and rib muscles to shift their lungs like internal floatation devices: toward the tail when they dive, toward the head when they surface and sideways when they roll.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) is pleased to announce that dog fighting is now a felony everywhere in the United States. Last week, Wyoming made dog fighting a felony, the 50th state in the country to do so.

Citing concerns about the spread of disease and injury, inhumane treatment of animals, and ecological damage, Dr. Gail Golab, PhD, DVM, director of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Animal Welfare Division, spoke on the dangers of nonhuman primates kept as pets before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources.

In order to have a positive impact on clinical outcomes, help maintain antimicrobial effectiveness, assist clinicians in using antimicrobials safely, and minimize selection of resistant pathogens, laboratories must use a standardized, well-defined method for performing antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST).

An article in this week's issue of The Veterinary Record explains how the midge that carried bluetongue virus to the UK probably surfed the air currents above the North Sea for between nine and 12 hours to deliver its payload from Belgium.

The Animal Health Trust (AHT Equine) has announced the launch of a bi-monthly programme of free equine CPD seminars, exclusively for members of the BVA Young Vet Network (YVN), to run from March to December 2008. Commenting on the initiative BVA President Nick Blayney said: "The AHT has designed an extremely attractive series of talks, all by first class speakers and we are delighted to be working with them on this exciting initiative.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has become aware of a case of confirmed rabies in a dog, diagnosed in France on the 26th February. The French authorities have identified 4 potential risk areas where people may have been exposed to rabies. The risk of rabies is considered ongoing in these areas.

Sinisa Grozdanic, assistant professor of veterinary medicine at Iowa State University, has identified and named an eye disease not previously known. The disease, Immune-Mediated Retinopathy, or IMR, causes loss of function in retinal cells and, in some cases, blindness in canines.Grozdanic's findings are published in the March edition of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice.

ensurApet, Inc. (OTCBB:EPTI), a provider of pet health insurance, announces that it anticipates becoming a leader in the rapidly growing US market for pet health insurance through a network of veterinary hospitals. CEO Russell Smith stated, "The United States has the largest population of companion animals in the world, with some 62% of US households owning pets, consisting of approximately 68 million dogs and 73 million cats.

Bovine respiratory disease complex has multiple causes. It's sometimes hard to classify and predict. It also costs the beef industry more than any other disease -- an estimated $690 million in 2006, according to one report.That's why a team of Kansas State University researchers is stepping in. Using a three-year, $375,000 grant from the U.S.

Since the 1980s, animal cell culture technology has become essential for the production of an ever-increasing number of human and veterinary biopharmaceuticals. These bi-annual Cell Culture Engineering conferences are a leading venue for the academic, industrial and regulatory communities to learn and debate new concepts and issues related to animal cell culture research and development.