Cattle producers can sue Ottawa over mad cow (Canada.com) An Ontario Superior Court judge has given Canadian cattle producers the green light to sue the government as a group to recover financial losses suffered in the aftermath of the mad-cow crisis in May 2003. [News Source]

New mad-cow discovery could lead to tests on live animals: Winnipeg scientists (Canada.com) Manitoba scientists have discovered a way to detect mad cow disease in urine, a finding that could lead to the first test for the infection in live animals. [News Source]

Bugged by hornets? Give them to science. Garth Benton, project manager at ALK-Abello, says collectors "supply us with frozen yellow jackets, hornets and wasps of varying species, and we take those insects and we harvest the venom proteins which are used to diagnose and treat insect sting allergy." [News Source]

Chronic wasting disease incident a mystery to state, deer farmer who went ‘by the book.’ Jim Schuiteman hand-raised and bottle-fed his babies, carefully tending to his 52-head deer farm for four years, all the while following state protocol to keep the animals disease free. [News Source]

Prions jump species barrier. Infectious prion proteins from hamsters can change normal proteins from mice into new, infectious forms of prion - simply by mixing the proteins together in a test tube. Prion proteins are responsible for "mad cow" disease. [News Source]

Mad-cow class action gets judge’s clearance. A $10-billion class action lawsuit targeting the federal government for economic losses caused by a devastating outbreak of mad-cow disease in 2003 has been given a green light to proceed. [News Source]

Urine Has Clue That May Lead to Mad Cow Test, Scientists Say (Bloomberg.com) Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian scientists have discovered a way to detect mad cow disease in urine, a finding that could lead to the first test for the infection in live animals. [News Source]

Customer Service (Brandon Sun) WINNIPEG - Scientists say they've made a discovery that could lead to testing live cattle for mad cow disease. Right now, cattle can only be tested after they've been slaughtered. [News Source]

Urine test may flag mad cow disease in live cattle (Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News) Canadian researchers said on Friday they have found a possible way to test living cattle for mad cow disease, using protein traces in urine. [News Source]

Canadian Farmers Win Certification for Group Suit Over Mad Cow (Bloomberg.com) Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian cattle farmers won a judge's approval to sue the government as a group to try to recoup losses resulting from a 26-month ban on beef and cattle exports to the U.S. that began in 2003. [News Source]