iPad Makes Frogs ‘Appy’

We’ve never understood why any child needs to poke around inside an amphibian, but holy “Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County“: iTunes now offers a virtual frog dissection iPad app! In honor of this sophisticated and humane alternative to dissection, PETA is presenting its creator, Emantras Interactive Technologies, with a Mark Twain Ethical Science Award.

Every year, millions of frogs, cats, pigs, and other animals suffer and are killed for dissection even though modern non-animal teaching methods such as interactive computer programs are educationally superior, more economical, and safer (do you really want your kid handling formaldehyde?). Now, thanks to Emantras’ new app—which can be downloaded on iTunes for $4.99—students who are lucky enough to own iPads can use touch-enabled virtual dissection tools to explore and manipulate a frog’s organs in 3D.

PETA’s Mark Twain Ethical Science Award recognizes its namesake’s staunch opposition to the abuse of animals in experiments. Hailed as America’s first animal advocate, Twain said of animal experimentation, “The pains which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity towards it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.”

Teaching students anatomy without harming animals? We think Mark Twain would approve. And thanks to the award, media outlets are abuzz about this new leap toward keeping classrooms cruelty-free. So how about channeling your inner Twain and taking action to cut out dissection? While you’re doing that, I’m going to light up my corn-cob pipe and while away the afternoon dreaming about how much iWant an iPad.

Written by Amy Skylark Elizabeth