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“We can’t fire our bears or furlough our sea lions.”

As the financial crisis hits zoos and aquariums, it's proving hard to make cuts

“I guess I could have been popular by accepting Kyoto.”

In his final press conference, President George W. Bush said he could easily have won popularity in Europe, if he had wanted to, by agreeing to international initiatives such as the Kyoto protocol (The Guardian, London, 13 January)

“He’s not a genius. They had no passwords, no firewalls, and that’s the problem – Gary embarrassed them.”

Janis Sharp defends her son Gary McKinnon, who faces extradition to the US with a possible 70-year sentence for hacking into NASA computers, apparently to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life (The Times, London, 13 January)

“Fetal testosterone not only masculinises the body, it masculinises the mind.”

Autism researcher Simon Baron Cohen from the University of Cambridge on his finding that children exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb have a greater risk of developing autism-spectrum characteristics, which he believes are more “male” (AFP, 12 January)

“We can’t fire our bears or furlough our sea lions.”

Many US zoos and aquariums are losing government funding as a result of the financial crisis, but John Calvelli of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates zoos and aquariums in New York, points out that it’s hard to see where cuts can be made (Associated Press, 13 January)

“We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision.”

Ingrid Newkirk, president of PETA, responding to the news that George, a lobster thought to be as old as 140 – an age rarely seen in captivity – has been returned to the ocean from his previous home, a New York restaurant (Reuters, 9 January)