Revving up mad cow fight

A sticker on the door leading into the cramped laboratory where cattle brains get checked for mad cow disease cautions, "No street clothing. Gown and shoe covers required."

"Just a precaution," says Alex Ardans, the director of the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System, as he opens the door to California's new mad cow testing lab. "BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) has never been known to travel by contact, but we're taking extra measures anyway."

The sticker has been on the door since June 1, when the lab at the University of California, Davis, became one of 12 regional facilities tapped by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to carry out an expanded mad cow testing program that will run for the next year to 18 months....