Research lets people experience what it feels like to be a cow

Daily Caller News Foundation

Would experiencing a day in the life of a cow make you less likely to eat meat? How would chopping down a tree affect your paper usage? These are questions that Stanford University researchers are using virtual reality to answer.

"If somebody becomes an animal, do they gain empathy for that animal and think about its plight?" asked Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. "In this case, empathy toward the animal also coincides with an environmental benefit, which is that [not eating] animals consumes less energy."

Bailenson is heading research at Stanford in which participants don virtual reality helmets and walk on their hands and feet. They are then able to see themselves as a cow in a virtual mirror. They experience what a cow does on its way to being slaughtered and then record what they eat for the next week to see if being a cow reduced meat consumption.

This is just one experiment Bailenson is conducting, but all his experiments are tailored to finding new ways to encourage environmental conservation.

E&E News reports: "Volunteers also have virtually chopped down a tree, a study aimed at examining attitudes toward paper use. Others took a virtual reality shower while eating lumps of coal - literally consuming it - to gain insight into how much was needed to heat the water."

Some researchers argue that virtual reality can alter people's behavior and change their attitudes with respect to environmental issues like global warming. In fact, the National Science Foundation has doled out $748,000 to universities, including Stanford, to conduct four experiments using virtual environments.

"It's just a much more compelling way of getting people to understand the effects of their behavior now on the future," Tim Herron of the Decision Theatre lab at the University of British Columbia. "It's about visualizing the data for people. Once people can see it, it's amazing how much it changes things. People begin to really understand the necessity to make some changes now to prevent these sort of things."

The results of the virtual cow experiment are still inconclusive, reports E&E News, but comments from some study participants indicate that they now empathize with cows.

"Once I got used to it I began to feel like I was the cow," wrote one participant. "I truly felt like I was going to the slaughter house towards the end and I felt sad that I (as a cow) was going to die. That last prod felt really sad."

According to Bailenson, he has seen some students become more environmentally conscious. Students who had gone through the virtual reality lab of cutting down trees used 20 percent less paper when cleaning up a pre-staged mess than those who had simply watched a video of a tree being cut down.

Bailenson also noted that he gets emails months after people go through the experiment saying they can't walk through the toilet paper aisle of the grocery store without thinking of a falling tree.

Update: This experiment did not receive any of the NFS grant, as previously reported. The NFS and Stanford University have confirmed to TheDC news Foundation that no taxpayer dollars went towards the virtual cow experiment. The article has been corrected to reflect this information. Follow Michael on Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallrnewsfoundation.org.

Salt is bad for you, except it isn't

Have you seen Sleeper? One of Woody Allen's funniest movies. He plays, well, himself as always, and he gets put into suspended animation and wakes up 200 hundred years from now. Everything is very silly. If you haven't seen it, here's the relevant bit:

Ha ha! Because all the stuff modern science tells us is unhealthy is actually harmless, if not beneficial! It's a wacky humor joke.

Except it's not. We already know that the more you follow the food pyramid, the more you take on its shape. Everything you've been told about food your whole life is wrong. Well, mostly. And now, even seasonings aren't safe from being declared safe.

KFOR in Oklahoma City: A recent report commissioned by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reviewed the health benefits of reducing salt intake and the take-home message is that salt, in the quantities consumed by most Americans, is no longer considered a substantial health hazard. What the CDC study reported explicitly is that there is no benefit, and may be a danger, from reducing our salt intake below 1 tsp per day. What was absent about the report was is the difference between healthy mineral salts and iodized table salt...Salt is the most common and readily available nonmetallic mineral in the world. So how could a mineral which we've bathed in and absorbed in all foods since our existence be so harmful for the human body? Two words. It isn't. Actually, the opposite is true. A low salt diet will actually increase your risk of death.

I know what you're thinking, but no, Michael Bloomberg is in no danger. It's not like he follows the same rules as us commoners!

The NYT even called him out for his sodium sanctimony back in '09:

Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to "shake the habit" by asking waiters for food without added salt.But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others' lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel "that it's like a pretzel," said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg's Upper East Side town house.Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino's Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.

That's because salt is delicious. It makes food taste better. So eat it. Eat all you want of it. Go nuts! In fact, eat nuts with salt on them, because they taste better that way. (Get your mind out of the gutter, you.)

Somebody should design a salt shaker in the shape of Bloomberg's stupid head. The salt could pour out of his soulless eyes. I don't know who the food-fascist on the pepper shaker would be... Michelle Obama? Nah, that'd be racist. Well, we'll figure it out, I'm just throwing out ideas here.

Update: Taking omega-3 fish oil supplements may increase the risk of aggressive prostate cancer by 70%. Yay!

Update: ICYMI, the other day Labash said the same thing I just did, except funny.

Throwback: Bo Jackson hits a home run, makes President Reagan swallow his ...

On this day in 1989, President Ronald Reagan was sportscasting the All-Star game when Bo Jackson hit an epic home run.

Bo Jackson was drafted by the New York Yankees in 1982, but instead took the opportunity to play football for Auburn. After finishing his extraordinary college career he was drafted first pick in the NFL. But this time he went to play baseball for the Kansas City Royals.

Most were skeptical about Jackson's ability to be a great baseball player. He was often asked, "When are you going back to football, Bo?"

"Every day I hear the same thing," Jackson said. "People always are telling me I made a mistake, that I should have played pro football. "

During that All-Star game, Reagan said, "But I also played [football] for real in a much earlier time. But that, Bo down there, that's an interesting hobby he has for his vacation. When baseball ends he winds up playing football. I just don't know ..."

But Reagan couldn't finish his sentence as Jackson slammed a home run and the crowd erupted.

"Bo Jackson says hello!"

Watch

BEDFORD: The (real) life of Julie

There's a new woman in town, and her name is Julie - not Julia.

Remember Julia? She's the woman that the president promised to care for 'till death do they part during his re-election campaign.

She wasn't a real person.

But while Juli a was make believe, Juli e is as real as people get. A real person whose concerns over the past week have been ridiculed, dismissed, and called dishonest by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Julie, who was not identified by her last name, is a young mother. Her very real son, Caleb, suffers from very real seizures. Her third very real child is due in a few weeks. And the impetus for the attacks? She dared to go public through the libertarian Americans for Prosperity (AFP) to voice very real questions about what Obamacare really means for her, and for her very real family:

The Beltway's Washington Post gave her two "Pinnochios" - a playful score they use to call people liars.

The New Yorkers at the Times also called Julie a liar, but went even further, saying that Julie's concern for her family is just an AFP front for protecting the rich from having "to help pay for health insurance subsidies for the poor."

See, these guys are hopping mad, because unlike fake Julia who unquestioningly accepted the government's handouts and controls, Julie is asking hard questions. Questions about a bill then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told the public they could learn about after it was passed; questions about a bill that one of its main authors, Sen. Max Baucus, called " a huge trainwreck"; questions about a bill so unwieldy and unpredictable that the White House has been forced to delay and abandon key aspects and hand out waivers to panicked special interests like candy.

All questions have been dismissed - and never adequately answered.

Questions like this one: How will Obamacare affect our ability to choose a doctor?

It won't, one Post author wrote while admitting that "there is one way that the new marketplaces could cut patients off from the doctors they currently see" - so far.

Meanwhile in California, insurance companies that aren't shutting down operations are narrowing their offered plans to save costs, in effect cutting consumers' options. (RELATED: 58,000 Californians to lose current insurance under Obamacare)

Because like it or not, when a plan is forced to change, and forced to narrow, families may not be able to see the same doctors they did before. The reality is that families and individuals build strong and trusting relationships with their doctors - bonds they do not want to break.

And here's a second question: What do we get for higher premiums and a smaller paycheck?

Nothing to worry about, the Times assures us. The government won't let higher premiums happen: "The law includes limits and protections against unwarranted rate increases."

The Post was a little more careful, with healthcare blogger Sarah Kliff writing "For the 14 million people who purchase health insurance in the individual market, some will see their premiums increase in 2014."

Indeed, a study by the University of Minnesota's Dr. Stephen Parente predicts that individual and small group premiums will increase 8 percent per year. So while an average individual's silver-level insurance cost $11,770 in 2010, by 2014 it will cost $15,428, and by 2019: $21,639 - nearly twice the price it was when Obamacare became law. (RELATED: Obamacare drives up insurance premiums by up to 146 percent in California)

And here's one more question: Can we trust the government to manage this?

In what may be the most naive answer, the Washington Post's Ms. Kliff assures real Julie that while the answer is "unclear," it isn't important because "the question [of government] just isn't that relevant to the Affordable Care Act" - the biggest increase in government economic oversight in U.S. history.

In a more cowardly answer, the Times declined to address the question head on, instead cavalierly dismissing those who are worried that Obamacare "expands the role of government in individual lives."

Julie, the Times insists, is just a puppet for Charles and David Koch - two major AFP donors who have donated more than $1 billion to medical and educational charities and arts; have given over $100 million to libertarian causes; and have refused pay-to-play D.C. games.

The Koch's secret mission, the Times breathlessly informs us, is to hoard money (they give so freely) and keep Americans uninsured (for a reason never explained) by playing on Americans' uncertainties and fears (which the D.C. and New York elites dismiss).

The GOP was unable to defeat Obamacare in Congress. And conservatives failed to defeat it in court. But it may just die yet, devoured by its own inefficiencies. And as the massive law shutters and stumbles, don't expect its media champions to go quietly into the night. The fear-mongering and class-war rhetoric they used to pass it will only become more shrill as their achievement is threatened.

But The Times and the Post just want their win. They never really cared about Julie anyway.

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Students blame Republicans, wish they would all die

Daily Caller News Foundation

A Georgetown University student blamed the Republicans for allowing student loan rates to double, while another said that all Republicans should be put to death.

Campus Reform interviewed Georgetown students about their thoughts on student-loan reform and the GOP in general. One student gave a startling answer when asked whether he supported the Republican plan.

"I don't think I support anything the Republicans do," he said. "I think all of them should probably be put to death."

Another student, who was watching the interview, chimed in with, "That was a little harsh."

Off camera, the first student said, "No, it wasn't."

Another student complained that it was "arbitrary" and "douchey" for the Republicans to allow student-loan interest rates to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. When asked whether he thought all Republicans were generally douchey, he said, "Just the ones on the Hill."

The interest rate jump was hardly arbitrary, however. It occurred automatically after the Senate failed to hammer out a compromise before July 1. Republicans, moderate Democrats and President Obama support a plan to index student-loan interest rates to financial markets, which would keep them low for now while allowing for higher rates in the future.

Liberal Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, would prefer to keep Congress in control of student loans and have blocked the plan, preferring a flat three-year extension of the lower rates.

Even though the interest rate has already increased, Congress could change it back retroactively, though it's unclear whether a deal will be reached by the end of the summer.

Many students, it seems, would oppose the Republican plan, no matter what the plan was.

Follow Robby on Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Cairo braces for mass protests

Cairo is bracing for a day of mass protests Friday by supporters and opponents of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, with both sides promising to march peacefully.

Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood is refusing to back down from demands that he be reinstated. It strongly opposes plans for a transitional government. A Brotherhood spokesman says that the group will keep pressuring the leaders of what he calls a military coup with sit-ins and million man marches. He says the movement believes in non-violent, democratic, and peaceful change.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department says the arrests of Brotherhood leaders are not in line with the national reconciliation the interim Egyptian government says it wants.

Spokeswoman Jan Psaki says if politicized arrests and detentions continue, it would be hard to see how Egypt can move forward.

Egypt's public prosecutor ordered the arrest of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and some other senior Islamists. He accuses them of inciting Monday's clash between Morsi supporters and the army which killed 51 people.

The military overthrew President Morsi last week after days of massive anti-government protests. Morsi opponents accuse him of betraying the 2011 revolution that forced long-time president Hosni Mubarak from office.

The U.S. State Department said this week that Morsi's government was not a democratic rule, but is refusing to take sides in the current political crisis. It says any transitional government must include all voices and parties.

The United States is still evaluating if Morsi's ouster was a military coup. If such a determination is made, U.S. law would require the government to suspend all non-humanitarian aid to Egypt.

Meanwhile, the U.S. says it is going ahead with a planned delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt. The planes are scheduled to arrive in August. They are part of a set of 20 planes Egypt is to receive this year under a deal approved in 2010.

(VOA)

Rubio's fundraising pitch ignores his role in immigration reform

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's latest fundraising letter completely ignores his signature issue: his work with Democrats to rewrite the nation's immigration laws and add 46 million immigrants by 2033.

"Now, with the full weight of the liberal Washington elite's attack machine firmly fixed on me in a frantic attempt to diminish my effectiveness... I'm reaching out to ask you to lend me a hand today," says the letter, which is signed "Proud to Stand, Marco Rubio."

In fact, Rubio has gotten a great deal of supportive media coverage from liberal elites, who have repeatedly touted him as a possible 2016 presidential candidate because of his efforts to pass the immigration bill, which is unpopular among GOP base voters.

In February, Time magazine gave him its front cover to tout the Senate's emerging immigration deal, which is backed by Washington's progressive, lobbying and business elite, with the headline, "The Republican Savior."

He's also getting support from business elites, who are funding ads that applaud his work on the immigration bill. The bill would double the inflow of low-wage workers and customers.

After the Senate voted through the immigration bill that he had championed to conservative media outlets, leading Democrat senators lauded his work. Rubio's task was to "work over the conservative universe, particularly the conservative opinion-maker universe... [and] neutralize them," New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, one of the four Democratic Senators who helped draft the Gang of Eight's bill, The New Yorker reports.

Rubio "is the real deal. He is smart; he is substantive. He knows when to compromise and when to hold. And he's personable," said New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer, who led the effort to pass the bill through the Senate.

Rubio also won plaudits from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, the leading GOP supporter of the immigration bill. "Marco Rubio has been a game changer in my party... Marco has been indispensable," he told NBC News on April 7.

But Rubio has been hammered by former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin.

"It's beyond disingenuous for anyone to claim that a vote for this bill is a vote for security... This bill isn't about fixing problems; it's about amnesty at all costs," Palin wrote in a Facebook post in late June.

Rubio has been distancing himself from his liberal allies since the Senate approved the bill.

On June 26, one day before the final vote, he began mending fences with his conservative supporters.

Conservatives and tea Party members "are increasingly unhappy about the immigration reform proposal in the Senate... [but] in my heart and in my mind, I know that we must solve this problem once and for all, or it will only get worse. It will only get harder to solve," he said in a floor speech.

Immediately after the vote, he avoided the media scrum outside the Senate's doors, leaving Sens. Graham and McCain to declare victory to an audience of mostly supportive reporters.

Without mentioning immigration, Rubio used his fund-raising letter, which included a plain "Rubio Victory" bumper sticker, to tout his work on a series of proposals backed by conservatives in his home state and nationally.

"No matter how many person political hits I take, I will never back down when it comes to improving our economy, curbing the federal debt, lowering tax rates or preserving the American dream for the next generation as my my parents did for me," the letter reads.

The letter also mentioned Rubio's standing in his home state of Florida.

"Make no mistake, the liberal forces attacking me in Florida will not rest in their quest to damage every shred of my credibility," the pitch continues.

His letter suggested that his fund-raising was declining. "My friend, you and I must not allow the New York and Washington liberal elite to outspend or outwork us in this fight... That's why just a few weeks ago I asked my most loyal supporters to help us beat an anticipated dip in fundraising."

Rubio's polls took a hit over the last few months as he ramped up his support for the immigration overhaul.

"In the four national surveys conducted in January, an average of 20 percent of Republicans said they would support Mr. Rubio for the party's [presidential] nomination in 2016," The New York Times reports. "That number dropped to an average of 11 percent in the four primary polls conducted in June."

Rubio's slide in the polls reduces the chance he'll try to beat out out Republicans - such as his mentor, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush - for the 2016 nomination.

In home-state polls, Rubio has lost GOP support while gaining some support from swing-voters.

In 2009 and 2010 Rubio positioned himself as an opponent of amnesty.

"I am strongly against amnesty," he said in 2009. "The most important thing we need to do is enforce our existing laws... I am not, and I will never support any effort to grant blanket legalization/amnesty to folks who have entered, stayed in this country illegally."