The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) on Monday asked all zoos across the country to be on high alert and collect samples fortnightly in suspected cases <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/a-tiger-at-the-bronx-zoo-tested-positive-for-covid-19-after-coming-into-contact-with-an-asymptomatic-caretaker/articleshow/75000701.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">after a tiger at a US zoo tested positive for coronavirus.</a><br /> In a letter to all states and Union territories, CZA Member Secretary S P Yadav said the <keyword id="418501" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="United-States-Department-of-Agriculture">United States Department of Agriculture</keyword>'s <keyword id="4305480" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="national-veterinary-services-laboratories">National Veterinary Services Laboratories</keyword> has confirmed COVID-19 in a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York.<br /><br /> "Zoos in the country are, therefore, advised to remain on highest alertness, and monitor animals 24X7 using CCTVs for any abnormal behaviour or symptoms," it said.<br /><br /> The authority said mammals, especially cats, ferrets and primates, need to be carefully monitored and fortnightly samples of suspected cases be sent to designated animal health institutes for COVID-19 testing.<br /><br /> The samples can be sent to the National Institute of High Security Animal Disease in Bhopal, the National Research Centre on Equines in Haryana's Hisar and the <keyword id="94112" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Veterinary-Research-Institute">Indian Veterinary Research Institute</keyword> in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, the letter said.<br /><br /> "Sick animals should be isolated and quarantined," it added.<br /><br /> No keeper or handler should be allowed in the vicinity of animals without safety gear, preferably <keyword id="2493103" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="personal-protective-equipment">personal protective equipment</keyword> (PPE). They should have least contact with animals while providing them feed, it said.<br /><br /> Zoos have been asked to follow all bio-containment and safety measures required to handle the high-risk pathogen as per the national/ICMR guidelines, the letter said.<br /><br /> "Zoos are advised to coordinate with designated nodal agencies of the government for public health response and permit screening, testing and surveillance as and when required by the nodal agency," the CZA added.<br /><br /> A four-year-old Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York has tested positive for the coronavirus infection.<br /><br /> The female tiger, named Nadia, is believed to be the first known case of an animal infected with COVID-19 in the US. It is suspected that she contracted the virus from a caretaker who was asymptomatic at that time. <br /><br />SEE ALSO: SEE ALSO:<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/topic/coronavirus">Coronavirus News and Updates</a> <br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/how-to-check-coronavirus-symptoms-at-home/articleshow/74960334.cms">What are the Coronavirus symptoms and how to check for them at home</a>

Indian zoos on high alert after tiger tests Coronavirus positive in the US

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Cow hugging or "koe knuffelen" has become the latest <keyword id="6374697" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wellness">wellness</keyword> craze to help reduce stress and increase positivity.</li><li>Originating in Reuver, The <keyword id="44173" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Netherlands">Netherlands</keyword>, it has gained popularity across the world, with farms from Switzerland to the United States now offering the therapy to visitors.</li><li>It promotes positivity and reduces stress through the cow's warmer body temperature and slower heartbeat. </li></ul><p>Cow hugging or "koe knuffelen" has become the latest wellness craze to help reduce stress and increase positivity.</p><p>Originating in the rural town of Reuver, The Netherlands, cow cuddling is gaining popularity across the world, with farms from Switzerland to the United States now offering the new form of therapy to visitors.</p><p>José van Stralen, who runs Farmsurvival in Spanbroek, The Netherlands, started offering cow hugging sessions six years ago after hearing about it from other farmers. </p><p>Speaking to Insider about the <keyword id="52148" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="cows">cows</keyword>, he said: "You can read in their body language that when they half close their eyes with their ears down, sometimes even lying their heads down on the person's lap that they are quite relaxed. </p><p>"It's a positive energy exchange. The person cuddling the cow becomes relaxed by being next to the cow's warmer body  and sometimes even manages to follow their heartbeat. It's a win-win situation and great experience for both.</p><p>"People often tell me it meant more to them than they had expected it to. They feel warm, accepted and loved and this exactly how they need to make the cow feel as well.</p><p>"Being outdoor in the green fields surrounded by cows under the blue sky, it doesn't get any better than that."</p><p>The cow's warmer body temperature and slower heartbeat is believed to promote positivity and reduce stress by boosting oxytocin in humans, the hormone released in social bonding, according to the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20201008-is-cow-hugging-the-worlds-new-wellness-trend">BBC</a>.</p><p>A 2007 study by French and Austrian scientists published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science found that cows "show signs of pleasure and relaxation when people, rub, massage or pet them," <a href="https://people.com/pets/cow-hugging-therapy-wellness-trend/">People</a> reported.</p><p>It added that the humans who were hugging the cows also experienced lower heart rates and showed physical signs of relaxation, which it said "could be of interest for an improvement in quality of human–cattle interactions." </p><p>In practice, sessions of hugging, petting, and massaging the cows are meant to last up to three hours depending on the farm but like humans, some cows are more sociable than others and will walk away if they aren't interested. </p><p>However, Philip Wilson, External Affairs Advisor at World Animal Protection, told Insider: "Although there may be some reported benefits for the cow, the main beneficiary seems to be the person doing the hugging. </p><p>"As an animal welfare organization, we are concerned that people learn and understand the intrinsic nature of animals as living, sentient beings, capable of feeling pain and suffering, as well as a range of positive emotions.</p><p>"We are also concerned about any unnecessary stress caused in terms of unwanted contact with people, risks to the animal and person, transportation and housing conditions.</p><p>"In terms of therapeutic benefits, we would question whether using companion animals such as dogs and cats would be just as effective and would pose less risk to all parties."</p>

Cow hugging has emerged as the latest, global wellness trend to help reduce stress and increase positivity

Chandigarh, Apr 9 () Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park or Chhatbir Zoo in Punjab has put in place a series of measures for animal safety including minimizing interface between animals and humans after a tiger in a US zoo tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Thursday.<p>All animals in the state's largest zoo, which is spread over 505 acres, are healthy and are being monitored regularly, zoo officials said.</p><p>"All animals are safe, no symptoms have been found in anyone. </p><p>"Taking precaution after the American zoo incident, we have put in place series of measures to keep the animals safe," the Zoo's field director, M Sudhagar told .</p><p>The zoo is currently closed to public in view of the nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.</p><p>He said the zoo, which has 1400 animals and birds, has also restricted the number of employees to less than one-third these days and they too are only those who are either living in the zoo colony or within the 2-km periphery.</p><p>"This is to ensure we can keep a close tab on them and who all they come into contact with. In the zoo, we have put in place two-layer sanitization. Severe screening is carried out. All vehicles are sanitized before entry.</p><p>"Then we sort out the workers who directly handle the animals, they are given extra protective clothing, masks, gloves and gum boots," he said.</p><p>Sudhagar said a dedicated person has been deputed for each animal. </p><p>"For example a single person will be working with tiger, he will not be changed in rotation. Even while going inside the shelter, he will not touch the animal and maintain distance. In case if under any circumstances animal handling is required, it will be under supervision of an expert who will go inside with personal protection equipment," he said.</p><p>On rotational basis, a supervisor and a security officer has been deputed. Besides, a Quick Response Team has also been deputed.</p><p>"We are closely monitoring the animals. In case if any symptoms are found in the animals, we have the facility to quarantine and treat them. Samples will be sent for testing to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute and another lab at Hisar," he said.</p><p>Sudhagar informed that the zoo has six adults and three cubs of Royal Bengal tiger. The cubs are three months old, he said.</p><p>"Apart from this, we have seven lions, five leopards, one jaguar, two jungle cats, apart from other canine and omnivorous species.</p><p>"Our advantage is that the zoo's housing design is highly protective, which helps to minimize human-animal interaction," he said. </p><p> He said entry of animal, release of animal, separation of animals and others can be regulated from outside the animal houses.</p><p>"Whenever we require to clean the area, we can easily clean from outside and then go inside and clean after taking all protective measures," the zoo official said.</p><p>Asked if any change in animal behaviour has been noticed as there is no public entry these days and zoo staff too has been pruned, he said, "Definitely, the animals are slightly less stressed, they are having full freedom. But still it is too early to arrive at any conclusion and may be around next month we will know their exact behaviour pattern".</p><p>To boost immunity of animals, they are being given vitamin supplements and herbal tonics.</p><p>Extra precaution is being taken while handling and washing meat. Separate trays and separate vehicles are kept for carnivores.</p>He informed that an adult tiger consumes around 8 kg, lion around 6-7 kg, while leopard around 4 kg of meat a day.  SUN VSD  TDSTDS

Animal safety measures in place at Punjab's Chhatbir Zoo after tiger test COVID-19 positive in US

<strong><br /></strong><ul><li><strong>In order to catch a <keyword id="6368469" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="tigress">tigress</keyword> that’s been wreaking havoc in the Indian state of <keyword id="13126" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Maharashtra">Maharashtra</keyword>, authorities plan on using <keyword id="17228" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Calvin-Klein">Calvin Klein</keyword>’s <keyword id="43542" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Obsession">Obsession</keyword> for men to lure her in.</strong></li><li><strong>The cologne composition includes a pheromone called <keyword id="6955430" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Civetone">civetone</keyword>, known for attracting mammals in the cat family.<br /></strong></li><li><strong>The tiger has killed 13 people in the two years that it’s evaded capture.</strong></li></ul>A six-year-old tigress in the Indian state of Maharashtra has been causing grief and apparently, a Calvin Klein perfume is going to be the key to catching her. Officially called T-1 but nicknamed Avni, the mammal has already killed 13 people in the town of Pandharkawada. It's been two years that that she's been eluding the park authorities <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45819780" data-type="tilCustomLink" target="_blank">according to the BBC</a>.<br /><br />The plan is to track her down using a popular cologne manufactured by Calvin Klein, Obsession for Men. The science is simple. The cologne exudes a pheromone called civetone which is basically a chemical substance produced by animals that affects the behaviour of other animals of its species.<br /><br />In this case, civetone is derived from a civet, a cat that is often confused for a monkey. It’s actually quite commonly used in other colognes as well.<br /><br />In the past, the similar experiment was conducted at the Bronx Zoo in New York where the cologne was appreciated by the zoo’s resident jaguars.<br /><br /><strong>Last resort<br /></strong><br />The tigress and her two 9-month old cubs roam a 150 sq km <keyword id="6398165" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="jungle">jungle</keyword> that includes 5,000 inhabitants across 20 villages. And, they’ve been witness to 3 killings since August. In response, there have been a total of 100 camera traps set up, goats and horses have been used as bait and, as a last resort, sharpshooters have been sent to contain the mammal.<br /><br />So far, all efforts have proved futile.<br /><br />Animal activists are concerned that the authorities will end up shooting and killing the animal since the forest officials don’t possess the required expertise.<br /><br />AK Misra, a forest official in the region, told the BBC that their intention isn’t to shoot, but if the tiger attacks then they’ll have no option but to defend themselves.<br /><br />That being said, the supreme court of <keyword id="3658" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> already weighed in stating that it would not interfere if the animal was killed during capture.<br /><br />Right now, officials have a team of 500 men on board to capture the tiger include a number of vets who’ve been equipped with tranquiliser darts. Other tools at their disposal include three cages, nylon and a selection of machines.<br /><br />The unanswered question remains why is the tigress attacking humans the first place? While <keyword id="86410" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Deforestation">deforestation</keyword> has taken away from their habitat and tigers do come in with contact with humans, few are this aggressive.<br /><br /><em>(Representative image; The only images of Avni are captured on the trap cameras put in place by the forest authorities.)</em><br />

Indian authorities plan on using Calvin Klein’s Obsession to capture a tigress

<ul><li><strong>The lawyer claims that school-going children are losing their interest in studies.</strong></li><li><strong>He also says that these children become aggressive and go into depression when they’re asked to stop playing <keyword id="4998506" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="pubg">PUBG</keyword> Mobile.</strong></li><li><strong>The Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked the IT Ministry to decide on the matter.</strong></li></ul>Popular battle-royale game PUBG Mobile might be banned in India, yet again. A lawyer HC Arora, has filed a PIL against the game in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, saying the game is as addictive as a drug.<br /><br />“School going children who are losing interest in studies have become addicted to the game. The parents of such children are helpless. In case they insist the children to stop playing it, they become aggressive and go into depression,” Arora said in his <a href="https://www.indiatvnews.com/technology/news-pubg-mobile-ban-again-in-india-582250">PIL</a>. <br /><br />This comes almost a year after PUBG Mobile was banned in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara and Bhavnagar in India in March 2019. The local police even<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/features/story/10-arrested-for-playing-pubg-in-gujarat-what-was-govt-warning-why-arrests-and-everything-you-need-to-know-1477832-2019-03-14"> arrested</a> several youngsters for playing PUBG Mobile during the ban. But the ban was lifted within a few weeks. <br /><br />In the last few years, many cases of violence has been reported over the game. A <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/25-year-old-kills-father-over-pubg-in-karnataka/story-lYkVFMy0WuvYMD3FOyIpbI.html">Karnataka based 25 year </a>old killer his father who was stopping him from playing the game. Another <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pubg-game-addiction-man-kills-parents-delhi-police-5398568/">Delhi teen who </a>killed his family was also known to be an PUBG addict. <br /><br /> Arora’s PIL claims that the game ‘normalises’ violence, which affects the mental health of players.<br /><br /><strong>Not the first time someone has wanted a ban on PUBG Mobile<br /></strong><br />This is not the first time cases have been filed against the game. Last year, a 11-year old child Ahad Nizam<a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bombay-high-court-directs-it-ministry-to-review-act-on-pubg/article26823651.ece"> filed</a> a PIL in the Bombay High Court for reasons similar to that of Arora’s PIL. “PUBG Mobile promotes violence, murder, aggression, loot, gaming addiction, and cyberbullying,” said Nizam’s PIL. <br /><br />The Bombay High Court sought IT Ministry’s advise on the matter. To this, the ministry<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/difficult-to-ban-pubg-indian-government-leaves-it-up-to-the-parents/articleshow/70603348.cms"> responded</a> by saying that it is “technically difficult to ban the game”. That could be true, as the United States has tried it and failed. <br /><br />“Some US states, including California, have previously passed laws to regulate the sale of certain types of videos to children, but the US Supreme Court invalidated the same saying that video games formed part of the constitutional right to free speech and hence could not be regulated,” said a <a href="http://www.nishithdesai.com/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/Research%20Papers/The_Curious_Case_of_the_Indian_Gaming_Laws.pdf">report by law firm </a>Nishith Desai associates. <br /><br /><strong>Can PUBG Mobile be banned for being addictive and promoting gambling?<br /></strong><br />However, the correlation between excessive gaming and violence has not been completely tested in Indian courts. But there is precedence where courts allowed games that involve skill and strategy. That is how fantasy sporting platform Dream 11 won its <a href="http://www.nishithdesai.com/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/Research%20Papers/The_Curious_Case_of_the_Indian_Gaming_Laws.pdf">case</a> in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Bombay High Court also issued a similar ruling.<br /><br />Yet many players, parents even schools, colleges and hostels too are concerned about the addictive effects of PUBG. And, some action could be taken on medical grounds. <br /><br />There have been reports of PUBG Mobile players falling sick after playing the game continuously for extended periods of time. A fitness trainer in Jammu was<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/pubg-mobile-makes-player-go-mad-admitted-to-hospital-under-serious-trauma-1427705-2019-01-10"> reportedly</a> admitted to a hospital after playing PUBG Mobile for 10 days straight.<br /><br />A 20-year old<a href="https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/trends/pubg-mobile-twenty-year-old-dies-after-drinking-chemical-instead-of-water-while-playing-game/story/391952.html"> reportedly</a> drank acid instead of water while playing the game. He died before he could be attended to by doctors. The World Health Organization too <a href="https://www.who.int/features/qa/gaming-disorder/en/">classified</a> ‘gaming disorder’ as a medical condition.<br /><br />“For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months,” said WHO. <br /><br />But very few people are coming forward to bell the cat and that includes creator of the game. Tencent had <a href="https://in.pcmag.com/mobile/129383/pubg-mobile-ban-could-india-be-getting-a-six-hour-playtime-restriction">tested</a> a ‘health reminder’ to restrict gaming to a maximum of six hours per day. It later backtracked on it and apologized for the ‘error’. That leaves players to see the error of their own ways. <br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/pubg-lite-mobile-game-in-india-gets-a-rap-from-narendra-modi-in-pariksha-pe-charcha-live/articleshow/67736283.cms">India’s prime minister has an advice for PUBG addicts</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/difficult-to-ban-pubg-indian-government-leaves-it-up-to-the-parents/articleshow/70603348.cms">‘Difficult to ban PUBG’: Indian government leaves it up to the parents</a><br /><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/pubg-ban-india-healthy-gaming-experience-proposed/articleshow/68058605.cms"><strong>Faced with ban threats, PUBG is trying to placate Indian parents and the government</strong></a><br />

India tried to ban PUBG Mobile many times but games are ‘technically’ difficult to ban, say experts

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/55725462.cms" />The world’s best marketer – P&amp;G launched a brand called Febreze in the US in 1996 as a spray that could remove bad smells from almost any fabric. The spray had been created when one of the P&amp;G scientists was working with a substance called hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin (HPBCD). Apparently he was a smoker and one day when he got back from work his wife asked, “Did you quit smoking?” “No”, he said looking suspiciously. “You don’t smell like smoke”, she said.<br />
<br /> P&amp;G sensing a big opportunity spent millions perfecting the formula, producing colorless, odorless liquid that could make any stinky couch or jacket scentless. The <keyword id="6354839" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="marketing">marketing</keyword> team decided that they should position Febreze as something that would allow people to rid themselves of embarrassing smells.<br />
<br />
They created two television commercials. The first showed a woman talking about how her jacket smell of cigarettes when she eats in the smoking section of a restaurant and the other, had a woman speak about her furniture smelling like her dog. In both cases Febreze eliminated the bad smells.<br />
<br />
Febreze bombed.<br />
P&amp;G hired behavioural experts to help them figure out the problem and the new solution. When they visited a woman’s home, they observed that though her house was clean and organized, it stinked of her nine cats. The smell was overpowering but the woman couldn’t notice any smell. They figured that even the strongest scent fades with constant exposure. People who needed Febreze the most simply couldn’t detect bad smells in the first place!<br />
<br />
They met hundreds of consumers looking for clues how to make Febreze a regular part of their lives. One day they met a woman, who used Febreze everyday. She used to spray Febreze whenever she would finish cleaning a room. Like in the bedroom, she vacuumed, made the bed, plumped the pillows, tightened the bed sheet’s corners, smiled with a sense of accomplishment and then took a Febreze bottle and sprayed it as a final touch. They saw the same pattern across thousands of hours of videotapes of people cleaning their homes.<br />
<br />
That was it. The team decided to make Febreze a fun part of cleaning, at the end of the cleaning routine. They added more perfume, so that instead of merely neutralizing odors, Febreze had its own distinct smell. Febreze was repositioned as the nice smell that occurs at the end of the cleaning routine. Instead of eliminating scents, it became an air freshener, used as the finishing touch. Febreze was re-launched in 1998.<br />
<br />
Housewives started craving the Febreze scent and the desire to make everything smell as nice as it looked. Within two months sales doubled. Now Febreze sales are more than $1 billion per year and products include candles, laundry detergents, kitchen spays, etc. P&amp;G learned the lesson – no one craves scentlessness.<br />
<br />
(Anand Damani is partner of communication and behavioural design firm, Briefcase. <a href="http://www.brief-case.co/">www.brief-case.co</a>)

How the world's best marketer got it wrong, but eventually got it right

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b436191967ba5c8378b4764-1440/nicoxford%20vr.png" border="0" alt="Nic in Oxford VR" data-mce-source="Oxford VR" data-mce-caption="Virtual therapist NIC helps people conquer their phobia of heights."><p class="source"><span>Oxford VR</span></p><p class="caption">Virtual therapist Nic helps people conquer their phobia of heights.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>Oxford VR, a spin-out company of Oxford University, has developed an automated virtual reality programme which can help people conquer their fear of heights.</strong></li><li><strong>The programme features a virtual therapist called Nic, who coaches people through various challenges like picking apples or rescuing a cat from a tree.</strong></li><li><strong>The results of the first trial, published on Thursday, are extremely positive.</strong></li><li><strong>Dr Daniel Freeman hopes that using virtual reality will improve accessibility for people seeking treatment.</strong></li></ul><hr><p>A fear of heights is one the most common phobias. One in five people experience a fear of heights at some point in their lives, and for one in 20 it's a clinical phobia.</p><p>Dr Daniel Freeman is a professor of clinical psychology and has been working on the integration of VR for therapeutic purposes since 2001, when he began researching whether VR could be useful in treating paranoia.</p><p>Now he has developed a programme of VR exposure therapy with&#xa0;Oxford VR, a spin-out company from Oxford University. It's principally funded by OSI, which specialises scaling ideas from the university. Significantly, the programme uses a fully automated virtual therapist, named Nic (which stands for "Now I Can") who can walk people through the programme and tailor the user's experience accordingly.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b44c9390bc37e2b008b4c55-2400/nic%20oxford%20vr.jpg" border="0" alt="NIC Oxford VR" data-mce-source="Oxford VR" data-mce-caption="The virtual automated therapist is named &amp;quotNIC.&quot;"><p class="source"><span>Oxford VR</span></p><p class="caption">The virtual automated therapist is named "Nic."</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>The programme takes place in a large atrium that resembles a shopping centre. Users are asked to perform a series of ever more challenging tasks to help them confront their fear, gradually ascending the building's ten floors. Nic is equipped with voice recognition so that she can ask users if they feel comfortable going up a floor, or if they'd like to repeat a task. She can also gauge people's level of fear as they go along, by asking on a scale of nought to ten how afraid they feel.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b4364cf447aadd3038b4ddd-2400/oxford%20vratrium.jpg" border="0" alt="Oxford VR_Atrium" data-mce-source="Oxford VR" data-mce-caption="The VR experience takes place within a large atrium with ten floors."><p class="source"><span>Oxford VR</span></p><p class="caption">The VR experience takes place within a large atrium with ten floors.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>The virtual atrium is a distinctly surreal environment; colourful balls float towards the ceiling, and a huge airborne whale glides through the air. According to Dr Freeman, these fantastical elements act as "height reminders," making sure to bring on the symptoms normally experienced by people with vertigo when they're in a high place. Plus at the end of the treatment, if they wish, users get to ride the whale.&#xa0;</p><p>The tasks themselves are also designed to be weird and fun. Users are be asked to rescue a cat from a tree, or play the xylophone by the edge of a walkway, or pick virtual apples from a tree.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b43669677ac2d2d008b4aa2-1440/oxford%20vr%20cat%20rescue.png" border="0" alt="Oxford VR cat rescue" data-mce-source="Oxford VR" data-mce-caption="Rescuing a cat is part of the therapy."><p class="source"><span>Oxford VR</span></p><p class="caption">Rescuing a cat is part of the therapy.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>According to Dr Freeman, the playfulness of the VR world actually helps make it effective. "You do things that you wouldn't do in real life," he told Business Insider. "Then when you go to a much more normal experience in real life, you feel better around it."</p><h2>VR teaches the conscious and unconscious brain</h2><p>The virtual reality environment both gives people reassurance they're not in any real danger, but it's enough to trigger the symptoms of their phobia.</p><p>"One of the beauties of [VR] is this disconnect between your head saying 'It's fine, there isn't a height here' and your body telling you there is. And that disconnect allows you to do stuff, and it allows you to laugh at some stuff," Dr Freeman said.</p><p>Participant Cathy Henderson, 51, has been afraid of heights since she was a child. "It was difficult to start with, thinking 'This is ridiculous' because I know it's VR and nothing can really happen to me, but it is amazing actually how your emotions take over," she told Business Insider.</p><p>Dr Freeman believes this strange mismatch between participants being aware of the simulation and yet experiencing the symptoms as though the environment is real, allows the VR programme to reform people's behaviour on both a conscious and subconscious level.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b43755b45aaf529008b4adc-1920/oxford%20vr%20apple%20picking.png" border="0" alt="Oxford VR apple picking" width="480" height="269" style="color: #000000;" data-mce-source="Oxford VR" data-mce-caption="Picking virtual apples is another challenge in the VR."><p class="source"><span>Oxford VR</span></p><p class="caption">Picking virtual apples is another challenge in the VR.</p></img></div><p></p></div><p>"A lot of our brain processing is unconscious and automatic really, particularly what you're dealing with here is the firings of the amygdala, something you can't control," he said.</p><p>"You've got your frontal lobes, your executive control that's consciously telling you there's no danger. And that, over time, can calm down your amygdala, the anxiety centre, that's much more unconscious and automatic, and that's firing away. And what we're doing is helping retrain your fear centres in that way to form new memories to counteract all the old ones."</p><p>He also believes that&#xa0; people are more likely to give VR therapy a go, as opposed to actual exposure therapy which involves confronting one's fears in the real world with a therapist present. "The beauty of VR in all of this is that people know it's not real, and therefore they're much more likely to try a thing," he said. He believes this results in higher initial engagement and less drop-out as the therapy goes on.</p><p>Henderson said she was happy to try out the VR therapy because it was unobtrusive, and that the programme helped her manage her fear response in real life. "My attitude changed in that with the VR and the sessions that they put you through, you sort of learn to stay with it and let the emotion pass, and that's the thing I learned. That actually the longer you stay on the edge of a cliff or whatever, the easier it becomes. And if you do back away you will never ever conquer that fear."</p><h2>Everyone who took part in the VR therapy said they felt less fear with heights</h2><p>The first clinical trial for Dr Freeman's automated VR therapy, published on Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet, seems to give cause for optimism. On average, participants had had a clinical phobia of heights for about 30 years, and those who were allocated to VR therapy spent about two hours in the virtual world over the course of five sessions. The participants wore a HTC Vive headset which was running the programme. All the participants said they experienced a reduction in the amount of fear they felt around heights, with the average perceived reduction being 68%.</p><p>Jane Tappuni, a 47-year-old consultant and mother of two took part in the trial after her children persuaded her to try it.</p><p>Unusually for most of the participants, Tappuni did not develop a fear of heights until she was about 40. She found the first session in the VR "extremely terrifying," but after just one or two sessions she began to notice she was feeling better around heights. "I wouldn't say that I'm completely cured, but I'm sort of 75% better than I was," she said.</p><p>"I feel completely different in terms of heights now. I can actually go out onto a balcony, I can go to a high level in a shopping centre, I can actually use very long escalators like at [London underground station] Holborn which is where I work. I wasn't able to use the escalator there, I had to go to a different tube stop."</p><p>By the end of the treatment Tappuni was riding the enormous floating whale and enjoying it, even after she had dropped the kitten she was supposed to rescue down five stories.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b44c32e967ba522008b4d85-1440/oxford%20vr%20kitten.png" border="0" alt="Oxford VR kitten" data-mce-source="Oxford VR" data-mce-caption="Bad luck, Mittens..."><p class="source"><span>Oxford VR</span></p><p class="caption">Bad luck, Mittens...</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><h2>Should therapists be worried about Nic replacing them?</h2><p>Dr Freeman anticipates some resistance to the programme. "What people could feel like is that we're trying to replace therapists, which is completely not the case. It's not a zero-sum game here at all, I'm a huge advocate of increasing the number of skilled therapists, we need more. And I think you need skilled therapists for particularly complex problems, in particular moments of crisis," he said.</p><p>However he points out that at the moment demand outstrips supply in terms of therapist hours, and so he hopes that introducing the VR headset into clinic settings could mean people have much more accessibility to psychological treatment.&#xa0;</p><p>"Fundamentally you also have to remember that some people really do not want to see a therapist," he said. "We shouldn't just be relying on a therapist model, there are other ways of doing it, and you need a range of options really, and this should perform part of it."</p><p>Dr Freeman said he is hopeful for the future of VR therapy and his automated therapist Nic. "Nic is going to be very, very busy over the coming years I hope."</p><div><iframe width="1904" height="680" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/jxt2vf8_8XA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/diehard-mac-user-switches-pc-windows-2018-7">A diehard Mac user switches to PC</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/SSl9GTBU-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div></hr>

Floating whales, apple picking, and kitten rescue: how this VR therapist helps people conquer fear of heights

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table center"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a8df7c1391d9419008b46d5-1990/shutterstock100352375%201.jpg" alt="scary house" data-mce-source="Shutterstock"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>New York Magazine published a story that's being billed one of the worst roommate horror stories ever.</strong></li><li><strong>The story centers on Jamison Bachman, a serial squatter who duped several people into letting him in and lost their homes as a result.</strong></li><li><strong>The story quickly went viral.</strong></li></ul><hr><p><br>If you've ever lived in an apartment or a college dorm, you probably have at least one roommate horror story.</br></p><p>But it's likely that none of them top the one <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/jamison-bachman-worst-roommate-ever.html">published by New York Magazine</a> on Wednesday.</p><p>The report, now going viral, starts innocently enough: A 31-year-old woman named Alex Miller was desperate for a roommate to help her afford her house in a wealthy Philadelphia neighborhood. An older man named Jed Creek comes over to see the place, they hit it off, and Creek agrees to move in on the spot.</p><p>Of course, things quickly go south. Because as it turns out, Creek is not actually Jed Creek, but Jamison Bachman, a serial squatter who, according to the New York Mag report, duped a dozen tenants into letting him live with them, only to force them out of their homes on arcane legal technicalities.</p><p>The accounts from Bachman's previous victims are harrowing. According to New York, Bachman would steal belongings from his victims, fill their toilets with cat litter, and knock down doors, all the while keeping himself in the clear legally. It wasn't about the free rent, New York Mag reported - it seemed Bachman took pleasure in watching his victims suffer through his misbehavior and lose the will to fight for their homes.</p><p><span>"Nothing they did could satisfy or appease him, because the objective was not material gain but, seemingly, the sadistic pleasure of watching them squirm as he displaced them," the report says.</span></p><p>The story doesn't end there. It's worth reading <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/jamison-bachman-worst-roommate-ever.html">the New York Mag piece</a> in its entirety, but suffice to say it takes a tragic, grisly turn as the author discovers more and more details about Bachman's past.</p><p>Soon after the story was published Wednesday morning, it began making the rounds on the internet.</p><h2>Several people noted on social media that, yes, this was the worst roommate story they'd ever heard.</h2><h2>Others simply were left speechless:</h2><p>The story holds a sobering lesson to anyone in search of a roommate: Protect yourself from the start, no matter your situation.</p><p>It's impossible to predict every outcome, and you can't fault Bachman's victims for not anticipating how their situation turned out.</p><p>But at the very least, there are a few steps you can take before inviting a stranger into your home. Do some research on your prospective roommate - even a quick Google search can shed a lot of light - and make sure you have firm rules established in writing before they move in. Nolo.com provides a template for a <a href="https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/renting-house-apartment-with-roommates-29865-2.html">roommate agreement</a>, as well as information on <a href="https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-evict-roommate-not-the-lease.html">evicting a roommate</a> who isn't on the lease.</p><p>There are plenty of Craigslist roommates out there who are presumably decent, respectful roommates and people ... but after reading this story, you'll want to think twice.</p><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>I read the roommate story and I'm now happy to announce that I won't be speaking to another human ever again thx</p>- David Sims  (@davidlsims) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/966416516429185025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2018</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>THEY'RE NOT KIDDING <br><br>This Is the Worst Roommate Story You'll Ever Read <a href="https://t.co/bqoNdq47Hg">https://t.co/bqoNdq47Hg</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/intelligencer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@intelligencer</a></br></br></p>- Kat Rosenfield  (@katrosenfield) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/966339928778067968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2018</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Rare example of "this is the worst" headline that does not overstate the case <a href="https://t.co/H7DP5ciulh">https://t.co/H7DP5ciulh</a></p>- Melissa Martin  (@DoubleEmMartin) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/966348462110384128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2018</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Hooooollllllllleeeeeeeeee crap.</p>- Chris Hayes  (@chrislhayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/966404663837937665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2018</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-millennials-spending-habits-arent-necessarily-their-fault-2018-2">Millennials are bad with money but it isn't their fault - a behavioural economist explains why</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/EntbCIjH-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div></hr>

The viral story of a serial squatter who forced a dozen people from their homes holds a sobering lesson for anyone in need of a roommate

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56ddeb7f52bcd01d7b8b4795-775-581/lion fangs growl teeth.jpg" alt="lion fangs growl teeth" data-mce-source="Pixabay" data-link="https://pixabay.com/en/lion-roar-tooth-predator-fangs-667585/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://pixabay.com/en/lion-roar-tooth-predator-fangs-667585/">Pixabay</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Tech stocks took a beating on Monday as the broader market was roughly unchanged leading to a mixed close for the major averages.</p><p>The "FANG" stocks - or Facebook (-2%), Amazon (-2%), Netflix (-6%), and Google (-2%) - were among the day's big losers. </p><p>Oil prices rose more than 5% again as Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, traded back above $40 a barrel for the first time since December.</p><p>First, the scoreboard:</p><ul><li><strong>Dow:</strong> 17,073.6, (+66.8), (+0.4%)</li><li><strong>S&amp;P 500:</strong> 2,001.8, +1.8, (+0.1%)</li><li><strong>Nasdaq:</strong> 4,708, -8.8, (-0.2%)</li><li><strong>WTI crude oil:</strong> $37.95, +5.6%</li></ul><h2>US Economy</h2><p>It's a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/monday-scouting-report-march-7-2016-3">quiet week for the US economy</a>, and so a time for Wall Street strategists and other commentators to take a minute to gather their thoughts and talk about what might really be going on out there. At Strategas Research Partners, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-economy-goes-from-almost-bad-to-almost-good-2016-3">Don Rissmiller argued</a> that the subtle shift from economic data that was "mixed to bad" going to economic data that is "mixed to good" turned the whole thing around for markets.</p><p>Rissmiller noted that markets care about the "second derivative," meaning that investors are more concerned with where the ball is heading rather than where it's been.</p><p>This chart from Bespoke shows the increase in the US economic surprise index, indicating that data had been beating expectations, on balance, over the last several weeks. (Not coincidentally, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/monday-scouting-report-march-7-2016-3">the European Central Bank is expected to announce</a> further easing measures this week.)</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56dddd769105841c008b4a6d-909-505/screen shot 2016-03-07 at 2.57.54 pm.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016 03 07 at 2.57.54 PM" data-mce-source="Bespoke" /><p class="source"><span>Bespoke</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>All of this is part of the theme that after investors couldn't seem to do anything but brace for recession, the long-argued reality (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-economy-not-entering-recession-2016-1">at least from me</a>) that no recession was imminent has led to some relief in markets.</p><p>Or as analysts at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-quotes-mark-twain-cats-quote-2016-3">Oppenheimer put it in a note Monday</a>, investors were still so bruised by the events of 2008 that even the impression of things not going well led to their acting like Mark Twain's cat:</p><p style="padding-left: 60px;">Mark Twain once observed that "If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just doesn't like stoves." <strong>In 2008, a whole generation of investors sat on a hot stove.</strong> The sub-prime market that was supposed to be small and containable wasn't, and millions of investors got burned. Thus, perhaps it should not surprise us that investors have reacted with a hairpin trigger to what we view as reasonably modest stresses in what strikes us as an overall good economic picture.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/recession-calls-following-financial-crisis-2016-2">I get it</a>. </p><p>As for actual economic data, the January report on consumer credit was a dud this afternoon, with outstanding balances rising by $10.5 billion, less than the $17 billion that was expected. Revolving credit balances - which includes things like credit card debt - <em>fell</em> by $1.3 billion, indicating a pullback in spending to start the year from US consumers. </p><p>Compared to last year, however, revolving debt was up 5.3%, <a href="https://twitter.com/boes_/status/706933867635200004">which Bloomberg's Matt Boesler noted</a> was the fastest pace of credit growth since June 2008. </p><h2>Introspection</h2><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/adam-parker-says-do-the-opposite-2016-3">Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker is back at it</a>. </p><p>Here's Parker (all emphasis ours)</p><p style="padding-left: 60px;">Today's consensus seems to be that the market goes up and down mid-to-high single digit increments in short but pretty volatile spurts, and ultimately ends up relatively flat six to 12 months from now.<strong> That means that we should feel worse now than we did a few weeks ago - not better, because the underlying fundamentals haven't really moved that much but the market has.</strong> On top of this perception of a choppy market headed to nowhere,the consensus is also that the probability of the bear case is greater than the probability of the bull case, meaning the probability of a downward slope to this choppy range is material.</p><p style="padding-left: 60px;">This is even more of a reason to be a bit more cautious than a few weeks ago. Yet, sentiment is clearly more positive. People are asking if they should take more risk now, but they were more negative last month. If the consensus is right that we will chop up and down - and we have some sympathy for this sentiment - then by the time we feel a little better, we should take off risk, not add some.<strong> Maybe you should do the opposite of what you think you should do. That's the new risk management.</strong></p><p>What did we say about a slow week allowing for introspection?</p><p>Of course, this is not <em>new</em> for Parker, per se, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/adam-parker-says-market-like-bizarro-world-2016-2">because it was only last month</a> that he was telling clients that they'd have been better off <em>not</em> following his advice. </p><p>But when Parker writes, the financial commentariat listens because Parker tells it perhaps even too much like it is. Everyone wants a forecast but in our post-Shiller, post-Kahneman world, we all know that we don't know anything and so must be self-referential about our unknowingness. </p><p>The curious part of Parker's note is his recommendation investors be overweight financials and underweight energy stocks, considering that he conceded you'd need to know both the future level of the US 10-year and the future oil price in order to be right. </p><p>Elsewhere in big market calls, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bob-janjuah-thinks-sp-500-falls-500-points-2016-3">uber-bear Bob Janjuah is reiterating his call</a> for the S&amp;P 500 to go back "into the 1500s" this year after a rally to the 2000/2050 area. The S&amp;P 500 closed at xx on Monday. </p><h2>The BIS Is Worried About NIRP</h2><p>From the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bank-for-international-settlements-bis-on-negative-interest-rates-and-monetary-policy-2016-3">Bank for International Settlements' latest quarterly update</a>:</p><p style="padding-left: 60px;">Since mid-2014, four central banks in Europe have moved their policy rates into negative territory.</p><p style="padding-left: 60px;">These unconventional moves were by and large implemented within existing operational frameworks. Yet the modalities of implementation have important implications for the costs of holding central bank reserves.</p><p style="padding-left: 60px;">The experience so far suggests that modestly negative policy rates transmit through to money markets and other interest rates for the most part in the same way that positive rates do. A key exception is retail deposit rates, which have remained insulated so far, and some mortgage rates, which have perversely increased. <strong>Looking ahead, there is great uncertainty about the behaviour of individuals and institutions if rates were to decline further into negative territory or remain negative for a prolonged period. </strong></p><p>Which is fine. Look, to most people (though I would argue this is a moral, not financial, judgment but still) the idea of negative interest rates is downright <em>perverse</em>. Of course most private citizens living in a region that is covered by negative interest might not even know they are covered by negative interest rates.</p><p>And recall that the BIS noted private deposit rates haven't yet been taxed (though fees on ATMs and other things may have increased, which is a backdoor into passing the costs of negative rates on to customers). </p><p>So but the real worry about negative interest rates seems to be that keeping rates at 0% for too long - or: using what was once an unconventional tool of monetary policy for a conventional amount of time - makes that tool less potent. And maybe so!</p><p>This, though, assumes that central banking is about creating a definitive reaction as much as it is about managing the present situation, which is sort of another discussion to have. </p><p>Elsewhere in the BIS' report the bank noted that some of the instability seen in financial markets this year was related to investors', "growing concern over the dwindling options for policy support in the face of the weakening growth outlook<span>. With fiscal space tight and structural policies largely dormant, central bank measures were seen to be approaching their limits."</span></p><p><span>And, again, I'm not entirely swayed. </span></p><p><span>On the one hand, the reluctance for governments to act - that is, lever up and spend money to stimulate economies - has been both a reaction to the massive spending programs that followed the crisis (in the US) and the euro sovereign debt crisis (in the EU), though I think it is somewhat naive to believe that if we really got into another financial-crisis-like situation there would be a total abdication of fiscal responsibility from across the lawmaking class. Maybe, though, I'm the one being naive. </span></p><p><span>On the other hand the market-based idea that there aren't anymore tools for central bankers to use sort of overlooks how we got here in the first place. Namely: there is always another tool! More quantitative easing, lower interest rates, more jawboning, more reserves available for overnight borrowing, and so on. </span></p><p><span>Again, you might not like these options but these are more moral than economic worries. There is always something else central banks can do. And in time, one should assume we'll find out what that is. </span></p><h2><span>Bond Market Liquidity</span></h2><p><span>Fed governor <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/feds-brainard-there-is-a-liquidity-problem-but-its-preventing-something-even-worse-2016-3">Lael Brainard conceded in a speech Monday</a> that regulations have exacerbated liquidity conditions in some markets. But, the reason why is that trading liquidity in the form of more bank balance sheet space reserved for cash and other safe assets and pushing the riskier prop-type trading out into smaller funds actually makes everyone safer. </span></p><p><span>Here's Brainard:</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span><span>Across financial markets, it is difficult to disentangle the effects on liquidity of changes in technology and market structure and changes in broker-dealer risk-management practices in the wake of the crisis on the one hand and enhanced regulation on the other. While the leverage ratio and other Dodd-Frank Act requirements likely are encouraging broker-dealers to be more rigorous about risk management in allocating balance sheet capacity to certain trading activities, the growing presence of proprietary firms using algorithmic trading in many of these markets, which predated the crisis, is also influencing trading dynamics in important ways. ... <strong>While acknowledging the role of regulation as a possible contributor, it is important to recognize that this regulation was designed to reduce the concentration of liquidity risk on the balance sheets of the large, interconnected banking organizations that proved to be a major amplifier of financial instability at the height of the crisis. </strong></span></span></p><p><span><span>And for people who are going to be skeptical that complaints about bond market liquidity are much more than complaints about being able to get what you believed to be the carrying value of a B-rated callable bond when your potential counterparty knows you need to sell that bond to meet client redemptions, Brainard's comments will hear a sympathetic audience. </span></span></p><p><span><span>Elsewhere, the <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/71e1864a-e212-11e5-8d9b-e88a2a889797.html#axzz42E9JKmiU">Financial Times reports</a> that bond funds have basically doubled their cash holdings over the last five years. So, the market knows there is a liquidity issue and, in response, is upping their liquid assets. </span></span></p><p><span><span>This is kind of what Brainard argues will happen in response to imposed regulations, more or less. </span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/feds-brainard-there-is-a-liquidity-problem-but-its-preventing-something-even-worse-2016-3">Read her full comments here »</a></p><h2>Additionally</h2><p><a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/07/the-most-horrendous-lie-on-wall-street/">Josh Brown on the fiduciary standard</a>. </p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-largest-gold-reserves-2016-3">Countries with lots of gold</a>. </p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/economists-suffer-from-physics-envy-2016-3">Economists and physics envy</a>. </p><p><a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat-744659addf7d#.p7pi0f3nx">Slack is like an all-day meeting with random participants and no agenda</a>. (Can confirm.)</p><p><a href="https://backchannel.com/the-new-media-is-made-of-memes-572216e71716#.mmb30n57w">Snapchat Discover really is a weird thing</a>.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lg-g5-new-phone-design-and-accessories-2016-2">This phone has the most unique design we've ever seen</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="VqcWgzMTE6efFh7YkKTQrdcyeakcINQl" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'VqcWgzMTE6efFh7YkKTQrdcyeakcINQl',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

'FANG' STOCKS GET SLAMMED: Here's what you need to know

<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/536641016bb3f7877c1312b1-1200-924/rodent-testing.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="rodent testing" width="480" /><p class="source"><span>Krishnendu Halder/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">A pharmacologist in India checks the effect of cancer drugs on a mouse.</p></div><p></p></div>Those who study animal behaviour have long feared that their mere presence might affect the outcomes of their experiments. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Few attempts have been made to see if it actually does so - but a study just published in Nature Methods by Jeffrey Mogil of McGill University in Montreal and his colleagues has tried to correct that deficiency.</span></p>
<p>Dr Mogil's team injected the ankles of mice with zymosan A, an inflammatory agent, and monitored what happened when, in some cases, an experimenter stayed in the room, sitting about half a metre away, and when in others, he or she did not. They evaluated evidence of murine pain, caught on videotape, using the "mouse grimace scale". This measures ear and whisker position, eye-squeezing and the bulging of noses and cheeks to gauge an animal's level of distress.</p>
<p>Their suspicion that an experimenter's presence would affect distress levels in some way turned out to be true - but only half the time. Both when the mice were left on their own and when they had any of four female researchers in the room with them, the injections induced visible distress. But when any of four male researchers was there, the animals showed significantly fewer signs of pain. The same was true when the team did the experiment on rats, and also when they used a different pain stimulus, formalin.</p>
<p>Nor was the actual presence of a human required. When the team substituted the four men with T-shirts that those men had slept in the night before, the rodents responded in the same way. Women's T-shirts, like women themselves, did not reduce apparent pain - indeed, when placed in the room next to a man's shirt, a woman's shirt was able to abolish its effect. Nor was the phenomenon caused only by the scent of human males. Bedding slept in by male dogs, cats, rats and even guinea pigs all produced a similar response.</p>
<h3>The scent of a man</h3>
<p>The T-shirt experiments led the team to suspect that the effect they observed is caused by something in male sweat. They therefore tested mice with gauze soaked in either androstenone or androstadienone (steroids found in male sweat and urine). The same thing happened and, moreover, the amount of grimacing the animals showed was inversely related to the concentration of the steroids.</p>
<p>The question remained of whether the mice were actually feeling less pain, a phenomenon called stress-induced analgesia, or just masking it better in the presence of men. Further experiments, which measured levels of corticosterone, a stress hormone, in the animals' blood, showed that they were indeed stressed by the mere smell of a man. And examination of gene activity in their pain-producing nerve cells confirmed that these cells temporarily shut up shop at the same time. Simply put, the animals were being scared painless. (A significant increase in faecal pellets suggested they were scared shitless as well.)</p>
<p>This is an important finding. At the least, it may account for some failures to replicate results in animal experiments, a perennial problem in the field. And, because stress affects numerous bodily responses besides pain, research in many areas may be affected. Dr Mogil suggests, therefore, that the sex of those who conduct experiments needs to be a matter of record, included routinely in the methods sections of research papers.</p>
<p>His result, though, has wider ramifications even than that, for there are likely to be situations when it is the mere presence of a human being, regardless of sex, which is the problem. Ethologists - those who study the behaviour of wild animals - have known this for a long time and thus try either to make themselves invisible to the objects of their attention, or else to become so familiar that they are ignored as a harmless part of the environment.</p>
<p>This process of habituation, unfortunately, is time-consuming and therefore difficult in a high-throughput physiology laboratory. But Dr Mogil's study is a warning that such labs need to examine their procedures carefully. Looking at ethology's methods may not be a bad start.</p>
<p>Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist.</p>
<p><img class="nc_pixel" src="https://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT02M2JiYmExOTZhNjM4NzNjOTIwYWRiOTQ0NGZkNGRiNiZub25jZT0xNDdlNzJmOS04YmU4LTRmODYtYmFlYy0wZmRkY2UzOTg3OWMmcHVibGlzaGVyPTczMGViODZhYjU5ZjBkNDE5MjZhYzY1YjAxZjgzZTJm" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>

 Rodents Feel Less Pain When Men Are Around - And That's Worrying To Scientists

<p><em><a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng" target="_blank">Policy Horizons Canada</a> worked with futurist and data visualizer <a href="http://www.michellzappa.com/" target="_blank">Michell Zappa</a> of <a href="http://envisioningtech.com/" target="_blank">Envisioning</a> to produce a report called <a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/metascan-3-emerging-technologies-0" target="_blank">MetaScan 3: Emerging Technologies</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/emerging-technologies-that-will-change-the-world-2014-4">accompanying infographics</a>. We are reproducing the summary for <a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/neurotechnology-and-cognitive-technologies" target="_blank">emerging </a><a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/neurotechnology-and-cognitive-technologies" target="_blank">neuro and cognitive technologies</a>.</em><a href="http://www.horizons.gc.ca/eng/content/neurotechnology-and-cognitive-technologies" target="_blank"></a></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53591c756bb3f7290c632c0f-800-445/screen%20shot%202014-04-24%20at%2010.06.29%20am.png" border="0" alt="human connectome project brain scan" /><p class="source"><span>David Feinberg/PLoS ONE</span></p><p class="caption">The Human Connectome Project has led to new, faster, better ways to map the brain.</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Below are technologies related to neuro and cognitive under three key areas of accelerating change: Neural Network Computing, Extended Cognition and Neural Interfaces. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Neural network computing will lead to improvements in computer vision and analysis, such as detecting emotions and moods, which may have safety and security applications. Extended cognition involves more direct connection to people's brains, allowing mood, thought patterns and information to be altered in the brain. Neural interfaces get information out of people's brains more efficiently, ultimately allowing a machine-enabled form of telepathy.</span></p>
<p>We have included predictions based on consultation with experts of when each technology will be scientifically viable (the kind of stuff that Google, governments, and universities develop), mainstream (when VCs and startups widely invest in it), and financially viable (when the technology is generally available on Kickstarter).</p>
<h2>Neural Network Computing</h2>
<p><strong>Proactive software agents:</strong> Software applications with the capacity of discerning and predicting likely future needs for whomever is being served. Intelligently scheduling meetings, sorting email and selectively notifying the user are potential usages.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable today; mainstream in 2016; financially viable in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Neural network image recognition:</strong> Using hundreds of thousands of processor cores programmed to algorithmically determine the content of a given image. Different from reverse image search, neural network image recognition has the capacity to successfully understand the photo of, for example, a cat, based on thousands of cat pictures.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable today; mainstream in 2021; financially viable in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Emotion tracking:</strong> Using sensors, computer vision and algorithms to correctly identify the likely emotions displayed by individuals in a crowd. Useful in airports and other high-risk facilities.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable today; mainstream in 2018; financially viable in 2019.</p>
<p><strong>Predictive group sentiment analysis:</strong> Predicting the likely behavior of large groups of people based on sociometric input variables like social tension, weather variation, pedestrian flows and degree of agitation is becoming increasingly possible.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2022; mainstream in 2023; financially viable in 2027.</p>
<p><strong>Predictive crime prevention:</strong> The use of sociometric sensors coupled with neural networked computers to statistically determine the probability of crime (or other anti-social behavior) taking place before it happens.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2021; mainstream in 2026; financially viable in 2027.</p>
<h2>Extended Cognition</h2>
<p><strong>Neural biofeedback: </strong>Biofeedback using real-time EEG or fMRI to illustrate brain activity, often with a goal of controlling the central nervous actions<em>.</em></p>
<p>Scientifically viable today; mainstream in 2015; financially viable in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers:</strong> A relatively new concept in the field of ultrasonic transducers where the energy transduction is due to change in capacitance. Can be used to remotely improve alertness, awareness in soldiers, etc.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2016; mainstream in 2019; financially viable in 2020.</p>
<p><strong>Next-generation neuropharmacology:</strong> Both behavioral and molecular neuropharmacology are benefitting from rapidly accelerating change. With an increase in technology and improved understanding of the nervous system, the development of drugs will continue to rise with an increase in drug sensitivity and specificity. (Such as neuropharmacological enhancements that work better than caffeine).</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2018; mainstream in 2021; financially viable in 2023.</p>
<p><strong>Neuroprosthetics:</strong> Neural devices capable of substituting motor, sensory or cognitive modalities that might have been damaged as a result of an injury or a disease. Applications include neural enhancements, advanced cognitive features and extended physiological senses.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2021; mainstream in 2026; financially viable in 2027.</p>
<h2>Neural Interfaces</h2>
<p><strong>EEG brain-to-computer interfaces: </strong>Electroencephalography remains the most feasible practice of executing and implementing brain to brain interfaces. It represents the best temporal-resolution tool for getting a picture of the brain in action, is portable, non-invasive and extremely affordable compared to other methods.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable and mainstream today; financially viable in 2021.</p>
<p><strong>High-resolution fMRI:</strong> The next generation of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging involves increasing the spatial and temporal resolution of the imagery. We are likely to see a 14-tesla machines becoming common (as opposed to today's 3-tesla).</p>
<p>Scientifically viable today; mainstream in 2023; financially viable in 2024.</p>
<p><strong>Transcranial magnetic stimulation: </strong>TMS is a noninvasive method to cause depolarization or hyperpolarization in the neurons of the brain using electromagnetic induction to induce weak electric currents using a rapidly changing magnetic field. This can cause activity in specific or general parts of the brain with minimal discomfort, allowing the functioning and interconnections of the brain to be studied.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable today; mainstream in 2019; financially viable in 2022 .</p>
<p><strong>Optogenetic implants in humans:</strong> The combination of genetic and optical methods to control specific events in targeted cells of living tissue, even within freely moving mammals and other animals, with the temporal precision (millisecond timescale) needed to keep pace with functioning intact biological systems.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2021; mainstream and financially viable in 2026.</p>
<p><strong>Next-generation brain-to-computer interfaces:</strong> Hypothetical interfaces to be used for assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions and communicate thoughts and intentions to the Internet.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2020; mainstream in 2022; financially viable in 2027.</p>
<p><strong>Brain-to-brain interfaces:</strong> The hypothetical implementation of brain interfaces that translate thoughts, sensations or impulses into digital signal, converting the data back into the recipient's brain to enable a certain response from both ends. Loosely interpreted as telepathy, brain interfaces would be able to transmit information from one person so another without any mediation other than the internet, allowing the brain on the receiving end to perform behavioural tasks without training.</p>
<p>Scientifically viable in 2025; mainstream in 2026; financially viable in 2027.</p>

15 Emerging Neurotechnologies That Will Change The World

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54de6314ecad044a048b456f-1200-924/jennifer-lopez-single.jpg" border="0" alt="Jennifer Lopez single"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Crying into a pint of ice cream alone on Valentine's Day? Talking through your problems with your cat? Taking your mom to your office holiday party?<p>Hardly. These are absurd stereotypes of singledom - not the reality.</p><p>"[Does] getting married result in lasting improvements to mental health, physical health, or any of the other supposed goodies?" <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201305/are-single-people-more-resilient-everyone-else" target="_blank">asks</a> Bella DePaulo, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Singled-Out-Singles-Stereotyped-Stigmatized/dp/0312340826">Singled Out</a>." "The answer ... is no."</p><p>Marriage and partnership have their perks, but scientists have shown again and again that being single has a long list of benefits.</p><p>Here are five big ones:</p><h2>1. Healthy heart</h2><p>In a study that followed more than 9,000 middle-aged adults for eight years, rates of heart disease were lowest among those who had never been married. The difference between those who had been married the whole time and those who had been single the whole time was not significant, but those who were "remarried," "divorced," and "widowed" - all statuses that can come from getting hitched - were significantly worse off.</p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00280.x/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2006</a></em></p><h2>2. Fit body</h2><p>When researchers surveyed more than 13,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 64, they found that the ones who had never been married exercised more each week than those who were either married or divorced. This effect held even after controlling for age. You could argue that single people have more time, are more concerned with keeping up appearances, or are less likely to have children (something one later study pointed to as the real contributing factor), but that's mostly speculation - and the end result is the same.</p><p>Another study based in Australia surveyed thousands of women about their level of physical activity. When they followed up four years later, those who had gotten married in the interim were much more likely to be "inactive."</p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12880882/" target="_blank">American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 2003</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2004.00029.x/abstract">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2004</a>; <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3124092/" target="_blank">Journal of Physical Activity &amp; Health, 2010</a></em></p><h2>3. Strong social network</h2><p>Does it ever seem like friends who couple off suddenly pay less attention to you? That's because it's true. "Multiple studies [have shown] that married people are less likely than single people to help, support, visit, and maintain contact with friends, family, and neighbors," DePaulo <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201201/slighting-friends-and-family-do-couples-become-less-couple-y-over-time" target="_blank">writes</a>. The same is true for partners who are unmarried but living together. One study even showed that once people get married, they have less contact with their siblings.</p><p>Marriage and cohabitation mean much of a person's love and attention is focused on one person. Single people, meanwhile, may have more emotional energy to share with friends, siblings, parents - and themselves.</p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.00555.x/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2004</a>; <a href="http://ctx.sagepub.com/content/5/4/16.short" target="_blank">Contexts, 2006</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2011.00873.x/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2012</a></em></p><h2>4. No settling</h2><p>People who can embrace being single are less likely to end up settling for unhappy partnerships, feeling stuck and unfulfilled. One study found that a fear of being single made people much likelier to "settle for less," prioritizing relationship status over personal happiness. This is especially important because while there's a stigma against growing old alone, people perhaps have more reason to fear ending up in bad marriages. One study of 1,649 people 65 and older found that "married persons who felt inequitably treated were more distressed than persons who had always been single."</p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16953722" target="_blank">Psychology and Aging, 2006</a>; <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/105/6/1049/" target="_blank">Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013</a></em></p><h2>5. Solitude</h2><p>"Solitude, in contrast to loneliness, is often a positive state - one that may be sought rather than avoided," wrote two University of Massachusetts psychologists who added that the solo state has been linked to "freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality." Singles - especially those who live alone - may have more time for solitude and its many psychological benefits. <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/03/06/the_power_of_lonely/?page=full" target="_blank">Preliminary research</a> has also suggested that people are more likely to feel good than bad about their alone time, and that we form better memories when we're by ourselves.</p><p><em>Source: <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&amp;id=1990-28226-001" target="_blank">American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1990</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5914.00204/abstract" target="_blank">Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2003</a>; <a href="http://psp.sagepub.com/content/29/5/578.short" target="_blank">Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2003</a>; <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103111001958" target="_blank">Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2011</a></em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#xa0;</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/george-clooney-comic-con-age-tomorrowland-2014-10">George Clooney Had The Perfect Response At Comic Con When A Fellow Actor Called Him Old</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1oOG8wcTpsSZ3FyBuS9lUReV1bFasGi0" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', '1oOG8wcTpsSZ3FyBuS9lUReV1bFasGi0',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

5 scientifically proven reasons it's better to be single

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/525e9a4969bedd472615dc76-1200-800/rtx12z90.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="george clooney" width="480" /><p class="source"><span>Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div>Crying into a pint of ice cream alone on Valentine's Day? Talking through your problems with your cat? Taking your mom to your office holiday party?</p>
<p>Hardly. These are absurd stereotypes of singledom - not the reality.</p>
<p>"[Does] getting married result in lasting improvements to mental health, physical health, or any of the other supposed goodies?" <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201305/are-single-people-more-resilient-everyone-else" target="_blank">asks</a> Bella DePaulo, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of Singled Out. "The answer... is no."</p>
<p>Marriage and partnership have their perks, but scientists have shown again and again that being single has a long list of benefits.</p>
<p>Here are five big ones:</p>
<h2>1. Healthy heart</h2>
<p>In a study that followed more than 9,000 middle-aged adults for 8 years, rates of heart disease were lowest among those who had never been married. The difference between those who had been married the whole time and those who had been single the whole time was not significant, but those who were "remarried," "divorced," and "widowed" - all statuses that can come from getting hitched - were significantly worse off.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00280.x/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2006</a></em></p>
<h2>2. Fit body</h2>
<p>When researchers surveyed more than 13,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 64, they found that the ones who had never been married exercised more each week than those who were either married or divorced. This effect held even after controlling for age. You could argue that single people have more time, are more concerned with keeping up appearances, or are less likely to have children (something a later study pointed to as the real contributing factor), but that would be pure speculation - and the end result is the same.</p>
<p>Another study based in Australia surveyed thousands of women about their level of physical activity. When they followed up four years later, those who had gotten married in the interim were much more likely to be "inactive."</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12880882/" target="_blank">American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 2003</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2004.00029.x/abstract">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2004</a>; <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3124092/" target="_blank">Journal of Physical Activity &amp; Health, 2010</a></em></p>
<h2>3. Strong social network</h2>
<p>Does it ever seem like friends who couple off suddenly pay less attention to you? That's because it's true. "Multiple studies [have shown] that married people are less likely than single people to help, support, visit, and maintain contact with friends, family, and neighbors," DePaulo <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201201/slighting-friends-and-family-do-couples-become-less-couple-y-over-time" target="_blank">writes</a>. The same is true for partners who are unmarried but living together. One study even showed that once people get married, they have less contact with their siblings.</p>
<p>Marriage and cohabitation mean much of a person's love and attention is focused on one person. Single people, meanwhile, may have more emotional energy to share with friends, siblings, parents - and themselves.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2001.00555.x/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2004</a>; <a href="http://ctx.sagepub.com/content/5/4/16.short" target="_blank">Contexts, 2006</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2011.00873.x/abstract" target="_blank">Journal of Marriage and Family, 2012</a></em></p>
<h2>4. No settling</h2>
<p>People who can embrace being single are less likely to end up settling for unhappy partnerships, feeling stuck and unfulfilled. One study found that a fear of being single made people much likelier to "settle for less," prioritizing relationship status over personal happiness. This is especially important because while there's a stigma against growing old alone, people perhaps have more reason to fear ending up in bad marriages. One study of 1,649 people 65 and older found that "married persons who felt inequitably treated were more distressed than persons who had always been single."</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16953722" target="_blank">Psychology and Aging, 2006</a>; <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/105/6/1049/" target="_blank">Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013</a></em></p>
<h2>5. Solitude</h2>
<p>"Solitude, in contrast to loneliness, is often a positive state - one that may be sought rather than avoided," wrote two University of Massachusetts psychologists who added that the solo state has been linked to "freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality." Singles - especially those who live alone - may have more time for solitude and its many psychological benefits. <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/03/06/the_power_of_lonely/?page=full" target="_blank">Preliminary research</a> has also suggested that people are more likely to feel good than bad about their alone time, and that we form better memories when we're by ourselves.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&amp;id=1990-28226-001" target="_blank">American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1990</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5914.00204/abstract" target="_blank">Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2003</a>; <a href="http://psp.sagepub.com/content/29/5/578.short" target="_blank">Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2003</a>; <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103111001958" target="_blank">Journal of American Social Psychology, 2011</a></em></p>

5 Scientifically Proven Reasons It's Better To Be Single

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e713cf69bedd7b486dff0a-1200-924/no-captcha-recaptcha.png" border="0" alt="no captcha recaptcha"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwslDn3ImM0">YouTube/Google Webmasters</a></span></p><p class="caption">Here's what the "No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA looks like."</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>The "CAPTCHA" has infuriated web users for years: It's that login test that asks you to type in a hard-to-read sequence of letters or numbers in order to prove are not a robot. Get one letter wrong and you'll be denied access.</p><p>In a bid to ease that irritation, <a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/are-you-robot-introducing-no-captcha.html">Google launched what it dubbed the "No Captcha ReCAPTCHA" in December</a>, which it claims has the ability to verify a human user by looking <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/12/google-one-click-recaptcha/">at things like the behavior of their mouse movements and the way they type</a>.</p><p>But device recognition company AdTruth believes it has found evidence Google's CAPTCHA killer is collecting far more information than mouse coordinates alone, and that it could use the security tool to inform its <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> services too. The new tool isn't overtly labeled as a Google service, yet anyone clicking through it "consents" to be tracked by Google's cookies, AdTruth found. And while the service is intended to do only one thing - determine whether you are a human or not - it is also able to identify a lot more information about which specific human you are.</p><p>All of this is poorly disclosed to users, AdTruth believes.</p><p>Google declined to comment when reached by Business Insider.</p><p>The original CAPTCHA was designed to protect websites from spam and bots, but Google research found that artificial intelligence technology has now become so sophisticated it can solve even the most distorted of text at 99.8% accuracy.</p><p>That is why it created the "No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA" which simply asks users to click a check box, or complete another task, such as selecting all the cats in a selection of images, to confirm they are not a robot. Google says its risk assessment software uses behavioral cues, such as where users click, how long they linger over a checkbox, and their typing cadence, to work out whether they are human or not. Google created this video to explain how the process works, and you can try out <a href="https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo">a demo of No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA for yourself here </a>.</p><p><iframe width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jwslDn3ImM0"></iframe></p><p>No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA seems so easy and reliable that companies such as <a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/are-you-robot-introducing-no-captcha.html">Snapchat, BuzzFeed, WordPress, and Humble Bundle</a> immediately signed up to adopt it.</p><p>But according to research from AdTruth, seen by Business Insider, Google's No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA appears to be collecting personally identifiable additional data beyond mere behavioral cues about their users, too.</p><h3>Here's all the data No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA collects</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e7194a69bedd4d6e6dff0c-1000-752/mobile nocaptcha recaptcha.png" border="0" alt="mobile nocaptcha recaptcha"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/are-you-robot-introducing-no-captcha.html">Google</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>AdTruth's lead engineer Marcos Perona was skeptical of Google's claim to look for "human behavior" to distinguish a real person from a bot and decided to investigate. He wanted to find out what Google actually "captures" from a machine with the No CAPTCHA to work out whether a user is a bot or not.</p><p>After taking a close look at the embedded code for the No CAPTCHA product, he found that the system used a re-purposed version of <a href="http://www.quora.com/How-does-Googles-Botguard-work">Google's Botguard technology</a>, which was originally intended for anti-spam and bot detection within Gmail. On top of that, No Captcha uses a level of encryption that hides what the mechanism is doing, by constantly changing the No CAPTCHA code and encryption keys, making it difficult for bot makers to crack (and it also has the by-product of making it difficult for researchers like Perona to uncover exactly how the No CAPTCHA works.)</p><p>But Perona and other anonymous programmers from information security backgrounds, believe they have decoded the new CAPTCHA system and the information it pulls from a browser when a user says they are not a robot. (AdTruth points out to Business Insider that it is not releasing any information that could help botmakers circumvent the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA.)</p><p>According to Perona, Botguard first takes a look at whether you already have a Google cookie on the machine. The No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA then drops its own cookie from Google into your browser. It then takes a pixel-by-pixel fingerprint of the user's browser window at that time, pulling information such as:</p><ul><li>Screen size and resolution, date, language and browser plug-ins (all Javascript objects)</li><li>IP address</li><li>CSS information from the page you are on</li><li>A count of mouse and touch events</li></ul><p>In addition, Google's new CAPTCHA will also make use of any cookies that have been set by other Google properties - like Gmail, Search, Analytics, and so on - in the last six months. The belief is that humans use Google's services in certain "human" ways, whereas bots do not, and those patterns can be detected.</p><p>All of this personally identifiable information gets encrypted and sent back to Google.</p><h3>The reCAPTCHA gives Google "a very high level of entropy when it comes to distinguishing an individual"</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e7542869bedd8f6d6dff0a-1000-1072/wordpresscaptcha.png" border="0" alt="wordpresscaptcha"><p class="source"><span>Wordpress</span></p><p class="caption">Here's how the NoCAPTCHA reCAPTCHA appears on Wordpress.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Perona told us: "The use of Google.com's domain for the CAPTCHA is completely intentional, as that means Google can drop long-lived cookies in any device that comes into contact with the CAPTCHA, bypassing third-party cookie restrictions [like ad blockers] as long as the device has previously used any service hosted on Google.com."</p><p>He added: "The mix of a fingerprint and first-party cookies is pervasive as Google can give a very high level of entropy when it comes to distinguishing an individual person."</p><p>The way the new CAPTCHA works also seems to support this theory, as there appears to be at least three main CAPTCHA types, according to AdTruth's research:</p><ul><li>If Google cookies are present, and your fingerprint is obtained, you will often see the checkbox that asks you to prove whether you are a human.</li><li>If you delete all your Google cookies, the CAPTCHA will likely ask you to fill in a two-word CAPTCHA.</li><li>If you are using a form of anti-fingerprinting plugin, Google will likely ask you to fill in a two-word CAPTCHA, regardless of your cookies.</li></ul><p>The implication is that Google isn't just looking to identify whether you're a human with its No CAPTCHA, but potentially exactly <em>which human</em> you are. The combination of first-party cookies and a browser fingerprint can be tied back to an individual - and most individuals simply clicking "I'm not a robot" won't know this is happening behind the scenes.</p><p>AdTruth EMEA managing director James Collier told us: "This is a way for Google to indirectly link activity outside of Google's properties - collected under the guise of security - to Google's knowledge of that individual, without providing the consumer an opt out for the security fingerprint. When they went to market with reCAPTCHA they spoke about humanity and transparency. But in reality, their intentions appear hidden, as was the case with the collection of <a href="http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610?mg=reno64-wsj&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html">location data for traffic maps</a>. It's a question of trust: Google have developed a digital ecosystem that relies on them without question, and as the stakes get higher, consumers and industry alike should wake up to the risk of relying on companies that don't transparently handle clear conflicts of interests in relation to their data."</p><h3><strong>The No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA privacy policy: "We also use the information to offer you tailored content"</strong></h3><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e751a069bedd725d6dff08-1200-572/screen shot 2015-02-20 at 3.23.18 pm.png" border="0" alt="Captcha website"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html">Google</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Another red flag AdTruth noticed was </span><a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/%20">the privacy policy that appears </a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">underneath the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA. It's the same global privacy policy Google uses universally across all its services.</span></p><p>And it's also the same policy that refers to unique device identifiers and states: "We also use the information to offer you tailored content - like giving you more relevant search and ads."</p><p>It potentially means Google could be using the data collected from what is meant to be security software (which, remember, is also placed on sites other than its own), to improve services beyond anti-spam security, like advertising.</p><p>Google combined 60 of its privacy policies into one in 2012. Indeed, in January this year, the UK's <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2015/01/google-to-change-privacy-policy-after-ico-investigation/">Information Commissioner's Office ordered Google to sign a formal undertaking</a> to improve the information it provides to people about how it collects personal data in the UK. The ICO's three-year investigation found <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2015/01/google-to-change-privacy-policy-after-ico-investigation/">Google was "too vague" when describing how it uses personal data</a> gathered across its web services and products.</p><p>Business Insider contacted the ICO with AdTruth's findings on Google's No CAPTCHA product. The ICO provided us with this statement: "The Data Protection Act requires organizations to be clear and open about the way they are using people's information. We are currently looking into the information you have provided to establish full details."</p><p>Of course, the privacy concerns raised by No CAPTCHA are not limited to the UK or Europe; its products and services are used by hundreds of millions of users across the world.</p><h3>No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA raises "some legitimate privacy concerns"</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54e722fb69bedddc106dff09-479-360/jeremy-gillula.jpg" border="0" alt="attached image" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.eff.org/about/staff/jeremy-gillula">EFF</a></span></p><p class="caption">Jeremy Gillula, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>You'll have noticed lots of "cans" and "coulds" in this story. It's extremely hard to verify how often Google is collecting fingerprinting data and how or if the company is using it. But two prominent privacy researchers told Business Insider they found AdTruth's preliminary conclusions "concerning."</p><p>Jeremy Gillula, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told us: "It's definitely concerning that Google is conflating the privacy policies of their security systems like reCAPTCHA with their other products. Many website relied on reCAPTCHA to prevent spam, and just because I want to post on one of those websites doesn't mean I want it connected to Google's profile on me."</p><p>He adds that if Google were to commit to not using data collected via No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA for any purpose other than further developing No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, this aspect wouldn't be so bad.</p><p>But there would still be issues: "My bigger concern is that by over-identifying whether or not someone is a human by figuring out precisely which human they are, Google is contributing to the trend of making the web harder to use for people who value their privacy. In essence, Google is assuming you're only human if you're part of their system. If you choose not to use Google services, or if you choose to preserve your privacy, then you're essentially classified as a second class citizen."</p><p>Steven Murdoch, principal research fellow in the information security research group at University College London's department of computer sciences, agreed that AdTruth's research into the No CAPTCHA does raise "some legitimate privacy concerns."</p><p>But he emphasized that it's unlikely to be a conspiracy. Murdoch told us: "In terms of the way that the No CAPTCHA detector works, I think the reason it collects so much information is likely because the detection algorithm is machine-learning based rather than written by hand. Such systems are generally designed by collecting all information which might be of use then letting the machine learning system come up with an optimal decision."</p><p>Google did not provide Business Insider with a statement but did point us towards the <a href="https://support.google.com/platformspolicy/answer/3013851?hl=en">Google DoubleClick policy which explicitly prohibits the use of browser fingerprinting for ad targeting</a>. However, this is a policy for Google's partners, not Google itself, although it probably suggests Google abides by these rules too.</p><p>There is no evidence Google is doing, or is planning to do, anything nefarious with the information the new No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA scans and collects - and it's unlikely Google ever would use the data scraped through the software for advertising purposes.</p><h3>The software looks at engagement "before, during, and after" an interaction</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5454ab296bb3f7ec10d6ebe4-1200-924/james-collier-ad-truth.jpg" border="0" alt="james collier ad truth"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://blog.adtruth.com/">AdTruth</a></span></p><p class="caption">James Collier, AdTruth EMEA managing director.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>However, as AdTruth's Collier pointed out, the key issue is a question of trust: <a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/are-you-robot-introducing-no-captcha.html">Google's own marketing around the launch of the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA</a> is scant on details about the user data the software assesses, although the company did acknowledge in a blog post in 2013 that the software looks at engagement <a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/recaptcha-just-got-easier-but-only-if.html">"before, during, and after"</a> a CAPTCHA interaction.</p><p>Business Insider could only find one article, <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/12/google-one-click-recaptcha/">from Wired</a>, in which it was explained that Google also examines cookies and IP addresses alongside mouse movements and typing behaviour (but nothing to do with a fingerprint) to determine whether that user "is the same friendly human Google remembers from elsewhere on the web."</p><p>Essentially, even if you are really interested in discovering more about the mechanics behind the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, it's extremely difficult to find an explanation on the web.</p><p>The No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA is an intelligent tool which will no doubt help cut through the deluge of spam and bots attacking sites across the web. But it may be in Google's interest to set out exactly - and more prominently - <em>how</em> that tool is so clever at telling the difference between bots and humans.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mad-men-final-season-trailer-don-draper-jon-hamm-amc-2015-2">The trailer for the final season of 'Mad Men' is here</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="dreWdoczoHaZMdCfpnojspZeFWvWTr4z" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'dreWdoczoHaZMdCfpnojspZeFWvWTr4z',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Google's new CAPTCHA security login raises 'legitimate privacy concerns' 

<h2><div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/522e589269beddc86622b6a7-734-551/macau-casinos-2.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="macau casinos" width="480" /><p class="source on-image"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Casino_Lights_In_Macau.jpg">Wikipedia</a></p></div></div>Although it has a growing number of rivals, <keyword id="6517" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Macau">Macau</keyword>, the world's casino capital, is set for a new boom</h2>
<p>"THE Las Vegas of the Far East" is how Sheldon Adelson, an American <keyword id="6366684" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="gambling">gambling</keyword> magnate and boss of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, has long described Macau. A decade ago, when Sin City was king and the tiny Chinese territory was still a backwater, such a claim would have been laughably implausible. Today, it is an insult to Macau. Its casinos' turnover last year, of $38 billion, was more than six times the Las Vegas strip's takings. With vast numbers of Chinese consumers now finding they have the money to indulge their passion for gambling, Macau's baccarat tables are busier than ever.</p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/522e595769bedd9b6022b6b2-290-317/4130f3177ed9c722418417aec02cbff2.gif" border="0" alt="4130f3177ed9c722418417aec02cbff2" /><p class="source">Economist</p></div></div></div>Though gambling has been legal for a century and a half in this former Portuguese territory, its casinos were typically small and seedy. Many moons ago our correspondent remarked to Stanley Ho, a tycoon who held a monopoly on gambling in Macau till 2002, on the large number of prostitutes in his casino. He replied dryly that he was shocked, shocked to hear of their presence.</p>
<p>The times are changing, and Macau is starting to clean up its act. The arrival in force of American casino operators, who must answer for their behaviour overseas to regulators back home, helps. The liberalisation of local licensing laws has brought a number of mega-casinos to Macau, including a supersized clone of Mr Adelson's Venetian casino in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>The opening of glitzy new venues has fuelled explosive growth. Between 2008 and 2012 Macau's gambling revenues grew by 29% a year on average. Now, no other casino venue comes close (see chart 1).</p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/522e5977eab8ea745022b6a6-290-188/f8aeb96955ff576477eedb035e5541b2.gif" border="0" alt="f8aeb96955ff576477eedb035e5541b2" /><p class="source"><keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword></p></div></div></div></p>
<p>Macau's rise to the top of the gambling league is part of a broader shift in this $160 billion a year global industry. As recently as 2010 the United States made up nearly half of the global gambling market by revenue, while the Asia-Pacific region made up only about 30%. PwC, a consultancy, reckons that by 2015 the latter will be the biggest market.</p>
<p>Macau's rise owes much to a collision of geography, history and Communist dogma. Chinese love to gamble, but the government has long forbidden casinos on the mainland. It did, however, le</p>
<p>t them continue to operate in Macau after the Portuguese handed over sovereignty in 1999. Macau, like its close neighbour Hong Kong, has a degree of legal autonomy and is also just a few hours' flying time or less from a billion potential punters.</p>
<p>Even so, Macau's spectacular growth was due not to mass tourism, as in Las Vegas, but to its success in attracting "high-rollers". Mainland businessmen and Communist Party officials, organised by intrepid junket operators, have poured in. This is in large part because, unlike heavily regulated casinos in America, casino firms here do not ask too many questions about who these big spenders are or where they get their money.</p>
<p>They outsource such tasks to the junketeers, who typically find the fat cats and fly them to Macau, extend them credit to get around China's tight currency controls and manage the VIP gambling rooms. In effect, they run autonomous casinos within casinos, shielding the licence-holder from the seedier aspects of the trade. For example, the collection of gambling debt is not permitted through the court system in China, so the junket operators quietly use whatever other means are necessary back home to collect.</p>
<p>Macau may have bested faraway Vegas, but its dominance is now being challenged by rivals in its own backyard. Singapore's two newish casinos have, in just a few years, become among the most successful in the world, in part by poaching some of Macau's best customers. More troubling for the Macanese operators, as the next article explains, ambitious new casino projects are now popping up everywhere in the region, from Japan to the Philippines and Australia to the Russian far east.</p>
<p>The billionaire developers and politicians behind these ventures all believe they can lure Chinese high-rollers away from the territory. A Chinese businessman who has often entertained wealthy clients in Macau's casinos adds that the new Chinese leadership's crackdown on official corruption and flaunting of wealth are leading clients to consider new venues far from its reach: "Beijing has too many cameras watching us in Macau."</p>
<p>Michael French, chief operating officer of the Solaire, the first of four casinos to open in Manila's new Entertainment City, recently claimed that "If we can get 7% of Macau business to come here, then we all achieve our goals for the market." Frigid Vladivostok may seem an unlikely threat, but its aspiring casino-builders (a group that includes Mr Ho's son) point out that it requires less time for a high-roller in Beijing to fly there than to steamy Macau.</p>
<p>Big betters from the mainland have clearly played an important role in fuelling Macau's past growth. Even today they make up 60-65% of the revenues of its large casinos. So could the poaching of high-rollers take the wind out of Macau's sails?</p>
<p>In fact there are several reasons to think that Macau's brightest days may still lie ahead. The most important is that unlike rival destinations, which must typically be reached by air from China, Macau's physical attachment to the mainland (it is composed of a peninsula and islands) means it can easily and cheaply be reached by land. So it has an alternative to the high-flyers: the mass market.</p>
<p>Low-rollers from neighbouring Guangdong province have long come to Macau, usually on day trips. Indeed, the average visitor to the territory still stays less than two days, whereas in Las Vegas the norm is closer to a week. The great unwashed may seem an unattractive market compared with the monied elite, but here is the surprise: low-rollers bring in more profits.</p>
<p>That is because enticing high-rollers involves enormous subsidies, ranging from fancy suites and champagne to less savoury perks, whereas ordinary punters get none. So even though VIPs still make up most of the revenue of Macau's big casinos, it is the mass market that delivers the majority of the profits (see chart 2).</p>
<h3>Punters galore</h3>
<p>What is more, the number of ordinary visitors is about to take off, as links to the mainland improve. Chinese officials are expanding capacity at the border-control post between the mainland and Macau, which is typically clogged with thousands of impatient gamblers. They will experiment with an electronic visa scheme and dedicated entry lanes later this year, hoping to reduce waiting times to a few minutes.</p>
<p>China recently completed several high-speed rail links in the south of the country. In the past, perhaps 100m people could get to Macau in a few hours by rail; now several times as many will be able to. Another hindrance to mass tourism has been the territory's small airport, which has little capacity to expand and few cheap flights. An ambitious series of bridges is being built that will connect Macau with Hong Kong's huge international airport.</p>
<p>The airport link in particular will help Macau realise a grander mass-market dream: going beyond gambling to family tourism. Hong Kong has non-stop flights, including low-cost ones, from many places. In a few years gamblers, conventioneers and all sorts of tourist will be able to take a taxi or bus from Hong Kong airport straight to Macau. It is possible to make that journey by hour-long ferry today, but that nuisance puts off many.</p>
<p>One big obstacle remains, however: at under 30 square kilometres, Macau seems too minuscule to support mass tourism. Because land is so scarce, property prices are sky-high, hotel rooms are costly and family-friendly amusements are hard to find. A casino executive puts it bluntly: "There's just not much to do here." Ah, but Macau has an ace in the hole.</p>
<p>Floating not far off Macau's Cotai casino strip, and connected by the Lotus bridge, is Hengqin. This thinly populated island, three times the size of Macau, belongs to Guangdong. But mainland officials have designated it a special economic zone, complete with tax breaks and subsidies. They are keen to develop it in ways that support Macau's aspirations for mass-market tourism.</p>
<p>Cheap land and labour are already luring developers to build facilities on Hengqin, such as cheap hotel rooms, that will boost Macau's gambling business. Galaxy Entertainment, a local casino firm, is looking into buying a tract there. Chimelong Group, a Chinese firm that runs the country's largest amusement park, is spending $2 billion on an ocean theme park, to open later this year. This is the first of ten such parks planned in an effort to turn the isle into "the Orlando of China".</p>
<p>"Hengqin is the game changer for Macau," insists Edward Tracy, the head of Sands China. His group's casinos in the territory have long focused on the mass market, and been rewarded for their prescience. In its latest quarter, profits more than trebled compared with a year earlier, to $488m. Mr Tracy says the margins on his mass-market business top 40%.</p>
<p>Non-gambling activities such as entertainment and conferences are a big, and growing, share of Sands's business. The shops inside its Macau casinos will have takings of $2 billion this year, for example, of which $250m-300m will be profit. Mr Tracy is bringing in shows ranging from boxing matches to Bollywood awards ceremonies. He recently agreed on a collaboration with DreamWorks, the Hollywood studio behind the "Shrek" and "Transformers" films. "Mass entertainment is the key to the mass market," he says.</p>
<p>The heavy investment in attractions for mass-market tourists is one of the main reasons why Macau is likely to thrive despite the growing competition from new gambling venues across the Asia-Pacific region. Another is that Macau's casinos are not resting on their laurels but spending heavily on becoming ever bigger and more glamorous. Galaxy claims that when its $7.7 billion expansion is finished its already huge Galaxy Macau casino will be bigger even than the Pentagon. One of the Ho family's companies, SJM, said in August that its huge new resort on the Cotai strip would include a hotel designed by Versace, an Italian luxury fashion house.</p>
<h3>Friends in high places</h3>
<p>Another lingering edge that Macau can rely on is a friendly government--and policy matters more in gambling than in most other industries. Praveen Choudhary of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, says Macau's new casinos gained an edge because operators were allowed to build at world-beating scale; in contrast, Singapore limits the size of its casinos and discourages locals from visiting them. A regional money-laundering expert says the requirements to "know your customer" and report suspicious transactions are far less burdensome in Macau than in America.</p>
<p>If, as some hope, Macau's government lifts its arbitrary limit on the number of gambling tables, investors will pour in even more money. Robert Goldstein, president of global gambling operations at the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, makes this bold prediction about Macau: "It's going to be the world's first $100 billion market."</p>
<p>If China were to suffer a significant economic slowdown, that would only postpone the day that this level of turnover is reached. Macau is in prime position to reel in the surging numbers of new consumers from China and across the region. All its new rivals can hope is that there will be enough business left over for them. There probably will.</p>
<p>Click <a href="http://www.store.eiu.com">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist</p>
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