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GDC 2017: Paranormal Activity VR Won’t Scare You The Same Way Twice, Learns Your Fears – UploadVR

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Last year at GDC, I saw someone rip off their Vive headset and throw it across an entire demo booth. She was cowering in fear, on the verge of tears, ready to run out of the Moscone Convention Center. This year at GDC the responses werent as extreme because the demo was far more reserved, but the quality of the immersion and atmosphere still rang true.

Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul (aka Paranormal Activity VR) is a slow-paced first-person exploration survival horror game. As opposed to Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] which asks you to unload shotgun shells and flame throwers on creepy monsters, Paranormal Activity isnt going to give you any guns or weapons. Instead, its going to slowly haunt you, scare you, and make you want to rip the headset off and run far, far away.

During my demo at GDC this year, I began in a situation quite similar to many horror movies or video games: completely surrounded by darkness. I looked down and noticed a flashlight in my hand, so I pressed one of the face buttons of the Oculus Touch controllers to click the light on. Once I inspected my surroundings a bit I could tell I was standing at the top of a staircase. After a few steps an invisible force ripped the flashlight from my hand, giving way to a bit of a jump on my part.

I tried to find the flashlight on the ground, but had no luck, so I just rounded the corner into a room that looked like an altar of some kind. There were creepy, bloody, demonic markings all over the ground with candles flickering. Past the altar was a pedestal with a book that outlined a ritual. I had to burn a specific piece of paper, then place coins in their corresponding locations. Thus began a mini scavenger hunt.

The piece of paper was easy to find, but the coins were scattered around the room. Once the animation was triggered, things started tofeel different around me, which seems odd to say since I couldnt actually feel the air and environment around me at all but in VR, your mind plays tricks on you. Those tricks are exactly what the developers are trying to toy with here.

A small girl emerges from a hole in the wall over in the corner, requiring me to literally get down on my hands and knees to crawl into the space and retrieve a flashlight. With a quick button press I flip it over to a UV light and notice a cryptic message scrawled on the ground. Then as I turn to look over my shoulder I notice a woman entering the room. Her skin is overly wrinkly and her voice is frantic. She threatens me with harsh words, then ascends the stairs back out of the room. Naturally, my demo attendee tells me that I should follow her. I dont want to.

After a few steps up the stairs I can feel my muscles tensing up, palms sweating, and teeth clenching. A jump scare is coming; I know it is. And sure enough, as I round a corner on the stairs the woman emerges once again to nearly make me drop the controllers. Even when you know theyre coming, jump scares in VR can still startle you to the bone.

After my demo, Alex Barder and Russell Naftalat VRWerx explained to me some of the design ideas that went into the games creation. First and foremost, they wanted to focus on crafting a large, explorable game space (a multi-level house with several floors, an attic, and a basement) that could combine together for a 10+ hour narrative. That sets it up as one of, if not the, longest purely VR titles to date if the length estimate holds true.

A big part of the design is also how theyve crafted a randomized system to startle players as they explore the house. When I enter a bedroom, a lamp might fall off a table and shatter, but for someone else that might not happen at all. For them, a book might fly off of a shelf an hour later in the game that I never get to see. This makes sure that it feels like a more organic and intimate experience for each player.

Paranormal Activity VR is set to release in Early Access for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive very soon on March 14th, with a full launch on both platforms, plus SonysPlayStation VR (PSVR) shortly after. Pricing is still up in the air, but theyve assured that it will feel like a fair price.

And if you love getting your horror fix, check out this list of other upcoming horror games to keep an eye on thisyear!

Tagged with: GDC, paranormal activity, vrwerx

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GDC 2017: Paranormal Activity VR Won't Scare You The Same Way Twice, Learns Your Fears - UploadVR

From AI to Anxiety Relief, The Brain Needs a Body – Big Think

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

The goal of transcending flesh is an old fetish. Yogis meditated and fasted for eons in order to rise above our meat casing, performing painful ablutions and inventing kriyas, intense breathing exercises that are physiologically indistinct from intentional hyperventilation. The goal of many religions, from some forms of Tibetan Buddhism to numerous strains of Christianity and Islam, is all about letting the spirit soar free.

While language changes, pretensions remain. Today we talk about uploading consciousness to an as of yet discovered virtual cloud. Artificial intelligence is only moments away, so the story goes, with experts weighing in on the ethical consequences of creating machines void of emotional response systems. In this view consciousness, itself a loaded and mismanaged term, is nothing more than an algorithm waiting to be deciphered. Upon cracking the code, immortality awaits.

Of course others are more grounded. The goal of extending life to 150 years includes the body by default, though the mind is still championed above all else. Yet we seem to age in opposing directions by design. At forty-one little has changed in how I think about myself, yet my body is decaying: a post-knee surgery creek here, a perpetual tight shoulder there. It certainly feels like a slowly approaching transition, even if that, like much of life, is an illusion.

The brain has rightfully been placed as the seat of consciousness. It is certainly the weigh station where all perceptions pass through. Yet in discussion of becoming robots an essential facet of life is missed: consciousness is not only produced by your brain, it is also your nervous systems response to the environment. In this sense it might be better to think of your entire body as your brain.

Thats an argument cognitive scientist Guy Claxton is making. History might belong to Hippocratic holism and Cartesian dualism, but in the past few decades scientists have become serious neurological fanboys. Breakthrough technologies made non-invasive means of measuring blood flow available, reshaping how we think about metacognition. No longer do we only know that we think, we can now witness how our brain responds to every single thought and emotion, then string together the threads in the fabric of cognition.

When we believe a separate mind (or spirit) exists apart from our body, Claxton writes, we make worse decisions regarding our body. He points to a study at the University of Cologne in which two groups read texts, one in support of dualism, the other expressing mind and body as part of the same being.

Not only did the dualists report less engagement and interest in healthy behaviours and attitudes than the physicalists, they were actually more likely to choose the chips than the salad when they went off for lunch.

Which is effectively how we always act. Dualism supports everything from suicidal terrorism to environmental destructionif you believe another spirit world better than this one awaits, why care about what we do to the planet and its resources? We were put here to lord over this domain anyway.

Historian Yuval Noah Harari finds this phenomenon apparent in everything from religion to economics. In Homo Deus, he argues that as we transformed from animals struggling to survive to animals that thrive our main pursuit became pleasure. Impatient creatures we are, we swerve manically between stress and boredom in the perpetual quest for gratification, taking out whatever stands in our way.

Case in point: Today the headlines proclaim that the Dow Jones passed 21,000 for the first time in history. Immediately speculators started wondering what does 30,000 look like? The myth of perpetual progress creates an impossible load for the planet to handle. Harari believes the incessant anxiety of unfettered growth is digging us a certain grave. Because we train our eyes on the markets algorithms, however, were blinded to the destruction our surroundings. Then someone says that climate change is merely an engineering problem and we think, Sure, why not? Just more numbers on a screen to be managed.

This disembodiment from our environment comes with a heavy toll. Harari cites the Buddha, who taught that the pursuit of pleasure is the root of suffering. Upon achieving a goal we dont pause to revel in satisfaction. Instead we immediately crave more, dopamine monkeys chasing grapes.

Claxton finds a partial solution in yoga and meditation, which help in the development of embodied cognition. (Harari meditates two hours every day, and performs one sixty-day Vipassana retreat each year.) The relationship between our body and mind is critical for self-understanding. That we ever separated them is likely an aberration of biological development, as Paul Bloom points out. Cognitive software updates might be constant, but upgrading physiological hardware takes quite some time, and so the feeling of dualism is likely to persist.

Matthew Crawford believes the disembodied culture fostered since the Industrial Revolution diminishes personal autonomy. He left a lucrative career at a D.C. think tank to work as a motorcycle mechanic, resulting in one of the best books on this subject Ive read. He finds manual work more intellectually engaging than sitting behind a computer selling political agendas. The fact that education is mostly focused on technology is unfortunate, as it promotes disassociation from the world we live in.

The disappearance of tools from our common education is the first step toward a wider ignorance of the world of artifacts we inhabit.

Weve made some strides of late, however, at least with our own bodies if not tools. While physicality has generally been removed from our daily workload, the exercise industry continues to expand. Six days a week I move bodies in yoga and fitness classes. People inherently recognize theyre not only toning and stretching their muscles and fascia. Emotional catharsis and mental focus keeps studios and gyms crowded. If emotional intelligence has been a catchphrase over the last decade, a renaissance in physical intelligence is occurring.

Thats important. Rewarding careers that push numbers from bank account to bank account instead of those responsible for building the buildings those computers sit inside is an indication of how disembodied weve become as a culture. Championing sedentary behavior in the quest of prosperous algorithms is a modern tragedy we dont pay enough attention to. More than our personal well-being is at stake. We need our bodies as much as our brains, a lesson we need to learn before atrophy is complete.

Derek's next book,Whole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body For Optimal Health, will be published on 7/4/17 by Carrel/Skyhorse Publishing. He is based in Los Angeles. Stay in touch onFacebookandTwitter.

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From AI to Anxiety Relief, The Brain Needs a Body - Big Think

Sunday Sitdown: Dr. Ari Levy, startup pairs medicine with fitness – Chicago Sun-Times

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Dr. Ari Levy, a former member of the medical team for the Chicago Blackhawks, says hell never forget how his peers looked at him when, as a freshman at Highland Park High School, he stood just 4-feet-9-inches tall because of a kidney condition.

I could see how people would look at you differently, says Levy, now 38, living in Lake View and heading a River North startup health and fitness venture called SHIFT that combines personalized training with medical care.

His parents helped him take responsibility for his own health, taking daily medications and testing the level of protein in his urine. By 15, he overcame his condition.

He got his medical degree from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago, which he started working on while doing his residency in internal medicine.

After starting a workplace wellness-consulting firm, he raised $3 million in private equity funding for SHIFT, a high-end, all-in-one workout, health-care and well-being center that opened in February on North Orleans Street. Levy spoke the Chicago Sun-Times Sandra Guy about his vision. An edited transcript follows.

Question: Whats SHIFT?

Answer: It really started 19 years ago, when I sent one of my brothers an email with a bunch of my first ideas, including combining a gym with a doctors office. We bring together experts in fitness, nutrition, medicine and recovery.

Goals, habits and accountability are such an important part of the SHIFT experience. A lot of us think were climbing Mount Everest to do whatever our goals and aspirations are. But it just takes one step a little shift which leads to another one.

SHIFT offers three memberships: The basic starts at $3,000 for personalized medical well-being care; $4,300 for people who travel or prefer remote personalized fitness and medical oversight; and a yearly $6,000, or $550 a month, for making day-to-day lifestyle changes in eating, exercising and recovery. The programs are covered by most health savings and flexible spending accounts but not by medical insurance.

Q: How do you get to your goal of opening this up to communities in the direst need?

A: I hope SHIFT proves so successful we can be in a position to work in underserved communities. Im not doing this to be a wealthy man. Im here to help people live better.

Q: Youve shifted several times walking away from the tennis team in college to become an emergency medical technician and focus on medical studies; becoming a personal trainer; selling part of your former company, Engaged Health Solutions, and shutting the rest of it to focus on the new venture.

A: When I say Im going to do something, rest assured it will happen. I know when Im not thriving at a goal any longer. I am very aware of when Im not totally alive, excited and thrilled, and pushing on all cylinders. For eight years, up until this past year, I was one of the Blackhawks team internists. I had the fortunate experience of seeing the team win three Stanley Cups. But it was a natural transition to leave after eight years to focus on SHIFT and attend to the moving pieces of this wonderful opportunity.

Dr. Ari Levy. | James Foster / Sun-Times

Q: You credit your parents with being your advocates in your health care.

A: My father, Hezi Levy, was a Davis Cup tennis player for Israel in the 1970s. He met my mom and decided that was his new profession. His literacy level was very low. Yet he worked real hard. He modeled what it was like to get up every day, work hard and be a good husband and father and helped show us how to live in this world. He taught tennis in the late 1970s and early 1980s at Lakeshore Athletic Club in Lincoln Park.

My mom, who grew up in Skokie, was teaching English as a second language in Israel when she stumbled upon this tennis pro. She worked as a travel agent and later became a personal trainer. She was a wonderful, strong maternal influence on all of us. She ensured that education was a priority.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: I play with my kids Gabrielle, 5, and Benjamin, who will be 3 in April. I hang out with my wife Alicia and my friends. I love to exercise. In the morning, exercise is calming for me. I dont have a specific routine. I try to constantly challenge my body and allow it to repair and recover. I run, swim or row for cardio. I play tennis. I do weights or resistance training. And I love group workouts.

Dr. Ari Levy. | James Foster / Sun-Times

Evangelical Alternative Medicine – First Things (blog)

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

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Candy Gunther Brown's The Healing Gods is an effort to explain how Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) entered the American cultural mainstream, and especially how it achieved a niche among evangelical and other theologically conservative Christians, although much of CAM is religious but not distinctively Christian and lacks scientific evidence of efficacy and safety.

This is surprising in part because many CAM providers make religious or spiritual assumptions about why CAM works, assumptions inspired by selective interpretations of multifaceted religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism (Daoism) that developed in Asia or metaphysical spirituality that grew up in Europe and North America. It is surprising also because a half-century ago these same practices and therapies were religiously questionable among Evangelicals. She wonder What causes practices that most Americans once classified as illegitimate for medical and religious reasons to be redefined as legitimate routes to physical and spiritual wellness?

Her central argument is that CAM promoters strategically marketed products to consumers poised by suboptimal health to embrace effective, spiritually wholesome therapies. Once-suspect health practices became mainstream as practitioners recategorized them as nonreligious (though generically spiritual) health-care, fitness, or scientific techniquescongruent with popular understandings of quantum physics and neurosciencerather than as religious rituals. CAM makes dubious use of recent developments in physics to argue that matter is simply a form of energy. Recast as science and secular rather than religious, the way was smoothed for them to become mainstream, even among cautious Evangelicals.

Brown is suspicious, not to say cynical, about this mainstreaming, but there's an alternative explanation. Much of modern medicine assumes a mechanistic materialism very much at odds with Christian understandings of matter and bodies. It's not hard to see why biblically-oriented Christians might gravitate to therapies and practices that promise to treat the whole person - therapies that recognize there's a whole person to treat.

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Princeton Healthcare CEO: Partnership with Penn Medicine means ‘more care’ – Packet Online

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Princeton HealthCare Systems decision to become a part of the University of Pennsylvanias medical division will mean more care for Central Jersey residents suffering from complex medical conditions, the head of Princeton HealthCare said Thursday.

So we are anxious to be able to take care of people who, now, we would discharge from our emergency department or from the hospital to another provider for care, President and CEO Barry S. Rabner told the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce.

So in partnership with Penn, we expect to be able to do more locally with cancer care, neurosciences, womens health services, he said in citing examples.

At the same time, he offered some perspective of how he envisioned the flagship hospital on Route 1 once it becomes part of Penn Medicine.

We do not aspire to become the Penn that you know downtown or Johns Hopkins or Mass General or New York Presbyterian or any other of these terrific hospitals, Rabner said. But we do expect to be able to provide more care in the acute care hospital for more complex medical cases than we do now.

Earlier in his remarks, Rabner outlined the decision to join Penn Medicine, one of the top financially performing health systems in the country.

I guess, in a word, the reason were doing it is you, because you folks, as employers, have finally hit the wall in terms of how much youre able to pay in premiums for your health insurance, either for your employees or for your family, he said. And weve been predicting that wall for thirty or forty years, but its actually happening.

He said the pressure that customers put on their health insurers, in turns leads companies like Horizon to pressure hospitals to reduce costs.

So weve been working on it, Rabner said, but it hasnt been enough.

He said Princeton HealthCare looked at 17 different potential partners, a yearlong process that ended with the selection of Penn Medicine. The two sides signed an agreement a few months ago, although New Jersey and federal regulators have to approve. Some 16,000 pages of information, for example, had to be submitted to the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office, with a review taking anywhere from six to nine months. Rabner was confident the state would approve.

Were really optimistic about the outcome because, at the end of the day, hundreds of millions of dollars are coming into New Jersey to be used by a not-for-profit organization to improve clinical care and access to the people of the state, he said. So thats as close to motherhood and apple pie as I can think of.

Rabner said Penn Medicine would make capital investments to improve Princetons clinical capabilities, its information technology system, among other things. None of that can happen until regulators approve.

But the challenge for us is, the way the rules work, were not allowed to actually do anything practical until we have all the governmental approvals in place, Rabner said. So were spending a lot of time being nice to each other, thinking and planning, so that the day after we get the approvals, we can move forward and make the investments that are necessary.

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Princeton Healthcare CEO: Partnership with Penn Medicine means 'more care' - Packet Online

US nixed India’s plea on reforms in medicine – The Hindu

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

The Hindu

US nixed India's plea on reforms in medicine
The Hindu
A month after the 140th World Health Organisation's (WHO) Executive Board meeting, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response has revealed that the United States government had opposed including agenda items proposed by India, which aimed at ...

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US nixed India's plea on reforms in medicine - The Hindu

Two men arrested after robbing Advanced Family Medicine in Grove City – NBC4i.com

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

GROVE CITY (WCMH) Grove City Police arrested two men who robbed Advanced Family Medicine on Thursday.

Alexander Bond, 26, of Circleville and Robert Kean, 39, of Harrisburg allegedly threatened employees and patients at knifepoint and stole a cashbox full of money. They fled in a silver SUV.

Witnesses at the scene helped police find the suspects hiding in a backyard shed.

Kean was charged with aggravated robbery, and Bond with aggravated robbery using a deadly weapon.

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Two men arrested after robbing Advanced Family Medicine in Grove City - NBC4i.com

Keck School of Medicine will build new hospital – Daily Trojan Online

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

A new hospital is coming to the Health Sciences Campus over the next few years, which the University hopes will expand medical care at the Keck School of Medicine.

President C. L. Max Nikias announced the construction of the hospital at his State of the University address on Feb. 14. According to Keck Dean Rohit Varma, the announcement could not have come at a more appropriate time.

Our current hospital and facilities are very old, Varma said. We spend a fair amount of money fixing the infrastructure of the current hospital tens of millions of dollars. The needs of the hospital have grown to the point where we need much more modernized space and equipment to provide care.

Keck maintains three facilities: the Keck Hospital of USC, the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital and the USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. The largest one, Keck Hospital, opened in 1991 and serves as a research and teaching hospital with 401 licensed beds. Seven of the hospitals medical specialties have earned a top 50 national ranking from U.S. News and World Report.

Varma is confident that the new hospital will also contribute specialized and complex services.

This new building will primarily be for providing high-end, in-patient care, Varma said. This includes cancer care, care for patients with heart disease and stroke [and] patients who have undergone transplants.

Thomas Jackiewicz, the CEO and senior vice president of Keck Medicine of USC, is optimistic that the new hospital will implement emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. He envisions a hospital that will incorporate these technologies in treatments while making patients feel comfortable and at home.

The challenge is making sure we plan this hospital for the future, Jackiewicz said. [That means] taking in new technologies and really thinking about the totality of the experience of the patient coming in.

Jackiewicz also believes that the hospital can increase access to health care for low-income groups who live near USC. One of his priorities is to ensure that Keck benefits the local community.

Today, 20 percent of Keck patients are on the Medi-Cal program, Jackiewicz said. Its not about insurance its about being a resource and being committed to the community.

However, construction on the hospital will likely not begin until 2020. According to the California Health Care Foundation, organizations must first go through a planning phase, including a needs assessment, blueprint and budget for the hospital. Then, the project will undergo a design phase, in which the organization will finalize designs and submit drawings and specifications for official approval and a building permit. Once the project has been approved by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development and the permit has been granted, bidding for the construction contract can start.

Our first steps are to get a good idea of the site location, services that we want to give, modeling the impact [of the hospital] and looking at the projected demographic changes in Los Angeles, Jackiewicz said. We want to be a hospital that focuses on Los Angeles and the Southwest: We want to meet the needs of our community.

Some aspiring doctors are excited about the learning opportunities a new hospital will bring. One such individual is Scott Valena, a sophomore majoring in human biology who is interested in applying to the Keck School of Medicine.

I think that its very noteworthy that USC is continuing to improve the future of healthcare with the development of this new hospital, Valena said. With so many advances in medical and surgical techniques, its important to have facilities that are capable of providing the highest level of care for high priority patients.

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Finding a Home in Internal Medicine – in-Training

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Whenever I consider my time in medical school, I am surprised by how quickly I have been able to cultivate a sense of belonging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, far from home and in a very unfamiliar setting. After all, I grew up in a single-parent household with my dad in a small, weary mill town in central Massachusetts called Ware. He was a carpenter who always carried at least two jobs to make ends meet. I did not really thrive in medical school until my first rotation on the wards, where I was reintroduced to my kind of people patients. I saw aspects of my father in one of our frequent flyer veterans with resistant hypertension and substance abuse. I saw my grandmother and her 100 pack-year smoking history in my first patient admitted with achronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseexacerbation. I saw my best friends deceased father in the lineman admitted with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. My past has allowed me to quickly relate to and bond with my patients. My love of these relationships has solidified my career choice of internal medicine.

Upon reflection, I can start to see why I have felt comfortable working on the wards. I have worked in restaurants since I was old enough to have a job, and I am all too familiar with the chaos of the kitchen during a dinner rush or the complaints of difficult patrons. Although the setting has changed, many of these situations are not that different. The rush of a busy call day, juggling the issues of old and new patients and prioritizing what needs to happen next, does not feel foreign to me. The skills I learned at a young age when soothing upset customers remaining levelheaded, communicating clearly and collaborating to address their concerns now seem as effective when applied to my patients. Because my father has always struggled with his own chronic health and substance abuse issues, I naturally feel at home working with patients with medical conditions like resistant hypertension, diabetes or addiction. One morning my dad and I discussed making dietary choices for better control of his blood glucose, and he seemed willing to make an effort. Two hours later, he walked in the door eating donuts stating, See? I got the ones without the sugar on em! Through these instances I have learned not be frustrated by, but rather be supportive of, my patients through their setbacks, whether it be their dietary indiscretions, medication compliance issues or relapses with drugs and smoking. I can be understanding of many of the problems internists encounter daily because I have grown up with them with people whom I deeply love.

Being away from my little hometown gave me the space to carve my own path within the field of medicine. I love many things about internal medicine. It fits well with my analytic and contemplative nature. I enjoy the collaborative environment created by my peers, residents, and attendings. But most of all, I love the patients. When I consider all of the patients I have cared for during my time on the wards, it becomes clear that my favorite patients have a few things in common: 1) they are elderly 2) they struggle with management of many chronic conditions and 3) they are full of stories to share and things to teach. These people come with their needs, pride, hopes, desires and frustrations. I think I can make a difference in each of their lives, and I take joy in every accomplishment we achieve together. I contemplate my years in medicine and feel so much pride and gratitude for where I am now and how far I have come. While I greatly miss the people I grew up with, I love that I get to see parts of them every day in the patients I meet. A real home can be many things, and I have never felt happier or more comfortable than I do now, settling into my new home in the world of internal medicine.

Contributing Writer

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Kayla Correia-Staudt is a Class of 2017 medical student at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She is currently pursuing the couples match with her husband and fellow IM applicant. For fun, she enjoys adopting older dogs, hosting dinner parties and making sourdough bread.

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Finding a Home in Internal Medicine - in-Training

Hillsborough college notebook: USF medical school and biologist win recognition – Tampabay.com

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

USF recognized for work on allergies, immune diseases

The University of South Florida's medical school has been named a World Allergy Organization Center of Excellence, the first such center in the United States. Only 10 institutions around the world share the recognition for the 2016-19 term. "It is a testament to the hard work of an amazing group of highly talented USF faculty members dedicated to the prevention and treatment of pediatric and adult allergy, immunology and immune diseases," said Dr. Charles Lockwood, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. The World Allergy Organization, an umbrella group combining nearly 100 allergy and clinical immunology societies around the world, uses its Centers of Excellence to accelerate innovation and education. For the last 30 years, Dr. Richard Lockey has led USF's department of internal medicine's division of allergy and immunology. The World Allergy Organization noted the division's accomplishments, including four National Institutes of Health grants, a $15 million endowment for research, accredited residency programs in allergy and immunology, clinical research and publications on airway diseases, and more.

Young USF researcher wins top honor

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has named a USF biologist as one of its 2017 fellows, an honor worth $60,000 in research funding. Brad Gemmell, an assistant professor who studies tiny ocean organisms and the impact of the world's changing seas upon them, is the fourth USF scientist to win the recognition. This year, 126 American and Canadian researchers were named Sloan fellows. Gemmell joined USF in 2015.

Hillsborough college notebook: USF medical school and biologist win recognition 03/02/17 [Last modified: Thursday, March 2, 2017 4:58pm] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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UVa’s medical school secured $25M more in federal grants last year … – The Daily Progress

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Federal research grant funding at the University of Virginias School of Medicine rose almost 25 percent last year, bringing UVa to 35th nationwide.

UVa won a total of $126 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health in 2016, which doles out research funding to selected projects around the country. Thats a significant increase above the $101 million won in 2015.

Dr. David Wilkes, dean of the School of Medicine, reported the findings to the Board of Visitors on Thursday morning.

Wilkes said UVas efforts to invest in new technology and an aggressive faculty hiring push, pillars of a long-term plan passed in 2013, are beginning to pay off. UVa is attracting many applicants who want to bring their research to Charlottesville, Wilkes said.

The word is out that something is happening at UVa, Wilkes said. Its not just different, but something really extraordinary.

About 60 percent of the new funding was generated by existing faculty and staff, Wilkes said, while new recruits who brought their grant-funded projects with them accounted for about 40 percent.

Rector William H. Goodwin said he wants UVa to push harder and break into the top 20.

The first step, he said, is to gain the status of comprehensive cancer center from the National Cancer Institute. The institutions in this category must meet strict standards, but investigators from these comprehensive cancer centers win roughly three-quarters of the investigator-initiated grants from NCI.

I think youve done a great job but I think we ought to have some goals, Goodwin said. To get into the medical rankings, we have to face the fact that we need to be a comprehensive cancer center.

The UVa Cancer Center is trying to meet the goal of gaining NCIs top-tier designation by 2020.

The new partnership with Inova finalized in November will give UVa access to a wider pool of patients in Northern Virginia, which will improve UVas ability to run medical trials, Wilkes said.

But in the next few years, UVa could face a crunch in research space. That could be a pressing issue, Wilkes said, and the board will need to act soon.

Within the next 10 months, if we secure the next round of hires, space will become limited very quickly, he said.

Also on Thursday, the board voted to appoint third-year student Bryanna Miller, of Lewes, Delaware, as its student member for the next academic year.

Miller who currently serves as president of the Black Student Alliance and sits on Student Council was selected after interviews and discussion held in closed session.

The student member does not have a vote but acts as an ambassador between the board and UVas student body. The student member serves in an advisory role and is supposed to represent the interests of students during board discussions.

Current student member Phoebe Willis, a second-year student at the School of Law, has worked on bringing student voices into discussions on spending the annual payout from the $2.3 billion Strategic Investment Fund.

Connecting the board with the students they govern was one of Willis chief goals, and she said she hopes Miller continues her work.

I think that relationship has improved, but its not a perfect relationship, Willis said. Its an opportunity for Bryanna to come in and really make her own mark on it.

Millers term will begin June 1.

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UVa's medical school secured $25M more in federal grants last year ... - The Daily Progress

Idaho’s first medical school to break ground this spring – Rexburg Standard Journal

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Idaho will soon get its first medical school, and although the school wont be located in East Idaho, it is expected to have a direct effect on local residents.

The proposed Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM), which will be in the Boise area, plans to take its first class in 2018, according to its website. The first class will consist of 150 students, and ICOM officials expect to break ground in spring of this year.

They anticipate being at full capacity by the academic year 2021-2022 with 150 students per year, or a total enrollment of 600.

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It will be a private medical school supported through tuition instead of taxes. ICOM currently has 17 affiliate hospitals.

According to the website, Idaho ranks 49th in the country in terms of physicians per capita, partly due to the fact that Idaho is the most populous state without its own medical school. Idaho is one of just five states that lack their own medical schools.

A medical school in Idaho would mean a steady supply of physicians in the state and local opportunities for Idahoans to attend medical school.

According to the ICOM website, the decision to establish a school offering a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree was made because of a tremendous need for primary care in the five-states region. A DO and a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree are similar both are held by complete physicians who help lead a health care team but with some differences: For instance, a DO is more likely to go into primary care. DOs also have a relatively greater degree of representation in rural settings.

The state has given ICOM a tax reimbursement incentive to be located in Idaho, and ICOM has pledged that all of these funds will go toward scholarships for Idahoans, with a preference for ISU graduates.

When it comes to admission, Idahoans will be given priority over applicants from other states. Although the tuition hasnt been set yet, the tuition will be less than the average of private osteopathic or allopathic medical schools in the U.S.

According to IdahoCOM.org, there are currently 171 Idahoans who have left the state to pursue an osteopathic medical degree.

While many communities across the United States struggle with primary care physician shortages, today, in Madison County, we dont feel that shortage as acutely, according to a statement from Madison Memorial Hospital CFO Troy Christensen. However, the population in Madison County is growing and aging. As our demographics continue to change, so too will our demand for primary care physicians. When we get to the point that current primary care providers have reached their maximum capacity, we will have need of additional well-prepared physicians to care for our communitys health care needs. We are pleased to have a resource for these future needs so close to Madison County.

Dr. Robert Hasty, the Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer for ICOM, said there are three key indicators of where people practice after their training is complete: where the person graduated high school, where he or she graduated medical school and where he or she completed a residency program.

Hasty estimated that roughly half of ICOM graduates will practice in primary care, with a little over half of the graduates staying in Idaho to practice. He said they are encouraging a lot of people to settle in East Idaho and have spent time developing relationships with hospitals in the region.

Were going to make a huge difference here, he said.

He said the graduates from ICOM will help Idaho keep up with the retirement of physicians and with population growth.

The establishment of the school will also be good for the local community if students come from around Rexburg because it will help improve the quality of care for the area, Hasty said. Long-term impacts are expected to include drawing more physicians from other states to practice in the local area.

Hasty said this medical school will be something Idahoans can be proud of.

This is the most important thing Ive ever done, he said.

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Idaho's first medical school to break ground this spring - Rexburg Standard Journal

Liberty Mutual’s Q4 Net Income Takes a Hit from Auto Liability Losses – Insurance Journal

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Liberty Mutual Holding Co.s 2016 fourth quarter net income declinedsubstantially, due mostly to higher U.S. personal and commercial auto liability losses. Butthe numberwasup for the full year.

The insurer booked net income of $143 million for Q4, a drop of $268 million from the same period a year ago. Net income reached $1 billion for the year, almost $500 million more than in 2015, results indicated.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Chairman and CEO David Long blamed the quarterly losses on elevated loss trends within U.S. personal and commercial auto liability. He noted the doubling of net income for 2016, which occurred despite higher catastrophe losses and the auto trends, something he said reflected operations that are generally in good shape.

Growth remained healthy, with net written premium up 6 percent in the quarter and 3-and-a-half percent for the year, Long said in prepared remarks.

Liberty Mutuals combined ratio for the fourth quarter was 97.6, an increase of 1.7 points compared to the 2015 fourth quarter.

Liberty Mutual has long wanted to grow its specialty lines operations, and Long noted the insurers Q4 move to acquire Ironshore Inc. from Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Ltd. for about $3 billion. Long said this represents a major accomplishment to cap 2016.

Ironshore, and their accomplished management team, will bring additional scale, expertise, innovation and market relationships to our existing Global Specialty business, and will solidify our position as a leader in the specialty space, Long said. The acquisition should close in the 2017 first half, pending regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.

Here are some of Liberty Mutuals Q4 2016 and full year highlights:

Source: Liberty Mutual

Liberty Mutual to Acquire Ironshore from Chinas Fosun for $3 Billion

Continued here:

Liberty Mutual's Q4 Net Income Takes a Hit from Auto Liability Losses - Insurance Journal

Gorsuch successfully balances criminal law, personal liberty – The Hill (blog)

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Many positive things have been and will be said about Judge Neil Gorsuch leading up to his confirmation. Deservedly so. There is a lot to like about him, including his intellect and commitment to textualism.

But some have wondered: If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed as Justice Antonin Scalias successor, would he change the arc of the Supreme Courts decisions on criminal law and procedure, issues critical to a prosecutorial office like my own?

Justice Scalia recognized that some of the governments most consequential powers are those it brings to bear in the criminal justice system. We rightly count on the state to protect us from criminals and to appropriately mete out justice for broken laws.

If the state failed to fulfill those functions, anarchy would reign. But the governments powers to investigate crime and to charge defendants can result in serious intrusions on individual liberty. And, unchecked, government-sponsored loss of liberty leads to tyranny.

Those tensions caused the Founders to limit the governments criminal-justice powers through structural safeguards enshrined in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. Good judges defend those safeguards, insisting that the government honor them while enforcing the law.

Ginsburg: Trump Supreme Court nominee "very easy to get along with" https://t.co/p7BhgqhcbE pic.twitter.com/uYvcEuor53

Justice Scalia and Judge Gorsuch both fit that mold. To show their similarities, consider these four excerpts, two from each judges criminal-law opinions. Before jumping to the answers below, can you identify each passages author?

1. Instead of setting forth exact limits of the governments search and seizure powers in some numbingly detailed (and no doubt quickly antiquated) list of dos and donts, the framers of the Fourth Amendment more simply and ingeniously forbade all unreasonable searches and seizures.

2. Drunken driving is a serious matter, but so is the loss of our freedom to come and go as we please without police interference. To prevent and detect murder we do not allow searches without probable cause or targeted [investigatory] stops without reasonable suspicion. We should not do so for drunken driving either.

3. The Fourth Amendments protection of the home has never been tied to measurement of the quality or quantity of information obtained.

4. Since time out of mind the law has prevented agents from exercising powers their principals do not possess and so cannot delegate. That is a rule of law the founders knew, understood, and undoubtedly relied upon when they drafted the Fourth Amendment for what would have been the point of the Amendment if the government could have instantly rendered it a dead letter by the simple expedient of delegating to agents investigative work it was forbidden from undertaking itself?

For those keeping score, the authors are (1) Gorsuch (dissenting in United States v. Nicholson), (2) Scalia (dissenting in Navarette v. California), (3) Scalia (in Kyllo v. United States), and (4) Gorsuch (in United States v. Ackerman).

So Americans of all political stripes need look no further than Judge Gorsuchs own words to reassure themselves that he strives to strike the same careful balance as Justice Scalia on critical criminal-law issues. We can count on him, as Justice Gorsuch, to join opinions reminding prosecutors that their duty in a criminal case for the good of all Americans is not that they shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.

Sean D. Reyes is the Attorney General of Utah.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

Debate Heats Up Over Plans To Improve Liberty Avenue Downtown – CBS Pittsburgh / KDKA

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

March 3, 2017 12:26 AM By David Highfield

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) Theres some disagreement over a plan to improve Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh.

While some think a new proposal is exactly how to transform the street, others fear taking away parking will hurt businesses.

The current discussion includes widening sidewalks on Liberty, but eliminating some street parking in the 900 block, at least during the day.

That has David Abrams fired up.

Big sidewalks might be nice in Paris, but Pittsburgh is still a driving city. People still drive in Pittsburgh, he said.

Abrams owns the Army Navy store thats been in business for 73 years. Its survived a lot, but he wonders if it can survive less street parking.

Its definitely going to affect my business because theres no place to park on Liberty Avenue. Not everyone comes in on a bus, said Abrams.

He says a nearby parking lot and a garage are filled up during the day.

But not everyone shares his concerns. Eve Picker owns buildings on Liberty and sees a different problem.

The street is not working, said Picker. That block is not working. I have a store front Id really love to fill with a caf, and I think people are really turned off by the congestion and the bus noise.

The plan to widen the sidewalks and perhaps even allow outdoor caf seating is an effort by a group called Envision Downtown to duplicate whats happened in Market Square.

But Executive Director Sean Luther says the idea is to adjust the plan for businesses and people who use Liberty. He also says street parking would not disappear entirely.

The plan that were work-shopping tonight preserves most of the parking spaces for night and weekends, and then were looking at the space during the day and saying, Whats the maximum benefit to the business owners and people who are trying to enjoy Liberty?'

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Envision Downtown met with building and business owners Thursday night, and plans to reach out to others for their input, including bus riders who wait at stops along Liberty Avenue.

John Norton lives in the 900 block of Liberty and is excited by the prospect of a new plan: I think its great. I think were really lucky that weve got really great designers paying attention to our block.

Envision Downtown wants to point out that this is a process. The plan is to release more details to the public next week.

You may have seen David at the anchor desk or reporting in the field, but he actually began behind the scenes at KDKA. David got his start at KDKA as a writer in 1991 before being promoted to a newscast producer. It wasnt long, though, before he...

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Debate Heats Up Over Plans To Improve Liberty Avenue Downtown - CBS Pittsburgh / KDKA

West Liberty school shooting suspect gets new court date – Springfield News Sun

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

A new date for a court hearing has been set in the case against the alleged West Liberty-Salem High School shooter.

Ely Serna, 17, is scheduled to appear in Champaign County Juvenile Court at 10 a.m. March 29.

RELATED: Judge orders competency hearing for West Liberty shooting suspect

Serna has been accused of sneaking a shotgun into West-Liberty Salem High School on Jan. 20 and shooting 16-year-old Logan Cole twice. Authorities said Logan was shot in the chest and the side in one of the schools bathrooms. He is still recovering from the wounds.

Champaign County Juvenile Judge Lori Reisinger ordered a competency hearing last month at the request of the defense attorney. The competency hearing is to determine whether Serna can understand court proceedings and if he will be able to assist in his own defense.

Champaign County Prosecutor Kevin Talebi confirmed the new hearing date and said its about whether Serna is competent to stand trial. Talebi said he couldnt release any further information at this time.

DETAILS: West Liberty suspect asked victim to shoot him, report says

The Springfield News-Sun filed a public records request to the Champaign County Family Court office, but didnt hear back Friday afternoon.

Sernas defense attorney Dennis Lieberman also confirmed the hearing date and declined to comment further. Serna remains in juvenile detention.

Logans father, Ryan Cole, previously said the teen is recovering, but high lead levels in his system gave doctors some concerns. He posted on Facebook this week that the family learned the levels had dropped slightly.

READ: Sister of alleged West Liberty shooter speaks, school to re-open

We are very thankful for this drop (however small it is)! Ryan Cole wrote. We have an appointment with the toxicology doctor to discuss treatment plans.

Logan has returned to classes part-time since being shot.

The family again thanked people for showing support for Logan.

Thank you so much for your prayers! Ryan Cole wrote on Facebook. It is impossible to communicate how grateful we are for Gods healing and how thankful we are for your prayers.

Staying with the story

The Springfield News-Sun first broke the news of a shooting at West Liberty-Salem High School on Jan. 20 and has continued to dig into the story, including coverage of the communitys response and security changes at other schools after shootings.

Liberty says F1 challenges, opportunities bigger than expected – Motorsport.com, Edition: Global

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

The American company took over the ownership of the sport last year, and has vowed to make it more spectacular for the fans.

Liberty president and CEO Greg Maffei also stressed that F1's profit margins will not rise in the short term, as the company will have to invest.

"I think everything that we thought about this business and the opportunity as we did our due diligence, and the time we spent prior to purchasing F1, has only been confirmed," said Maffei.

"There is enormous opportunity in areas like sponsorship, in the short term.

"There are longer term opportunities around digital, including gamification, including virtual reality, there are opportunities in broadcasting, there are opportunities probably to create more excitement around the event, but also more revenues around the event as we build to the weekend.

"Some of those will take time. I think in the short term we are unlikely to see margin for expansion, because even through there are some near-term wins around things like advertising, there's going to be expense to achieve that.

"But over the long term I think the challenges are probably as big or bigger, but the opportunities are as big or bigger than we originally thought."

Maffei also stressed that pushing through the changes it wants to implement will not be easy, given the complex nature of the way F1 works.

"There are many layers in this which makes it complicated, from the FIA to the teams to the F1 Strategy Group," he added. "I think fundamentally Chase [Carey] and Ross Brawn at are the centre of trying to make these races more interesting and more competitive, more exciting.

"I think there's uniformity about many of the actions we can take to do that. Whether we can execute on those, how long it will take, that's still open.

"But I think there's a lot of consensus around ideas that could make this sport more compelling, to the benefit of all players, the teams, the fans, the regulators, and the F1 commercial entity. A lot of alignment on those.

"Execution is not so easy, and as I said there are many players in here, so getting agreement, getting consensus on actual action items is not always as easy. But I'm optimistic."

Liberty says F1 challenges, opportunities bigger than expected - Motorsport.com, Edition: Global

Offense comes alive as No. 2 Auburn hammers Liberty – Opelika Auburn News

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

No. 2 Auburn softball wanted to make a statement this weekend in its final slate of games before SEC play begins.

Statement made.

There was little in doubt in Auburns 15-0 win over Liberty on Thursday night. Auburn scored all 15 runs in the first two innings and Liberty didnt get a hit, or a runner on, until the third inning.

I think the team as a whole decided to (relax), Auburn catcher Carlee Wallace said. I know it helps, Hitting is contagious, so, if I can go up there and give them a good at bat then well follow suit.

The 40-minute bottom of the first inning saw seven runs, five walks, four hits, three pitchers throwing a combined 66 pitches and two home runs. Wallace led off the game with a solo home run. After a Kasey Cooper single, Haley Fagan hit a home run of her own, her third of the season, to put Auburn up 3-0.

Liberty changed pitchers after that, but it didnt do much. Auburn scored a run on a walk, a Liberty error, a wild pitch and an RBI double by Wallace as Auburn batted around.

The barrage continued into the second inning. Kendall Veach started the inning with a solo home run, her team-best fifth of the year. After a hit by pitch and two walks, Victoria Draper hit an RBI single, Wallace hit a bases-c learning double and Cooper drilled a two-run home run. Auburn added another run to finish off the second inning with a 15-0 lead.

The offense reminded fans of days of old. Wallace had five RBIs in two innings, which is a career-high for her in a single game. The four home runs Auburn hit were the most since hitting four against Arkansas on April 17 last season. Auburn finished the day with 10 hits off of six different bats and drew 10 walks.

The cuts tonight were lot better as far as attacking zones, Auburn head coach Clint Myers said. You take away the strike three looking with the bases loaded, we were pretty aggressive for the night. And thats the thing weve got to have. We didnt have nearly as many swing and misses, the ball club (Liberty) is better than what you saw.

With the big lead, every Auburn position player found her way into the lineup in some way, shape or form. By the time the game came to a close, Veach was the only position player in her original spot when the game started.

Liberty scattered three hits off of pitchers Kaylee Carlson, Ashlee Swindle and Jenna Abbott in the five-inning affair. Carlson went three innings, allowed one hit and struck out two. Swindle pitched the fourth inning, allowed two hits and Abbott pitched a clean fifth inning.

Combined, Auburn pitchers totaled 64 pitches, compared to 166 by Liberty.

Auburn will meet Liberty again in the Wilson/DeMarini Classic, which begins Friday at 12:30 p.m. when the College of Charleston takes on Texas State before Texas State and Liberty clash at 3 p.m. Fridays play will wrap up at 6 p.m. when Liberty and Auburn square off again.

And if Auburn can put up another game like it did on Thursday, the statements at the end of the weekend will be that Auburns bats are finally back.

We talked about it before that we want to make a statement going into LSU. We want to put the fear of God into teams before we play them, Wallace said. Thats kind of our goal just to make a statement before we start SECs that were the team that we want to be and were not Auburn, that oh my God theyre No. 2? They dont deserve to be No. 2. But we do. And I think were finally starting to play like it.

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Offense comes alive as No. 2 Auburn hammers Liberty - Opelika Auburn News

Changing the Way We Talk About Libertarianism – Reason.com – Reason

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

"Are we a chosen marginalized group that is going to be forever hanging around together? Is this just our social gang?," asks Jeffrey Tucker, director of content for the Foundation of Economic Education (FEE). "I think that is a problem."

When FEE was first founded in 1946 by Leonard Read, libertarianism was a little known concept. Thanks to regularly featured works by noted scholars like Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Henry Hazlitt, and George Stigler, the ideas of human liberty and freedom became more accessible and familiar to a larger audience.

The growing distaste for the current two-party system (both major party candidates set historic records for negative ratings in 2016) has increased the appeal of the libertarian perspective and the ideology has grown into a movement with real political momentum. Gallup Poll's 2015 Politcal Governance survey found that 27 percent of respondents could be ideologically classified as libertarianthe highest number recorded to date.

But Tucker warns that the growing popularity of libertarianism presents new challenges: "Because we have become a movement... it does give rise toI thinkcertain temptations to speak in our own vernacular or our own really high liturgical language with each other. Then normal people can't understand."

Tucker states he has looked to the past as inspiration for revitalizing FEE's current mission.

"There weren't a lot of what we call libertarians around at the time," Tucker explains. "They had to speak in a way to everybody or to anyone who would listen. And I think that affected the way they thought and the way they wrote. Every piece had to make sense for anybody who happened to pick it up."

To reach a larger audience, Tucker has expanded FEE's editorial scope by including entertainment reviews of popular shows like HBO's The Young Pope and Netflix's The Crown in addition to policy and political coverage.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Tucker at the International Students for Liberty Conference to discuss the history of FEE and how popular culture can be used by libertarians to spread their ideas to a mainstream audience.

Edited by Alexis Garcia. Cameras by Mark McDaniel and Todd Krainin. Music by Podington Bear.

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Changing the Way We Talk About Libertarianism - Reason.com - Reason

Libertarian think tank makes case for legal sports betting – NorthJersey.com

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Danzig

Horse-racing monitors at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, where bettors can wager on races. The gambling industry hopes the Trump administration will be open to expanding wagering to sports betting.(Photo: Kevin Wexler/The Record)

The Competitive Enterprises Institute, known asalibertarian think, has published an eight-page paper on what it considers a foolish federal policy on sports betting in the U.S.

The group describes itself as "a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing theprinciples of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty."

Here is my summary of some of the key passages:

For those not fully up to speed on how we got here, it's explained thusly:

The Origin of the Sports Gambling Ban.By the late 1980s, at least 13 states had considered proposals to legalize sports gambling, most in the hope that legalizing and taxing the activity would fill increasingly large budget deficits. That so worried gambling opponentssuch as lawmakers and sports league officials who feared gambling would compromise the integrity of sporting eventsthat Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA). Once enacted, PASPA prohibited states that did not already allow sports betting from licensing, promoting, or authorizing the activity. In effect, PASPA blocked all states, save for Nevada, from legalizing and regulating bets on the outcome of individual sports contests.

"The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), was championed by the commissioners of the four major sports leagues, who testified that such a law was necessary to prevent a cloud of suspicion over athletes and games and to avoid sending a regrettable message to our young people. Congress justified intervening in what had traditionally been viewed as a matter for state regulation by declaring sports gambling a national problem. The harms it inflicts are felt beyond the borders of those states that sanction it. The moral erosion it produces cannot be limited geographically. Without federal legislation, sports gambling is likely to spread on a piecemeal basis and ultimately develop an irreversible momentum.

This is a segment on "game integrity with a reference to a very famous case:

"In many ways, sports betting lines operate like financial markets. For example, when international open market trading is done in commodities, attempts at manipulation become much easier to detect because anomalies will be noticed and analyzed quickly. The same holds for sports betting. Betting lines do not shift much. An extreme fluctuation, which might occur if large amounts of money was suddenly being bet on a longshot underdog, would set off alarm bells......

"This is exactly what happened during the Black Sox scandal, when several members of the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series. It was the strange, sudden shift in betting odds that first alerted sportswriters and others that something fishy was going on. Bookmakers originally had the Sox as 7-5 favorites, with rumors that the odds might go as high as 2-1 by the time of the game, but a sudden swing in betting in New Yorkan unusually large amount of money being bet on the underdog Cincinnati Redsput the odds at even money by Game 1. The odds shift occurred, it turned out, because gangsters had bribed several members of the heavily favored White Sox to throw the Series. Rumors about a fix were rampant well before the Series first pitch.

The Black Sox went on to become the most infamous sports betting scandal in history. As a result, nearly 100 years later, gambling remains virtually the only unpardonable sin for an active player, coach, or manager in any sport. Players who have used performance-enhancing drugs or have been found guilty of criminal acts ranging from assault to illegal dog fighting have returned to the field. Gambling on games, on the other hand, almost always results in lifetime bans for athletes and officials. This is a formidable disincentive for players to be involved with gamblers or game fixing. Yet, few remember today that it was the bookmakers those taking bets on the gam e who first caught the scent of something fishy going on with the World Series."

The volume of new tax revenue also is addressed:

"If this economic activity were brought into the daylight, it would mean millions of dollars for cash-strapped states. In New Jersey, for example, illegal sportsbook makers prosecuted in the late 1990s had an annual volume of around$200 million. Global gaming research firm GamblingCompliance projects that a fully developed legal American marketwhere bets are placed at casinos, online, and at retail bookmaking shopswould produce $12.4 billion in annual revenue, five times bigger than the U.K.s sports betting market and 11 times bigger than Italys. All of which would be subject to tax. Tapping into this new source of revenue would not even require new laws for most states, as the federal government already requires people to report earnings from gambling and even allows them to write off gambling losses up to the amount that allows them to offset their winnings."

The paper concludes by saying that "the law must treat consumers like adults."

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Libertarian think tank makes case for legal sports betting - NorthJersey.com

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