Salmonella has been found in some Foster Farm chicken, but the company isn't ordering a recall. Does the presence of Salmonella in food demand a recall or can you avoid becoming ill by handling and cooking food properly? Then, new psychology research has found that people with extreme political ideologies think their views more superior to others than do moderates. Where do you stand? Later, should Twitter shut down accounts that publicize DUI checkpoints? And we'll discuss the site's IPO. Then, we'll talk to Malcolm Gladwell about his latest book on overcoming as an underdog, 'David and Goliath.'
Should salmonella outbreaks trigger recalls?
Despite the government shutdown, the Centers for Disease Control has brought 30 of its furloughed food-safety scientists back to work to help contain the latest outbreak of salmonella which has affected nearly 300 people, mostly in California. The disease’s symptoms can include diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within three days of consumption.
This particular strain of Salmonella Heidelberg, which has been tracked to Foster Farms processing facilities in California, has proven resistant to several common antibiotics and is tough to treat and has hospitalized 42 percent of those who’ve come down with the disease, which is commonly associated with eating raw or undercooked chicken.
On its website, Foster Farms announced: “The FSIS alert is limited to raw chicken and there is no recall in effect. Foster Farms raw chicken products are safe and present no risk when safe food handling and cooking practices are followed. We want to remind consumers that all raw chicken, regardless of brand, must be properly handled and fully cooked to ensure safety. All raw poultry products should be cooked to an internal temperature of 165°F as measured by a meat thermometer.”
Salmonella does not trigger recalls, like E. coli does, but some food safety advocates are starting to think it should, especially as it becomes resistant to drugs used to treat it. But others argue that recalling a massive amount of chicken simply because people aren’t cooking and handling it correctly would be a waste of huge amounts of food and money.
Do you think chicken should be recalled when a salmonella outbreak is detected? Or should people learn how to properly handle the food they’re preparing?
Guests:
James Marsden, Professor of Food Science at Kansas State University
Jaydee Hanson, Regulatory Policy Analyst, Center for Food Safety
New psychology research finds extreme ideologues feel superior in political beliefs
Whether far left of far right, individuals with entrenched political opinions are more likely to believe their views are superior to others, according to new research. Social psychologists from Duke University used questionnaires about controversial political issues including affirmative action, welfare, and taxes to gauge the views of 500 participants. Study participants were also asked how correct their opinions were relative to the opinions of others.
Those who were most dug in on conservative views - of tax rates, affirmative action and voter ID laws - were also most dogmatic, a finding confirmed in other research dubbed as the “rigidity-of-the-right” hypothesis. Still, the Duke academics also found that liberals were most convinced of the superiority of their views on an equal number of issues (though obviously different subjects: welfare programs, the role of religion in policymaking and the use of torture on terrorists).
Participants with moderate views were more likely to say their beliefs are “no more correct than other viewpoints.” “There’s no logical reason why people who hold moderate, middle-of-the-road attitudes wouldn’t think that their attitudes are superior. But they don’t tend to believe that; it’s the people with extreme attitudes who are disproportionately convinced they are right,” explained researcher Kaitlin Toner.
What’s your opinion of being highly opinionated? When does rigidity harm and when does it help political discourse? Where do you fall on the scale of superiority of views, if you care to admit it?
Guest:
Kaitlin Toner, Social Psychologist, now at Vanderbilt University; Co-Author of the study in the journal “Psychological Science,” which was undertaken by Duke University researchers
Should Twitter shut down accounts that publicize DUI checkpoints?
A Brazilian lawmaker has sued the San Francisco company for allowing users in the country to tweet locations of DUI checkpoints, thus enabling drunken drivers to elude capture. Gizmodo reports that one such account has more than 300,000 users in Brazil.
Officials in that country liken this type of service as encouraging drinking and driving and the lawsuit filed earlier this week is asking Twitter to pay a $290,000 fine for every day it fails to disable these accounts. Southern California has a similar operation in the form of
.
Its owner and operator, Sennett Davermont, argues that he is merely providing a valuable service to his users, which actually gets people to think twice before driving while intoxicated. What do you think?
Guest:
Sennett Devermont , Founder and Operator of MrCheckpoint.com
Could Twitter really be worth as much as $20 billion?
It’s the next, big blockbuster initial public offering since Facebook and Twitter has just filed the papers to raise $1 billion on the stock market. Its ticker symbol will be TWTR. The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq are both jockeying to launch the offering.
After Facebook’s botched IPO on the Nasdaq, many people are expecting Twitter to go with the NYSE instead. The microblogging site hasn’t yet announced a decision. Twitter said in its filing that it made over $250 million in the first half of 2013, up from $122.4 million in the same period last year.
The company has 215 million monthly active users and broadcasts around 500 million Tweets a day, but its ad revenue is only one-sixteenth that of Facebook’s at the time of its IPO in 2012.
What is Twitter’s business model now? Could it raise $1 billion? Some analysts predict that Twitter’s valuation could balloon to over $20 billion after it starts trading. Really?
Guest:
Paul Sweeney, Senior Internet Analyst at Bloomberg Industries
Malcolm Gladwell cheers on the underdog in 'David and Goliath'
Malcolm Gladwell cheers on the underdog in this new book, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.”
Many are familiar with the David and Goliath legend, but Gladwell goes deeper and looks at the balance between the weak and the powerful. Using examples from sports, business, politics and history Gladwell looks at what makes someone a success.
RELATED: Read an excerpt of Gladwell's latest book
Sometimes what appears to be a disadvantage can actually work in our favor. Gladwell tackles the classic small fish in a big pond that delves more in the musing of human behavior.
Interview Highlights:
On why he chose the title "David and Goliath" for this book:
"I start by retelling that story and pointing out that the sling that David was armed with was a devastating weapon. In ancient times it was a crucial part of the arsenal of a typical army. The rock that he projected at Goliath's forehead would have had the stopping power of a .45 caliber handgun. Viewing it through that lens you realize we might have dramatically overestimated the odds against David. He wasn't quite the underdog he seemed like he was."
On our skewed view of what constitutes an advantage and a disadvantage:
"I feel like we have a set of categories for what we consider to be an advantage and what we consider to be a disadvantage. And those categories aren't terribly sophisticate. There are lots of things that have far more complex effects on our lives and out success than we imagine."
On how having a disability can actually be an advantage:
"There is this fascinating fact that if you look at groups of successful entrepreneurs or innovators, you will find a disproportionate number of dyslexics in their midst. I sat down with countless number s of people who have been very successful in their fields who have dyslexia to ask them, 'Did you succeed in spite of your disability or because of it,' and every one of them said because of the disability. In other words, these were people who, because they could not read easily were forced to develop other skills and try other strategies that proved to be more advantageous in terms of their careers."
On whether we overvalue prestige:
"There's a chapter of the book where I try and figure out whether we overvalue things like prestige, particularly when we make choices about where to go to college. I was interested in people looking to get a science and math degree, because one of the things we've observed with people who try and get science and math degrees is a large number of them drop out. About 50 percent of students who start in science and math drop out in college. The questions is who drops out and why.
"The answer is that people drop out of science and math not as a function of their intellectual ability, but of a function of their relative intellectual ability. The kids who drop out are overwhelmingly in the bottom half of their class regardless of what school they go to...what that says is when you go to the best college you got into and you want to do science and math you run a risk. The better the school is the greater the chance that you might finish in the bottom half."
On why our views of prestige are important:
"This is the kind of conversation I think people need to have and aren't. They need to weigh the value of the prestige of an Ivy League school against the fact that it may make it more difficult for them to get the degree they want.
"In today's job market, a degree in science and math is just about the most important thing you can have, so I'd say right now having a science degree from a less selective school is probably worth more than not having a science degree from a more selective school...My point is we have to have that kind of conversation where we understand that prestige is not a simple and unalloyed good it has side effects and downsides."
Guest:
Malcolm Gladwell, Author, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” “The Tipping Point” and “David and Goliath”