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This paper formulates and defends a version of moral vegetarianism. Since eating animals is not causally connected to their death, I begin with analyzing the moral status of consumer actions that do not, taken on their own, harm animals . I then formulate a version of moral vegetarianism. Three different opponents of moral vegetarianism are then distinguished and criticized. I then take up the argument according to which eating animals benefits them. I close with the question of the desirability of collective vegetarianism from the point of view of animals.

Consider an election between two candidates in which the voters' choices are random and independent and the probability of a voter choosing the first candidate is p > 1/2. Condorcet's Jury Theorem which he derived from the weak law of large numbers asserts that if the number of voters tends to infinity then the probability that the first candidate will be elected tends to one. The notion of influence of a voter or its voting power is relevant for extensions of the weak law of large numbers for voting rules which are more general than simple majority. In this paper we point out two different ways to extend the classical notions of voting power and influences to arbitrary probability distributions. The extension relevant to us is the "effect" of a voter, which is a weighted version of the correlation between the voter's vote and the election's outcomes. We prove an extension of the weak law of large numbers to weighted majority games when all individual effects are small and show that this result does not apply to any voting rule which is not based on weighted majority.

Caloric restriction (CR) is currently the only therapeutic intervention known to attenuate aging in mammals, but the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are still poorly understood. To study this issue, the transgenic model of alpha MUPA mice, which previously were reported to spontaneously eat less and live longer compared with their wild-type (WT) control mice, were used. Currently, two transgenic lines that eat less are available, thus implicating the transgenic enzyme, that is, the urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), in causing the reduced appetite. Recently, several changes in the alpha MUPA liver were noted, at the mitochondrial and cellular level, which consistently pointed to an enhanced capacity to induce apoptosis. In addition, alpha MUPA mice showed a reduced level of serum IGF-1 and a reduced incidence of spontaneously occurring or carcinogen-induced tumors in several tissues. Overall, the alpha MUPA model suggests that long-lasting, moderately increased apoptotic capacity, possibly linked in part to modulation of serum IGF-1 and mitochondrial functions, could play a role in the attenuation of aging in calorically restricted mice.

It has been noted and demonstrated that people are reluctant to make changes in their current state (called the status quo bias, Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988), and to trade objects they own (called the endowment effect, Thaler, 1980). This reluctance has been explained by a combination of loss aversion and reference dependence which causes the status quo to appear better than its alternative, ceteris paribus. In the present study, respondents were asked to rate the attractiveness of various policies, and to list their pros and cons. We find that just labeling some state of affairs status quo enhances its rating (which we call the status quo label bias); namely, a policy seemed more attractive to respondents who thought it is the status quo than to those who did not. An analysis of the listed pros and cons provides evidence that a model of the balance of a policy's pros and cons is a good predictor of that policy's attractiveness. Rendering the pros and cons in terms of losses and gains provides evidence that losses do, indeed, loom larger than gains. When put together, our results provide an empirical grounding for the loss aversion explanation of the status quo bias.

Skin is one of the tissues most exposed to oxidative stress both from endogenous and exogenous sources. Therefore, it can be speculated that skin possesses an extremely efficient antioxidant defense mechanism, particularly in its epidermal layers. The present study shows that human and rat skins possess different and unique reducing antioxidant profiles. These reducing antioxidants can be washed out into the surrounding environment. Non-invasive measurements indicated that skin releases low molecular weight antioxidants (LMWA) from its epidermal layers. Cyclic voltammetry measurements have shown that rat skin releases three major groups of reducing antioxidants at peak potentials of 476 and 889 and 1044 mV while human skin releases two major groups at peak potentials of 779 and 1068 mV. In rat, the overall concentrations of the LMWA secreted decreased significantly with age. The major components of the LMWA composing the first anodic wave in rats were identified as uric acid and ascorbic acid. Uric acid and other as yet uncharacterized LMWA, but not ascorbic acid, were released in human skin. Differences in the ability to release high levels of uric acid among species were well correlated with their metabolic rates. It is suggested that in rat the released LMWA may serve as a possible marker for aging of the skin.