Researchers at the University Of Tennessee At Knoxville have confirmed what my kids believe they already know – that some video gaming can be as physically intense for younger gamers as playing outside.
Before you let your toddlers have a four-hour Minecraft session, however, check out the methodology [hint “active gaming”]. READ MORE: Study Finds That Active Video Gaming May Be As Good For Kids As Playing Outside | TechCrunch.
Startup VA-ST thinks its depth-sensing glasses can help people with little sight get around more easily. READ MORE: Augmented-Reality Goggles Aim to Help Legally Blind See | MIT Technology Review
Ninety-five percent of college educated individuals read at a rate between 200-400 words per minute according to extensive research done by University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Dr. Keith Rayner. However, there exists a small, but rather vocal subset of people who insist that they can read several times faster than this using various speed reading techniques.
With very little searching, you’ll also find many-a-company claiming that after going through their program or using their app regularly, you can easily read even as many as 1,000 words per minute. Tim Ferriss of Four Hour Work Week fame offers a method for increasing speed in reading for free on his website, claiming with this method, you’ll see an average increase in reading speed of about 386% in just three hours of practice.
So is any of this really possible? READ MORE: Is It Really Possible to Learn to Speed Read? | Gizmodo
A robot is only as smart as its programming. Learning on the go has been the sole purview of living things.
That was, until a team of scientists at UC Berkeley programmed a robot to learn simple tasks through trial and error, just like humans do.
The robot itself, a Willow Garage PR-2, is not new. But researchers applied a relatively new form of artificial intelligence, known as Deep Learning, to give it a kind of primitive learning ability.
With it, the robot or BRETT, (Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks) can use visual and sensory information about itself, its environment and the objects before it. It uses them like LEGO, building little neural networks of information, basically figuring out how to do something (how to put two real-life blocks together, say, or put a ring on a peg).
READ MORE: This robot learns new skills just like a human | Mashable
You occasionally hear about major security vulnerabilities being discovered before they’re exploited, like the notorious Heartbleed bug last year. Security researchers work hard to weed out those dangerous flaws before they’re found by hackers of more malicious intent. This breed of preemptive hacking is sometimes referred to as white hat, or simply “ethical hacking.”
These hackers work with businesses to probe their networks for security holes, vulnerabilities to social engineering, and more, while considering the mindset of someone who might have criminal motivations. To learn about what such work is like we spoke with Ben Miller, an ethical hacker at Parameter Security. READ MORE: Career Spotlight: What I Do as an “Ethical Hacker” | LifeHacker
We’re one step closer to biodegradable gadgets. These computer chips are made almost entirely out of wood. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin, Madison teamed up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Products Laboratory to fashion the new semiconductor chip. The paper was published today in Nature Communications.
See, most of a computer chip is composed of a “support” layer that cradles the actual chip. The research team replaced that support layer’s non-biodegradable material with something called cellulose nanofibril (CNF), which is flexible, wood-based, biodegradable—all things that can make a device way less hazardous.
Image credit: University of Wisconsin
READ MORE: We Can Now Make Computer Chips Out of Wood | Gizmodo
People who regularly play action video games could be at increased risk of developing neurological and psychiatric disorders, a study suggests.
The research, published in a Royal Society journal on Wednesday, found that people who played games such as Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto V and Tomb Raider were more likely to employ navigational strategies associated with decreased grey matter in the hippocampus part of the brain.
Decreased volume in the hippocampus has been associated with disorders such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
The lead study author, Prof Greg West, from the University of Montreal’s department of psychology, said the paper indicated that benefits of video games, such as improved attention and perception, highlighted in previous studies, could come at a price.
READ MORE: Video game link to psychiatric disorders suggested by study | Technology | The Guardian
Very timely article on emotional intelligence and compassion in leadership. Well worth the read.
Stanford University neurosurgeon Dr. James Doty tells the story of performing surgery on a little boy’s brain tumor. In the middle of the procedure, the resident who is assisting him gets distracted and accidentally pierces a vein. With blood shedding everywhere, Doty is no longer able to see the delicate brain area he is working on. The boy’s life is at stake. Doty is left with no other choice than to blindly reaching into the affected area in the hopes of locating and clamping the vein. Fortunately, he is successful.
Most of us are not brain surgeons, but we certainly are all confronted with situations in which an employee makes a grave mistake, potentially ruining a critical project.
The question is: How should we react when an employee is not performing well or makes a mistake?
Frustration is of course the natural response — and one we all can identify with. Especially if the mistake hurts an important project or reflects badly upon us.
The traditional approach is to reprimand the employee in some way. The hope is that some form of punishment will be beneficial: it will teach the employee a lesson. Expressing our frustration also may relieve us of the stress and anger caused by the mistake. Finally, it may help the rest of the team stay on their toes to avoid making future errors.
Some managers, however, choose a different response when confronted by an underperforming employee: compassion and curiosity. Not that a part of them isn’t frustrated or exasperated — maybe they still worry about how their employee’s mistakes will reflect back on them — but they are somehow able to suspend judgment and may even be able to use the moment to do a bit of coaching.
What does research say is best? The more compassionate response will get you more powerful results.
READ MORE: Why Compassion Is a Better Managerial Tactic than Toughness | Harvard Business Review
Last month, a microbiology lab in Nottingham, England made international headlines when it unearthed a substance that kills methicillin-resistant staph, one of the deadliest superbugs of modern times. The most astounding part about the find? It was a 1,000-year-old Viking potion. “This is something we never, ever expected,” said Christina Lee, the Viking scholar at the University of Nottingham who translated the recipe from Old English. “When this tested positive against MRSA, we were just bowled over.”
Bald’s eye salve, intended to vanquish a stye, was discovered in Bald’s Leechbook, an Old English medical primer that hails from 9th century England. The recipe, which claimed to be “the best leechdom” in existence, caught the eye of Freya Harrison, a microbiologist at the University of Nottingham who moonlights as an Anglo-Saxon warrior on the weekends, as a member of the UK’s oldest and largest Viking reenactment society.
“This all kinda started from me being a big nerd,” Harrison told me over Skype. “When I met Christina, she was eager to talk with a microbiologist, because she has an interest in the history of infection. One of the things she had always wanted to do was test some of these medieval remedies out, to see whether they actually work.”
Together with microbiologist Steve Diggle, the three pooled resources to begin the “AncientBiotics” project, which would identify promising Anglo-Saxon remedies and test their medicinal value using modern science. They never expected their first attempt at replicating a medieval potion would be such a roaring success.
“To be honest, I didn’t think anything would come of this,” Diggle, whose interests lie in bacterial communication and evolution, told me over Skype. “For me, one of the most interesting aspects is asking whether this was a true scientific attempt at a recipe for treating an infection. If so, that completely changes our perspective on Anglo-Saxon medicine.”
READ MORE: Scientists are Brewing Medieval Potions to Fight Hospital Superbugs | Gizmodo
A few popular fiction titles I’ve enjoyed reading relating to medieval/historical “primers,” “recipe books” or books of knowledge are:
This just in from the land of great sexism: two female scientists had a manuscript rejected by a peer-reviewed journal because they didn’t ask a man for help. An unnamed peer reviewer for the journal PLoS One suggested that Drs. Fiona Ingleby and Megan Head find male co-authors—any men at all—for a paper they’d written, in order to make sure they weren’t leaping to “ideologically biased assumptions.” READ MORE: Female Scientists Told to Get a Man to Help Them With Their Paper | Jezebel
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