-
project management software
Reply
Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minute
Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minute
A brief visual task can predict IQ, according to a new study.
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=6422
J. Adam Fenster, University of Rochester. IQ Predicted by the Brain’s Ability to Filter Visual Motion. A brief visual task can predict IQ, according to a new study. This surprisingly simple exercise measures the brain’s unconscious ability to filter out visual movement.
Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minute
… so much for individual thought.
Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutes
This is a record of places I have bookmarked. (I also post them to Diigo, but since I don’t like to leave stuff only in the cloud, I am also keeping a copy here.
-
Solving the World – Serious Games Require Serious Gamers | Curiouser Institute
Every day gamers go into fictional spaces to save the world. They go on quests to save the Mario Galaxy, battle evil in Azeroth, and improve their lots in Farmville. Millions of gamers spend in the area of 3 billion hours a week solving the difficult and challenging problems of hundreds of fictional worlds and thousands of quests. Until lately that didn’t really have much of an effect on the real world. However with the rise of Serious Gaming, a movement that explores the uses of games beyond “entertainment”, video games and the real world have become entwined. Games have already been developed that have helped scientists find planets around distance suns, create new proteins to help fight AIDS, teach about peak oil, and this is only the beginning. Games are evolving into an excellent medium for education, scientific discovery, group problem solving, and a whole host of applications we are only beginning to explore. The ability of games to now reach out into the real world brings up a tantalizing question. If games can be used to solve real world problems and complete real world quests… could it be that gamers are finally poised to save the real world? Gamers are smart, they like to solve hard problems, they put in staggering amounts of hours into playing, and they seem to want to save the world too. If we can make games that actually let them do that, would they?
-
Dog History How were Dogs Domesticated? By K. Kris Hirst, About.com Guide “Larry and Butch – A boy and his dog at the beach” Larry and Butch – A boy and his dog at the beach Sheri Stritof Dog history is really the history of the partnership between dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and humans. That partnership is based on human needs for help with herding and hunting, an early alarm system, and a source of food in addition to the companionship many of us today know and love. Dogs get companionship, protection and shelter, and a reliable food source out of the deal. But when this partnership first occurred is at the moment under some controversy. Dog history has been studied recently using mitochondrial DNA, which suggests that wolves and dogs split into different species around 100,000 years ago: but whether humans had anything to do with that, no one really knows. Recent mtDNA analysis (Boyko et al.), suggests that the origin and location of dog domestication, long thought to be in east Asia, is in some doubt.
-
Carbs were key in wolves’ evolution into dogs – Los Angeles Times
Carbs were key in wolves’ evolution into dogs Comparing the DNA of dogs and wolves shows that dogs’ ability to easily digest carbohydrates, originally from starch in scraps left behind by humans, helped enable their domestication, a study finds. January 23, 2013|By Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times Gray wolves in Rhodes, France. The new analysis examined a mix of DNA from 12 gray wolves and compared it with DNA collected from 60 domestic dogs from 14 breeds. Gray wolves in Rhodes, France. The new analysis examined a mix of DNA from… (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen,…) Long ago, some brazen wolves started hanging around human settlements, jump-starting events that ultimately led to today’s domesticated dogs. Now geneticists say they have identified one of the key changes that turned wolves into the tame, tail-wagging creatures well-suited to living by our sides — the ability to digest carbohydrates with ease. The report, published online Wednesday by the journal Nature, found signs that dogs can break down starch into sugar, and then transport those sugars from the gut into the bloodstream, more efficiently than can wolves. Comparing dog and wolf DNA, the authors pinpointed several changes in starch and sugar-processing genes that would have made early dogs better able to digest the scraps they scavenged from dumps in early farming villages, helping them to thrive as they gave up the independent life of the pack to entwine their lives with ours.
-
GAME:IT 10,000 Initiative | Stemfuse.com
What is GAME:IT 10,000 – A STEM Initiative? STEM Fuse was founded with the mission to promote STEM education by giving our schools student attracting, affordable, flexible and teachable STEM curriculum. To this end STEM Fuse wants to give away our terrifically popular, standards aligned, full semester game design course GAME:IT to 10,000 high schools. Give away as in – no cost, 100% free, nada, nothing! Our first course, GAME:IT, teaches all facets of STEM as an intro level game design course and is now being taught in 47 states and 3 foreign countries. GAME:IT is a full semester course that contains everything need to teach it, assumes no prior technical background by either teacher or student and is aligned with ALL applicable national and state CTE / STEM / Technology standards. Please click on the buttons to the right to learn much more about GAME:IT and then simply register and make sure your school is part of the GAME:IT 10,000! *To ensure your school and your students get the most from GAME:IT we will provide continual training and professional development for our teachers and offer terrific technical support as well. Upon registration a Regional Director of Client Services will be in contact to provide training options and details. Let’s get to 10,000! Let’s inspire our students and promote STEM education!
Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minute
CHRIS HADFIELD: An astronaut’s advice.
It’s at least as much about learning to BE as it is about learning ABOUT.
It’s very important to remember that.
It’s also something we tend to be lousy at – especially in Higher Ed. when it really matters.
Art by: Gavin Aung Than http://zenpencils.com/
Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minute
This is the second time in just a few days that something related to reputation and credentials has come up.
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia – Salon.com.
One of the things media and education experts and advocates often like to highlight is how modern technology makes it possible for everyone to be a producer as well as a consumer.
Well, all this technology may make it *possible* for everyone to be a producer, but not everyone *should* be. Perhaps it just because I’m old, but I think credentials and reputation are still important. “Says who?” is a valid question, and if we are being asked to believe something, we should get to see who is saying it.
Further, as flawed as they are, editor oversight and the peer review process are still infinitely better than no review process at all.
Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutes
“Open Access” journals are all the rage these days. The idea which, on the surface is a worthy one, is that readers get access to the papers for free. Instead of making money via subscriptions, these journals get their money by charging the authors. Now, many people seem to think that’s just fine. Mostly, they are academics who have grant money or some other means for paying the fees. For them, it’s just part of the job.
As a result, they don’t think about the real implications of this turn around:
When readers pay, the content must be something they want to read (i.e. it has to be worth paying for).
When authors pay, it doesn’t matter whether the content is any good or not.
I’ve seen fees of up to £6,000. For a paper. I don’t have a grant. If I want to publish in one of these journals, I have to pay out of my own pocket. I’m not about to do that. That means people like me can’t publish in these journals. Our voices won’t be heard. But that isn’t the only problem. THIS is the much more serious problem, because it has implications for the entire future of research:
To authors who cannot afford a full payment of the fee, we may offer partial or total fee waivers on the sole condition that the papers they submit be of high quality. Article Processing Charges for Low and Lower Middle Income Countries are calculated according to the SCIRP Global Participation Initiative.
So, if you HAVE the money, the article DOESN’T have to be of high quality?!
That is something that’s going to happen more and more.
Not only that, unfunded researchers have no way to get their works published. Yes, yes I know that anyone can publish stuff on a blog. But whether we like it or not, credentials still matter (as they should). Reputation matters. Still. Publishing in a respected venue says something about the author.
Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutes
The Convincing Case for Sending Your Kids Outside to Play Alone | Inhabitots.
YES!!!!
A recent story in The New York Times discussed how play has all but vanished from childhood. The article states, “Too little playtime may seem to rank far down on the list of society’s worries, but the scientists, psychologists, educators and others who are part of the play movement say that most of the social and intellectual skills one needs to succeed in life and work are first developed through childhood play.” A great deal of research proves that The New York Times piece is right on. Kids are exposed to some serious problems if they don’t get a healthy dose of free, unstructured play.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics says that a lack of unstructured playtime causes depression and anxiety in children.
- A Stanford School of Medicine study says that kids who miss out on free, unsupervised play also miss out on cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development and well-being as well as self-regulation, empathy, and group management skills.
- Be Out There research notes that children kept from outside play time are less physically active, less creative, more aggressive and have worse concentration.
- Research at the Morton Arboretum notes that symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are worse when children have no contact with nature. This research showed that kids with ADHD who do spend time in nature concentrate, complete tasks, and follow directions better than their peers.
- Kids trapped inside miss out on basic rights of passage, such as forming fun memories, making mistakes and learning how to be brave.
- Children with nothing but screentime have no idea how to manage when screens aren’t available. They get depressed, lose control and have no clue how to entertain themselves. Most kids use the term “Addiction” when describing their screen time, which is a serious problem. In fact this is a con for parents too. Incredibly, there are whole articles dedicated to advising parents how to teach kids to play alone! Seriously?
- A lack of outside play time is linked to stress, vitamin D deficiency and decreased disease resistance in kids.
- Kids who don’t experience free play miss out on memory growth, problem solving skills, language skills, literacy skills, math proficiency and much more.
- Most health organizations directly link the growing childhood obesity crisis to a lack of independent outdoor play. It’s scary to imagine, but the Alliance for Childhood, a play advocacy group, notes that children ages 10 to 16 now spend just 12.6 minutes per day in vigorous physical activity and an average of 10.4 waking hours each day relatively motionless. We’re talking about a generation of kids who are living their entire childhood sedentary, an issue that is directly linked to obesity and many other health problems.
-
Kids who don’t get to be outside will not care as much about protecting the planet once they become adults. One study notes that the most direct route to caring for the environment is participating in “wild nature activities” before the age of 11. (Wells and Lekies, 2006).