Amplify, the new education venture at News Corp., is getting into the gaming business.? On Tuesday, the company rolled out more than 30 digital games designed to help middle school students improve their language arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills.
The games won?t be made widely available to districts until the spring of 2014, but they?re being piloted now in a few schools across the country. Naturally, the games can be played on Amplify?s own branded tablet ? the 10-inch Asus device running the Jellybean Android operating system, which it launched at SXSWedu earlier this year. But the games will also run on other major mobile operating systems, including iOS. Schools can buy them as part of a broader Amplify curriculum or separately, the company said.
In pitching its tablet, Amplify talked up the benefits of giving schools an entire learning package of hardware and software (each Amplify tablet is specially optimized at the manufacturer level for use in schools and comes pre-loaded with learning tools and content). But the company also sees an opportunity in offering schools just a tablet-based curriculum, of which the new video games are a part.
The games, which include an English language game world called Lexica, an arcade-style game called Food Web and a real-time strategy game called TyrAnt, were designed to hold students? attention as much as for learning. The hope is that students will be hooked enough to play the games outside of the classroom and extend learning time, the company said.
?We?re not designing homework here,? Joel Klein, Amplify?s CEO and the former New York City Schools Chancellor, said in a statement. ?These games will improve learning not because kids have to play them in school, but because they want to play them in their own free time.?
It remains to be seen just how effective these games will be in boosting students? skills, but interest in educational games, generally, is growing. Earlier this year, New Schools Venture Fund and social gaming company Zynga announced an?accelerator for educational gaming startups. And, last year, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation put their weight behind a project at Electronic Arts called the Games, Learning and Assessment (GLASS) Lab.
Artificial sweetener a potential treatment for Parkinson's diseasePublic release date: 17-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: George Hunka ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University researcher says mannitol could prevent aggregation of toxic proteins in the brain
Mannitol, a sugar alcohol produced by fungi, bacteria, and algae, is a common component of sugar-free gum and candy. The sweetener is also used in the medical field it's approved by the FDA as a diuretic to flush out excess fluids and used during surgery as a substance that opens the blood/brain barrier to ease the passage of other drugs.
Now Profs. Ehud Gazit and Daniel Segal of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, along with their colleague Dr. Ronit Shaltiel-Karyo and PhD candidate Moran Frenkel-Pinter, have found that mannitol also prevents clumps of the protein ?-synuclein from forming in the brain a process that is characteristic of Parkinson's disease.
These results, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and presented at the Drosophila Conference in Washington, DC in April, suggest that this artificial sweetener could be a novel therapy for the treatment of Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. The research was funded by a grant from the Parkinson's Disease Foundation and supported in part by the Lord Alliance Family Trust.
Seeing a significant difference
After identifying the structural characteristics that facilitate the development of clumps of ?-synuclein, the researchers began to hunt for a compound that could inhibit the proteins' ability to bind together. In the lab, they found that mannitol was among the most effective agents in preventing aggregation of the protein in test tubes. The benefit of this substance is that it is already approved for use in a variety of clinical interventions, Prof. Segal says.
Next, to test the capabilities of mannitol in the living brain, the researchers turned to transgenic fruit flies engineered to carry the human gene for ?-synuclein. To study fly movement, they used a test called the "climbing assay," in which the ability of flies to climb the walls of a test tube indicates their locomotive capability. In the initial experimental period, 72 percent of normal flies were able to climb up the test tube, compared to only 38 percent of the genetically-altered flies.
The researchers then added mannitol to the food of the genetically-altered flies for a period of 27 days and repeated the experiment. This time, 70 percent of the mutated flies could climb up the test tube. In addition, the researchers observed a 70 percent reduction in aggregates of ?-synuclein in mutated flies that had been fed mannitol, compared to those that had not.
These findings were confirmed by a second study which measured the impact of mannitol on mice engineered to produce human ?-synuclein, developed by Dr. Eliezer Masliah of the University of San Diego. After four months, the researchers found that the mice injected with mannitol also showed a dramatic reduction of ?-synuclein in the brain.
Delivering therapeutic compounds to the brain
The researchers now plan to re-examine the structure of the mannitol compound and introduce modifications to optimize its effectiveness. Further experiments on animal models, including behavioral testing, whose disease development mimics more closely the development of Parkinson's in humans is needed, Prof. Segal says.
For the time being, mannitol may be used in combination with other medications that have been developed to treat Parkinson's but which have proven ineffective in breaking through the blood/brain barrier, says Prof. Segal. These medications may be able to "piggy-back" on mannitol's ability to open this barrier into the brain.
Although the results look promising, it is still not advisable for Parkinson's patients to begin ingesting mannitol in large quantities, Prof. Segal cautions. More testing must be done to determine dosages that would be both effective and safe.
###
American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Artificial sweetener a potential treatment for Parkinson's diseasePublic release date: 17-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: George Hunka ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University researcher says mannitol could prevent aggregation of toxic proteins in the brain
Mannitol, a sugar alcohol produced by fungi, bacteria, and algae, is a common component of sugar-free gum and candy. The sweetener is also used in the medical field it's approved by the FDA as a diuretic to flush out excess fluids and used during surgery as a substance that opens the blood/brain barrier to ease the passage of other drugs.
Now Profs. Ehud Gazit and Daniel Segal of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, along with their colleague Dr. Ronit Shaltiel-Karyo and PhD candidate Moran Frenkel-Pinter, have found that mannitol also prevents clumps of the protein ?-synuclein from forming in the brain a process that is characteristic of Parkinson's disease.
These results, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and presented at the Drosophila Conference in Washington, DC in April, suggest that this artificial sweetener could be a novel therapy for the treatment of Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. The research was funded by a grant from the Parkinson's Disease Foundation and supported in part by the Lord Alliance Family Trust.
Seeing a significant difference
After identifying the structural characteristics that facilitate the development of clumps of ?-synuclein, the researchers began to hunt for a compound that could inhibit the proteins' ability to bind together. In the lab, they found that mannitol was among the most effective agents in preventing aggregation of the protein in test tubes. The benefit of this substance is that it is already approved for use in a variety of clinical interventions, Prof. Segal says.
Next, to test the capabilities of mannitol in the living brain, the researchers turned to transgenic fruit flies engineered to carry the human gene for ?-synuclein. To study fly movement, they used a test called the "climbing assay," in which the ability of flies to climb the walls of a test tube indicates their locomotive capability. In the initial experimental period, 72 percent of normal flies were able to climb up the test tube, compared to only 38 percent of the genetically-altered flies.
The researchers then added mannitol to the food of the genetically-altered flies for a period of 27 days and repeated the experiment. This time, 70 percent of the mutated flies could climb up the test tube. In addition, the researchers observed a 70 percent reduction in aggregates of ?-synuclein in mutated flies that had been fed mannitol, compared to those that had not.
These findings were confirmed by a second study which measured the impact of mannitol on mice engineered to produce human ?-synuclein, developed by Dr. Eliezer Masliah of the University of San Diego. After four months, the researchers found that the mice injected with mannitol also showed a dramatic reduction of ?-synuclein in the brain.
Delivering therapeutic compounds to the brain
The researchers now plan to re-examine the structure of the mannitol compound and introduce modifications to optimize its effectiveness. Further experiments on animal models, including behavioral testing, whose disease development mimics more closely the development of Parkinson's in humans is needed, Prof. Segal says.
For the time being, mannitol may be used in combination with other medications that have been developed to treat Parkinson's but which have proven ineffective in breaking through the blood/brain barrier, says Prof. Segal. These medications may be able to "piggy-back" on mannitol's ability to open this barrier into the brain.
Although the results look promising, it is still not advisable for Parkinson's patients to begin ingesting mannitol in large quantities, Prof. Segal cautions. More testing must be done to determine dosages that would be both effective and safe.
###
American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Everyone and their mother knows Skype as a call and chat messenger, but it would've been a completely different beast if its founders' original plans came to fruition."The initial idea was to develop a WiFi-sharing network, and then provide various 'telecom-like' services on top of that, such as TV and telephony," explained founding engineer Jaan Tallinn in a Reddit AMA.
Tallinn compared the project to Fon, but he and his co-founders hit a wall: they couldn't offer TV services because they were battling copyright lawsuits as developers of P2P file-sharing site Kazaa. The team also had trouble finding a decent VoIP product to attach to the service and wound up concocting their own technology instead. The new VoIP tech, which was supposed to be named Skyper until the team noticed Skyper.net was already taken, eventually became the focus of the service. It's an interesting look at the birth of the chat messenger we know today. Now if only we could figure out if the government has directaccess to Skype's logs, we'd be set.
NEW YORK (AP) ? A week after he retired from the NBA, Grant Hill celebrated with his wife as she performed for a feverish crowd in New York City on Saturday night.
Hill and New York Knicks' Amar'e Stoudemire watched from the VIP section of the Highline Ballroom as Tamia (tah-MEE'-uh) sang R&B tunes for a few hundred people.
Hill last played for the Los Angeles Clippers. The 40-year-old also played for Detroit, Orlando and Phoenix in his 19-season career.
Tamia gave Hill a shout-out before singing the song "Still" saying, "We're celebrating almost 15 years of marriage."
Her fifth album, "Beautiful Surprise," was nominated for two Grammy Awards this year. She performed with ease Saturday, singing R&B jams like "Stranger In My House," ''Imagination," ''So Into You" and "Officially Missing You."
May 7, 2013 ? Fact or fiction? Stained glass found in medieval cathedrals becomes thicker at the bottom because glass moves over time. For years researchers have had their doubts, now a team at Texas Tech University has further evidence that the glass is not going anywhere.
"Glass transition is related to the performance of materials, whether it is inorganic glass or organic polymers," said Gregory McKenna, professor of chemical engineering at Texas Tech. "For example, this would be important to people who own a boat made of fiberglass, or fly in an airplane made with epoxy-based composites. Information like that can help predict if that jet will still be flying in 30 years."
The idea for this research came from a doctoral student's qualifying exam, McKenna said. He gave Jing Zhao a problem relating to diverging time-scales using polyvinyl acetate, a substance often found in adhesives. Her results were consistent with a lack of divergence -- contrary to received thought. So they decided to up the ante by performing similar experiments on a much older, ultra-stable glass.
They chose 20-million year old Dominican amber, and together with Whitacre Department Chair and Horn Professor Sindee Simon, Zhao performed calorimetric and stress relaxation experiments on the samples.
"What we found is that the amber relaxation times did not diverge," McKenna said. "This result challenges all the classic theories of glass transition behavior."
This research is supported by the National Science Foundation under a grant from the Division of Materials Research, Polymers Program. The process and results were recently published in Nature Communications.
Meanwhile, McKenna has recently acquired additional samples from around the world, including 220-million-year-old Triassic amber from Eugenio Ragazzi, a pharmacology professor at the University of Padova in Italy. The team now has plans to perform similar experiments on the new samples.
"We are in the very early stages," McKenna said. "However, our research definitely is 'to be continued.'"
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Disturbed by the nationwide epidemic of cellphone robberies and thefts, law enforcement officials across the country are looking to the wireless industry to help find a cure.
In San Francisco, where half the robberies were phone-related last year, District Attorney George Gascon is calling on major companies in nearby Silicon Valley to create new technology such as a "kill switch" to permanently and quickly disable stolen smart phones, making them worthless to thieves.
The prosecutor said he's recently had two discussions with Apple, maker of the popular iPhone, and has talked informally with Google, creator of the Android, the world's most popular operating smartphone platform. And, he also wants to meet with Samsung, the global smartphone market leader.
"We know that the technology can be developed to prevent this. This is more about social responsibility than economic gain," Gascon said.
The stakes are huge in the battle to combat cellphone theft. Nearly 175 million cellphones ? mostly smartphones? have been sold in the U.S. in the past year and account for $69 billion in sales, according to IDC, a Massachusetts-based research firm.
And, now almost one out of three robberies nationwide involves the theft of a mobile phone, reports the Federal Communications Commission, which is coordinating formation this fall of a highly-anticipated national database system to track cellphones reported stolen.
The FCC is also working with officials in Mexico to crack down on the trafficking of stolen mobile phones that make it across the border.
San Francisco's district attorney is not the only high-ranking big-city law official seeking solutions.
In Washington D.C, where than 40 percent of its robberies in 2012 involved cellphones, police Chief Cathy Lanier said new federal laws are necessary to require all wireless providers to participate in the national stolen phones database, which is now done by choice.
"This is a voluntary agreement and the decision makers, heads of these (wireless) companies may transition over time and may not be in the same position five years from now." Lanier said in an email. "Something needs to be put in place to protect consumers."
On the theory that an inoperable phone is as useless as a "brick," Lanier and Mayor Vincent Gray also have urged residents who have their phones stolen to call their carriers and ask that the device be "bricked," or disconnected remotely to prevent resale on the black market.
In New York City, police have created a smartphone squad and partnered with Apple to track down stolen iPhones using the device's tracking number. For example, when an iPhone is stolen, Apple can report to police where the phone is located, even if it's been switched to a different carrier.
Police said the city's overall crime rate last year increased three percent mostly due to the more than 15,000 thefts of Apple-related products ? a majority of them iPhones ? said Paul Browne, a police spokesman.
"We would've had a one percent decrease in overall crime if you subtracted the Apple thefts," said Browne, adding that police have coined the phenomenon, "Apple-picking."
"We're trying to protect the orchard, so to speak," Browne said.
He added that police often use officers as decoys using their own iPhones to catch would-be robbers and stings to catch those who sell them on the black market. About 75 percent of the stolen devices stay within the city's five boroughs and some have been tracked down as far as the Dominican Republic.
In addition, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has been working with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, the FCC and CTIA, a trade group for wireless providers, on the national stolen phone database, along with six of the largest wireless companies.
Computer security expert Darren Hayes said law enforcement agencies, major corporations and the wireless industry have responded slowly to the spike in mobile phone thefts, leaving individuals as well as businesses vulnerable.
"Smartphones have become such an extension of our lives with all of our personal information on them and criminals recognizing its mass appeal," said Hayes, a professor and computer information systems program chair at Pace University in New York. "Professionally, there are some corporate network administrators who can control their company servers from their smartphone. While it's convenient, it could also put them at risk and could be the biggest source of data loss if they are stolen.
"We could see a potential nightmare emerging," Hayes said.
Jamie Hastings, a CTIA vice president, said the national stolen phone database is a step in the right direction and deserves a chance.
"To suggest that our members don't care about their consumers is completely inaccurate," Hastings said. "Our members are now focusing their energies on the database and achieving the start-up goal by November. The important thing at this stage is to allow our members to execute the plan that all of the stakeholders agreed upon."
The national database will be similar to a global database devised by GSMA, a wireless trade group based in the United Kingdom. Nearly 100 wireless companies across 43 countries participate in the overseas database for reported stolen mobile phones, said Claire Cranton, a GSMA spokeswoman in London.
But Gascon said a national network to track stolen phones comes up short and he is adamant that a kill switch is the best strategy to render a phone useless.
In March, he met with Apple's government liaison officer Michael Foulkes to talk about creating a kill switch technology. He described the encounter as "disappointing" but said a subsequent phone conversation with Apple's general counsel Bruce Sewell last month led to plans for talks that would include Apple's technical people.
Representatives of the tech giant did not respond to requests for comment.
"For me, a technical solution is probably better than just a criminal solution," Gascon said. "We can always create more laws, but look at how long it already takes to prosecute somebody at the expense of the taxpayers?
"If a phone can be inoperable at the flick of a switch, then a database will become moot."
The games, which include an English language game world called Lexica, an arcade-style game called Food Web and a real-time strategy game called TyrAnt, were designed to hold students? attention as much as for learning. The hope is that students will be hooked enough to play the games outside of the classroom and extend learning time, the company said.
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Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
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