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 ]
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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."
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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