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各位队友好，从这次科技的小分队开始，将由我接替鱼妹妹的工作为大家收集科技类的阅读文章。请大家回帖告诉大米您对内容、排版等各方面的意见和建议，我会在将来的收集整理工作中尽量做得更好！
天冷了多加衣，保重身体哦。o(∩_∩)o
From Nature:
Brain cells made from urine
Human excreta could be a powerful source of cells to study disease, bypassing some of the problems of using stem cells.
By Monya Baker 09 December 2012
[attachimg=305,384]111269[/attachimg]
【Time One】
Some of the waste that humans flush away every day could become a powerful source of brain cells to study disease, and may even one day be used in therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists have found a relatively straightforward way to persuade the cells discarded in human urine to turn into valuable neurons.
The technique, described online in a study in Nature Methods this week, does not involve embryonic stem cells. These come with serious drawbacks when transplanted, such as the risk of developing tumours. Instead, the method uses ordinary cells present in urine, and transforms them into neural progenitor cells — the precursors of brain cells. These precursor cells could help researchers to produce cells tailored to individuals more quickly and from more patients than current methods.
Researchers routinely reprogram cultured skin and blood cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which can go on to form any cell in the body. But urine is a much more accessible source.
Stem-cell biologist Duanqing Pei and his colleagues at China's Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had previously shown that kidney epithelial cells in urine could be reprogrammed into iPS cells.
However, in that study the team used retroviruses to insert pluripotency genes into cells — a common technique in cell reprogramming. This alters the genetic make-up of cells and can make them less predictable, so in this study, Pei and his colleagues introduced the genes using vectors which did not integrate in the cellular genome.
One of their experiments produced round colonies of reprogrammed cells from urine that resembled pluripotent stem cells after only 12 days — about half the time usually required to produce iPS cells. When cultured further, the colonies took on the rosette shape common to neural stem cells.
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Tumour-free
Pei and his colleagues transferred the cells to a growth medium used for neurons, and found that these reprogrammed cells went on to form functional neurons in the lab.
When the team repeated the experiment and transplanted the cells into newborn rat brains, the cells did not form tumours. Instead, when the brains were examined four weeks later, the cells had taken on the shape and molecular markers of neurons.
Neural progenitors proliferate in culture, so researchers can produce plenty of cells for their experiments. Getting enough cells has previously been a problem for such 'direct reprogramming' techniques, which produce neurons more quickly than producing and differentiating iPS cells.
“This could definitely speed things up,” says James Ellis, a medical geneticist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada, who makes patient-specific iPS cells to study autism spectrum disorders.
The benefit of sourcing cells in this way is that urine can be collected from nearly any patient, says geneticist Marc Lalande, who creates iPS cells to study neurogenetic diseases at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, and is particularly intrigued by the possibility of making iPS cells and neural progenitors from the same patient.
“We work on childhood disorders,” he says. “And it's easier to get a child to give a urine sample than to prick them for blood.”
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From ScienceNews:
Lines in the sand may have been made for walking Celebrated desert drawings include a labyrinth
By Bruce BowerWeb edition: December 7, 2012
[attachimg=613,444]111270[/attachimg]
【Time Two】
Famous line drawings etched into Peru’s Nazca desert plateau around 1,500 years ago are enduring puzzles. At least one of them is also a labyrinth, researchers say.
Archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles of the University of Leicester in England discovered the labyrinth — a single path leading to and from an earthen mound, with a series of disorienting twists and turns along its flat, 4.4-kilometer-long course — by walking it himself. From the ground, little of the labyrinth is visible, even while ambling through it. From the air, it’s difficult to recognize the array of landscape lines as a connected entity.
In the December Antiquity, Ruggles and archaeologist Nicholas Saunders of the University of Bristol in England describe and map what they regard as a carefully planned labyrinth from the ancient Nazca (sometimes spelled Nasca) culture. Nazca civilization flourished in southern coastal Peru from around 2,100 to 1,300 years ago.
“This labyrinth was meant to be walked, not seen,” Ruggles says. “The element of surprise was crucial to the experience of Nazca labyrinth walking.”
Those who traversed the desert path encountered 15 sharp corners that ushered them down trails leading away from and back toward a large hill. Walkers then rounded a curve in the path and negotiated two more turns before entering a spiral passageway that dumped them a mere 60 meters (65.6 yards) from the starting point. It probably took around one hour to complete the journey.
People marched alone or single file along the narrow dirt lane, Ruggles suggests. Minimal damage to rocks lining the path indicates that labyrinth walkers strode with care, and that religious pilgrims who periodically crossed the plateau on the way to nearby Nazca ritual centers steered clear of, or were directed away from, the labyrinth.
Ruggles and Saunders reconstructed the path’s course in several small sections that had been washed away by rains. Fieldwork from 2007 to 2011 resulted in a map of the entire labyrinth.
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There’s no way to know how the labyrinth was used, Ruggles says. Shamans or pilgrims could have walked the tricky trail on spiritual journeys. Or the path might have been reserved for Nazca gods.
Nazca line and animal designs covering 1,036 square kilometers of desert floor have previously been proposed as representations of constellations, ritual sites intended to elicit rain from the gods and, most notoriously, landing strips for spaceships of otherworldly visitors. In 2000, archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni of Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., suggested that some Nazca lines formed labyrinths.
Ruggles and Saunders’ contention that Nazca labyrinths were made to be strolled through while staying mostly hidden from view “is novel and well-argued,” Aveni says.
Although smashed pottery litters nearby Nazca lines, no such relics appear in the labyrinth or on the adjacent hill. Ruggles hopes to excavate the mound to determine whether it’s a natural formation or a Nazca creation.
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From EarthSky:
Moon near Saturn before dawn December 10, will pass Venus and Mercury, too
By Bruce McClure, 10th Dec.,2012
[attachimg=430,429]111271[/attachimg]
【Time Three】
If you’re an early morning person, look east before dawn on Monday, December 10. The moon will appear next to the ringed planet Saturn, the most distant planet you can see with your eye alone. And there will be two other planets nearby. In fact, the world that might catch your eye first will be Venus, brightest of the planets. Mercury is there, too, visible very low in the sky shortly before the sun comes up. The moon will pass near Venus on December 11 and Mercury on December 12. These next few mornings will be a grand time to look at the predawn sky!
The moon and Saturn will rise into the predawn sky around 4 a.m. local time at mid-northern latitudes on Monday, December 10. At latitudes farther south, the moon and Saturn rise earlier yet. They are visible from around the world.
The grand procession of morning planets continues until morning dawn. Venus, the brightest planet of them all, rises next, though this dazzling world follows Saturn into the sky all the sooner at southerly latitudes than it does at northerly latitudes. Finally, Mercury, the innermost planet, comes up about 90 minutes before sunrise at mid-northern latitudes and approximately an hour before the sun at middle latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere.
If you have difficulty seeing Mercury, draw an imaginary line from Saturn through Venus to locate Mercury near the horizon. If you have binoculars, they may help you to see Mercury in the glow of dawn. Although Mercury shines on par with the sky’s brightest stars, its luster is sometimes tarnished by the murky haze looming by the horizon.
Watch as the waning crescent moon strolls down the stairway of morning planets over the next few mornings. The moon pairs up with Saturn tomorrow, on Monday, December 10, and then with Venus on Tuesday, December 11. And depending on where you live worldwide, you might be able to spot the moon with Mercury on Wednesday, December 12.
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【Rest】
But first of all, look for the waning crescent moon and Saturn to adorn the predawn and dawn sky on Monday, December 10. By the way, the word saturnine refers to the gloomy disposition associated with lead poisoning. At one time, alchemists thought the planet Saturn possessed lead-like properties.
In contrast, the ancient Romans honored the god Saturn as a benevolent force in their winter solstice celebrations, the Saturnalia, occurring annually from December 17 to December 25. The Saturnalia was marked by gift-giving and merrymaking, with candles casting out the winter darkness and evergreen wreaths serving as a reminder of the continuance of life. It’s thought the modern day celebration of Christmas may have roots in this ancient Roman festival.
Bottom line: The brightest planet in the predawn sky now is Venus. Saturn is above Venus. Mercury is below Venus. The moon will appear near Saturn on December 10, Venus on December 11 and Mercury on December 12. Check it out! And realize that this motion of the moon – as it appears next to first one, then another planet – is a reflection of the moon’s actual motion in orbit around Earth.
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From ScienceDaily:
Scientists Find Oldest Dinosaur -- Or Closest Relative Yet
[attachimg=1010,542]111273[/attachimg]
【Time Four】
Dec. 4, 2012 — Researchers have discovered what may be the earliest dinosaur, a creature the size of a Labrador retriever, but with a five foot-long tail, that walked the Earth about 10 million years before more familiar dinosaurs like the small, swift-footed Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus.
The findings mean that the dinosaur lineage appeared 10 million to 15 million years earlier than fossils previously showed, originating in the Middle Triassic rather than in the Late Triassic period.
"If the newly named Nyasasaurus parringtoni is not the earliest dinosaur, then it is the closest relative found so far," according to Sterling Nesbitt, a University of Washington postdoctoral researcher in biology and lead author of a paper published online Dec. 5 in Biology Letters, a journal of the United Kingdom's Royal Society.
"For 150 years, people have been suggesting that there should be Middle Triassic dinosaurs, but all the evidence is ambiguous," he said. "Some scientists used fossilized footprints, but we now know that other animals from that time have a very similar foot. Other scientists pointed to a single dinosaur-like characteristic in a single bone, but that can be misleading because some characteristics evolved in a number of reptile groups and are not a result of a shared ancestry."
The researchers had one humerus -- or upper arm bone -- and six vertebrae to work with. They determined that the animal likely stood upright, measured 7 to 10 feet in length (2 to 3 meters), was as tall as 3 feet at the hip (1 meter) and may have weighed between 45 and 135 pounds (20 to 60 kilograms).
The fossilized bones were collected in the 1930s from Tanzania, but it may not be correct to say dinosaurs originated in that country. When Nyasasaurus parringtoni lived, the world's continents were joined in the landmass called Pangaea. Tanzania would have been part of Southern Pangaea that included Africa, South America, Antarctica and Australia.
"The new findings place the early evolution of dinosaurs and dinosaur-like reptiles firmly in the southern continents," said co-author Paul Barrett at the Natural History Museum, London.
The bones of the new animal reveal a number of characteristics common to early dinosaurs and their close relatives. For example, the bone tissues in the upper arm bone appear as if they are woven haphazardly and not laid down in an organized way. This indicates rapid growth, a common feature of dinosaurs and their close relatives.
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【Time Five】
"We can tell from the bone tissues that Nyasasaurus had a lot of bone cells and blood vessels," said co-author Sarah Werning at the University of California, Berkeley, who did the bone analysis. "In living animals, we only see this many bone cells and blood vessels in animals that grow quickly, like some mammals or birds."
"The bone tissue of Nyasasaurus is exactly what we would expect for an animal at this position on the dinosaur family tree," she added. "It's a very good example of a transitional fossil; the bone tissue shows that Nyasasaurus grew about as fast as other primitive dinosaurs, but not as fast as later ones."
Another example is the upper arm bone's distinctively enlarged crest, needed to anchor the upper arm muscles. The feature, known as an elongated deltopectoral crest, is also common to all early dinosaurs.
"Nyasasaurus and its age have important implications regardless of whether this taxon is a dinosaur or the closest relatives of dinosaurs," Nesbitt said. "It establishes that dinosaurs likely evolved earlier than previously expected and refutes the idea that dinosaur diversity burst onto the scene in the Late Triassic, a burst of diversification unseen in any other groups at that time."
It now appears that dinosaurs were just part of a large diversification of archosaurs. Archosaurs were among the dominant land animals during the Triassic period 250 million to 200 million years ago and include dinosaurs, crocodiles and their kin.
"Dinosaurs are just part of this archosaur diversification, an explosion of new forms soon after the Permian extinction," Nesbitt said.
The specimen used to identify the new species is part of the collection at the Natural History Museum, London. Four vertebrae from a second specimen of Nyasasaurus, which were also used in this research, are housed in the South African Museum in Cape Town. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Natural History Museum, London. The fourth co-author on the paper is Christian Sidor, UW professor of biology.
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The name Nyasasaurus parringtoni is new, but "Nyasasaurus" -- combining the lake name Nyasa with the term "saurus" for lizard -- is not. The late paleontologist Alan Charig, included as a co-author on the paper, named the specimen but never documented or published in a way that was formally recognized. " arringtoni" is in honor of University of Cambridge's Rex Parrington, who collected the specimens in the 1930s.
"What's really neat about this specimen is that it has a lot of history. Found in the '30s, first described in the 1950s but never published, then its name pops up but is never validated. Now 80 years later, we're putting it all together," Nesbitt said.
"This work highlights the important role of museums in housing specimens whose scientific importance might be overlooked unless studied and restudied in detail," Barrett said. "Many of the more important discoveries in paleontology are made in the lab, or museum storerooms, as well as in the field."
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【Obstacle】
From ScienceDaily:
Android-Based Network Built to Study Cyber Disruptions and Help Secure Hand-Held Devices
[attachimg=641,418]111274[/attachimg]
Oct. 2, 2012 — As part of ongoing research to help prevent and mitigate disruptions to computer networks on the Internet, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in California have turned their attention to smartphones and other hand-held computing devices.
Sandia cyber researchers linked together 300,000 virtual hand-held computing devices running the Android operating system so they can study large networks of smartphones and find ways to make them more reliable and secure. Android dominates the smartphone industry and runs on a range of computing gadgets.
The work is expected to result in a software tool that will allow others in the cyber research community to model similar environments and study the behaviors of smartphone networks. Ultimately, the tool will enable the computing industry to better protect hand-held devices from malicious intent.
The project builds on the success of earlier work in which Sandia focused on virtual Linux and Windows desktop systems.
"Smartphones are now ubiquitous and used as general-purpose computing devices as much as desktop or laptop computers," said Sandia's David Fritz. "But even though they are easy targets, no one appears to be studying them at the scale we're attempting."
The Android project, dubbed MegaDroid, is expected to help researchers at Sandia and elsewhere who struggle to understand large scale networks. Soon, Sandia expects to complete a sophisticated demonstration of the MegaDroid project that could be presented to potential industry or government collaborators.
The virtual Android network at Sandia, said computer scientist John Floren, is carefully insulated from other networks at the Labs and the outside world, but can be built up into a realistic computing environment. That environment might include a full domain name service (DNS), an Internet relay chat (IRC) server, a web server and multiple subnets.
A key element of the Android project, Floren said, is a "spoof" Global Positioning System (GPS). He and his colleagues created simulated GPS data of a smartphone user in an urban environment, an important experiment since smartphones and such key features as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities are highly location-dependent and thus could easily be controlled and manipulated by rogue actors.
The researchers then fed that data into the GPS input of an Android virtual machine. Software on the virtual machine treats the location data as indistinguishable from real GPS data, which offers researchers a much richer and more accurate emulation environment from which to analyze and study what hackers can do to smartphone networks, Floren said.
This latest development by Sandia cyber researchers represents a significant steppingstone for those hoping to understand and limit the damage from network disruptions due to glitches in software or protocols, natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or other causes. These disruptions can cause significant economic and other losses for individual consumers, companies and governments.
"You can't defend against something you don't understand," Floren said. The larger the scale the better, he said, since more computer nodes offer more data for researchers to observe and study.
The research builds upon the Megatux project that started in 2009, in which Sandia scientists ran a million virtual Linux machines, and on a later project that focused on the Windows operating system, called MegaWin. Sandia researchers created those virtual networks at large scale using real Linux and Windows instances in virtual machines.
The main challenge in studying Android-based machines, the researchers say, is the sheer complexity of the software. Google, which developed the Android operating system, wrote some 14 million lines of code into the software, and the system runs on top of a Linux kernel, which more than doubles the amount of code.
"It's possible for something to go wrong on the scale of a big wireless network because of a coding mistake in an operating system or an application, and it's very hard to diagnose and fix," said Fritz. "You can't possibly read through 15 million lines of code and understand every possible interaction between all these devices and the network."
Much of Sandia's work on virtual computing environments will soon be available for other cyber researchers via open source. Floren and Fritz believe Sandia should continue to work on tools that industry leaders and developers can use to better diagnose and fix problems in computer networks.
"Tools are only useful if they're used," said Fritz.
MegaDroid primarily will be useful as a tool to ferret out problems that would manifest themselves when large numbers of smartphones interact, said Keith Vanderveen, manager of Sandia's Scalable and Secure Systems Research department.
"You could also extend the technology to other platforms besides Android," said Vanderveen. "Apple's iOS, for instance, could take advantage of our body of knowledge and the toolkit we're developing." He said Sandia also plans to use MegaDroid to explore issues of data protection and data leakage, which he said concern government agencies such as the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
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【自由阅读】
这一部分不按照小分队的要求进行计时、阅读。这篇资料来自于TED.COM，是Daphne Bavelier关于游戏对脑部影响的研究。推荐这篇文章的主要原因是，研究思路跟GMAT很像：现象、数据。。。旧观点1->推翻，因为XXX；旧观点2->推翻，因为XXX；旧观点3->推翻，因为XXX。我的研究认为XXX，研究方法是XXX，所以，。。。
这里强烈推荐童鞋们不需要计时阅读，当成科普的文章来读就好，因为讲演稿的语言不是很简练，跟GMAT的精神不一致。大家读/听的过程中可以体会一下这种逻辑转换。
Enjoy reading!
Daphne Bavelier: Your brain on video games
http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html
I'm a brain scientist, and as a brain scientist,I'm actually interested in how the brain learns,and I'm especially interested in a possibility ofmaking our brains smarter, better and faster.
This is in this context I'm going to tell youabout video games. When we say video games,most of you think about children.It's true. Ninety percent of children do play video games.But let's be frank.When the kids are in bed, who is in front of the PlayStation?
Most of you. The average age of a gamer is 33 years old,not eight years old, and in fact, if we look at the projected demographics of video game play,the video game players of tomorrow are older adults.
So video [gaming] is pervasive throughout our society.It is clearly here to stay. It has an amazing impacton our everyday life. Consider these statistics released by Activision. After one month of release of the game "Call Of Duty: Black Ops," it had been played for 68,000 years worldwide, right?
Would any of you complain if this was the case about doing linear algebra?
So what we are asking in the lab is, how can we leverage that power?
Now I want to step back a bit.I know most of you have had the experience of coming backhome and finding your kids playing these kinds of games. The name of the game is to get after your enemy zombie bad guys before they get to you, right?
And I'm almost sure most of you have thought,"Oh, come on, can't you do something more intelligent than shooting at zombies?"I'd like you to put this kind of knee-jerk reactionin the context of what you would have thought if you had found your girl playing sudokuor your boy reading Shakespeare. Right?
Most parents would find that great.Well, I'm not going to tell you that playing video gamesdays in and days out is actually good for your health.It's not, and binging is never good.But I'm going to argue that in reasonable doses,actually the very game I showed you at the beginning,those action-packed shooter games have quite powerful effects and positive effects on many different aspects of our behavior.
There's not one week that goes without some major headlines in the media about whether video games are good or bad for you, right? You're all bombarded with that.I'd like to put this kind of Friday night bar discussion aside and get you to actually step into the lab.What we do in the lab is actually measure directly,in a quantitative fashion, what is the impact of video games on the brain.And so I'm going to take a few examples from our work.
One first saying that I'm sure you all have heardis the fact that too much screen time makes your eyesight worse.That's a statement about vision.There may be vision scientists among you.We actually know how to test that statement.We can step into the lab and measure how good your vision is.Well, guess what? People that don't play a lot of action games, that don't actually spend a lot of time in front of screens, have normal, or what we call corrective-to-normal vision. That's okay.The issue is what happens with these guys that actually indulge into playing video games like five hours per week,10 hours per week, 15 hours per week.By that statement, their vision should be really bad, right?
Guess what? Their vision is really, really good.It's better than those that don't play.And it's better in two different ways.The first way is that they're actually able to resolve small detail in the context of clutter, and though that means being able to read the fine print on a prescription rather than using magnifier glasses, you can actually do it with just your eyesight.The other way that they are better is actually being able to resolve different levels of gray.Imagine you're driving in a fog. That makes a difference between seeing the car in front of you and avoiding the accident, or getting into an accident.So we're actually leveraging that work to develop games for patients with low vision, and to have an impact on retraining their brain to see better.Clearly, when it comes to action video games,screen time doesn't make your eyesight worse.
Another saying that I'm sure you have all heard around:Video games lead to attention problems and greater distractability.Okay, we know how to measure attention in the lab.I'm actually going to give you an example of how we do so.I'm going to ask you to participate, so you're going to have to actually play the game with me. I'm going to show you colored words. I want you to shout out the color of the ink.Right? So this is the first example.
["Chair"]Orange, good. ["Table"] Green.["Board"] Audience: Red. Daphne Bavelier: Red.
["Horse"] DB: Yellow. Audience: Yellow.["Yellow"] DB: Red. Audience: Yellow.
["Blue"] DB: Yellow.Okay, you get my point, right? (Laughter)You're getting better, but it's hard. Why is it hard?
Because I introduced a conflict between the word itself and its color.How good your attention is determines actually how fast you resolve that conflict, so the young guys hereat the top of their game probably, like, did a little bettert han some of us that are older.What we can show is that when you do this kind of task with people that play a lot of action games,they actually resolve the conflict faster.So clearly playing those action games doesn't leadto attention problems.
Actually, those action video game players have many other advantages in terms of attention, and one aspect of attention which is also improved for the betteris our ability to track objects around in the world.This is something we use all the time. When you're driving,you're tracking, keeping track of the cars around you.You're also keeping track of the pedestrian, the running dog,and that's how you can actually be safe driving, right?
In the lab, we get people to come to the lab,sit in front of a computer screen, and we give them little tasks that I'm going to get you to do again.You're going to see yellow happy faces and a few sad blue faces. These are childrenin the school yard in Geneva during a recess during the winter. Most kids are happy. It's actually recess.But a few kids are sad and blue because they've forgotten their coat.Everybody begins to move around, and your taskis to keep track of who had a coat at the beginningand who didn't. So I'm just going to show you an example where there is only one sad kid. It's easy because you canactually track it with your eyes. You can track,you can track, and then when it stops, and there isa question mark, and I ask you, did this kid have a coat or not?
Was it yellow initially or blue?I hear a few yellow. Good. So most of you have a brain. (Laughter)
I'm now going to ask you to do the task, but now with a little more challenging task. There are going to be three of them that are blue. Don't move your eyes.Please don't move your eyes. Keep your eyes fixated and expand, pull your attention. That's the only wayyou can actually do it. If you move your eyes, you're doomed.Yellow or blue?
Audience: Yellow. DB: Good.So your typical normal young adultcan have a span of about three or four objects of attention.That's what we just did. Your action video game player has a span of about six to seven objects of attention,which is what is shown in this video here.That's for you guys, action video game players.A bit more challenging, right? Yellow or blue? Blue. We have some people that are serious out there. Yeah.
Good. So in the same way that we actually see the effects of video games on people's behavior,we can use brain imaging and look at the impact of video games on the brain, and we do find many changes,but the main changes are actually to the brain networks that control attention. So one part is the parietal cortex which is very well known to control the orientation of attention.The other one is the frontal lobe, which control show we sustain attention, and another oneis the anterior cingulate, which controls how we allocate and regulate attention and resolve conflict.Now, when we do brain imaging, we find that all three of these networks are actually much more efficient in people that play action games.
This actually leads me to a rather counter intuitive finding in the literature about technology and the brain.You all know about multitasking. You all have been faulty of multitasking when you're driving and you pick up your cellphone. Bad idea. Very bad idea.Why? Because as your attention shifts to your cell phone,you are actually losing the capacity to react swiftly to the car braking in front of you, and so you're much more likely to get engaged into a car accident.Now, we can measure that kind of skills in the lab.We obviously don't ask people to drive around and see how many car accidents they have. That would be a little costly proposition. But we design tasks on the computer where we can measure, to millisecond accuracy,how good they are at switching from one task to another.When we do that, we actually find that people that play a lot of action games are really, really good.They switch really fast, very swiftly. They pay a very small cost.
Now I'd like you to remember that result, and put it in the context of another group of technology users,a group which is actually much revered by society,which are people that engage in multimedia-tasking. What is multimedia-tasking? It's the fact that most of us,most of our children, are engaged with listening to musicat the same time as they're doing search on the webat the same time as they're chatting on Facebook with their friends.That's a multimedia-tasker.There was a first study done by colleagues at Stanfordand that we replicated that showed that those people that identify as being high multimedia-taskers are absolutely abysmal at multitasking.When we measure them in the lab, they're really bad.
Right? So these kinds of results really makes two main points.The first one is that not all media are created equal.You can't compare the effect of multimedia-tasking and the effect of playing action games. They have totally different effects on different aspects of cognition,perception and attention.Even within video games, I'm telling you right now about these action-packed video games.Different video games have a different effect on your brains.So we actually need to step into the lab and really measure what is the effect of each video game.
The other lesson is that general wisdom carries no weight.I showed that to you already, like we looked at the fact that despite a lot of screen time, those action gamers have a lot of very good vision, etc.Here, what was really striking is that these undergraduates that actually report engaging in a lot of high multimedia-tasking are convinced they aced the test.So you show them their data, you show them they are bad and they're like, "Not possible." You know, they have this sort of gut feeling that, really, they are doing really, really good.That's another argument for why we need to step into the laband really measure the impact of technology on the brain.
Now in a sense, when we think about the effect of video games on the brain, it's very similar to the effect of wine on the health.There are some very poor uses of wine. There are some very poor uses of video games. But when consumed in reasonable doses, and at the right age,wine can be very good for health. There are actually specific molecules that have been identified in red wine as leading to greater life expectancy.So it's the same way, like those action video games have a number of ingredients that are actually really powerful for brain plasticity, learning, attention,vision, etc., and so we need and we're working on understanding what are those active ingredients so that we can really then leverage them to deliver better games,either for education or for rehabilitation of patients.
Now because we are interested in having an impact for education or rehabilitation of patients, we are actually not that interested in how those of you that choose to play video games for many hours on end perform.I'm much more interested in taking any of you and showing that by forcing you to play an action game,I can actually change your vision for the better,whether you want to play that action game or not, right?
That's the point of rehabilitation or education.Most of the kids don't go to school saying,"Great, two hours of math!"
So that's really the crux of the research, and to do that,we need to go one more step.And one more step is to do training studies.So let me illustrate that step witha task which is called mental rotation.Mental rotation is a task where I'm going to ask you,and again you're going to do the task,to look at this shape. Study it, it's a target shape,and I'm going to present to you four different shapes.One of these four different shapes is actually a rotated version of this shape. I want you to tell me which one:the first one, second one, third one or fourth one?
Okay, I'll help you. Fourth one.One more. Get those brains working. Come on.That's our target shape.Third. Good! This is hard, right?
Like, the reason that I asked you to do that is because you really feel your brain cringing, right?
It doesn't really feel like playing mindless action video games.
Well, what we do in these training studies is, people come to the lab, they do tasks like this one,we then force them to play 10 hours of action games.They don't play 10 hours of action games in a row.They do distributed practice, so little shots of 40 minutesseveral days over a period of two weeks.Then, once they are done with the training, they come back a few days later and they are tested again on a similar type of mental rotation task. So this is work from a colleague in Toronto. What they showed is that, initially,you know, subjects perform where they are expected to perform given their age. After two weeks of training on action video games, they actually perform better,and the improvement is still there five months after having done the training. That's really, really important.Why? Because I told you we want to use these games for education or for rehabilitation. We need to have effectsthat are going to be long-lasting.
Now, at this point, a number of you are probably wondering well, what are you waiting for, to put on the market a game that would be good for the attention of my grandmother and that she would actually enjoy,or a game that would be great to rehabilitate the vision of my grandson who has amblyopia, for example?
Well, we're working on it, but here is a challenge.There are brain scientists like me that are beginning to understand what are the good ingredients in games to promote positive effects, and that's what I'm goingto call the broccoli side of the equation.There is an entertainment software industry which is extremely deft at coming up with appealing products that you can't resist.That's the chocolate side of the equation.The issue is we need to put the two together,and it's a little bit like with food.Who really wants to eat chocolate-covered broccoli?
None of you. And you probably have had that feeling, right, picking up an education game and sort of feeling, hmm, you know, it's not really fun,it's not really engaging. So what we need is really a new brand of chocolate, a brand of chocolate that is irresistible, that you really want to play,but that has all the ingredients, the good ingredients that are extracted from the broccoli that you can't recognize but are still working on your brains. And we're working on it,but it takes brain scientists to come and to get together,people that work in the entertainment software industry,and publishers, so these are not people that usually meet every day, but it's actually doable,and we are on the right track.I'd like to leave you with that thought,and thank you for your attention.
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发表于 2012-12-10 19:17:31
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这个图图看的很喜欢，辛苦找资料哦！抱抱亲亲