Human Development Scientists And Computer Game Developers Design Video Game That Teaches Conflict Resolution To Kids

Posted on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 by sai kiran reddy


Amid growing concern surrounding the effects violent video games have on children, a new computer game could be the alternative parents have been waiting for.
Kids who play together also argue together. Fights over games, toys and friendships are common, but when arguments heat up, it's time to solve them before things get out of hand. A new computer game teaches kids how to solve playground and classroom quarrels that kids face every day in a positive way -- without fists and fights.
"It helps them resolve conflicts by giving them a chance to think about what happens in the course of an actual conflict episode," said Melanie Killen, Ph.D., a human development expert at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.
The game, called "Cool School: Where Peace Rules" -- designed by a team of human development scientists, teachers, government mediators, computer game developers and animators -- helps kids solve school violence and bullying while still having fun.
"You're learning things, but at the same time it's having fun with it," said student Ellen Yaffe.
Animated objects come to life and depict common conflicts. Kids experiment on how to settle each argument. Players have the option of threatening the peer, telling the teacher, forgetting about it or talking things through.
Players are rewarded for choosing positive solutions to resolve conflicts with letters they collect to win.
"What this game is doing is it's empowering children to make choices and decisions and to see what unfolds based on their own decisions," Dr. Killen said.
Parents and teachers praise the new game, and kids love it for their own reasons.
"I think they make it very realistic with like the names and how the school looks," student Jacob Tycko told Ivanhoe.
The best part is the game is totally free. You can download it online by visiting http://www.curriki.com and searching for "cool school."
ABOUT THE GAME: "Cool School: Where Peace Rules" came about when the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service asked a Human Development professor to help them design a videogame to help five to seven year old children deal with conflicts in a peaceful manner. The project relied on animators to create the visual environments, and for the professor to create scenarios that will help kids learn to resolve problems without resorting to violence. The game uses a wide variety of charactersýfrom erasers to desks to books and basketballsýto lead players through 52 different scenarios.To learn more about the game or to play it go to (http://www.rtassoc.com/gm_coolschool.html).
TIPS ON STOPPING BULLIES: This list is adapted from material on the website of the United States Health Resources and Services Administration.http://stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/
DO:
  • Tell an adult
  • Join clubs and groups where you will meet other kids
  • Support someone else who is being bullied
DO NOT:
  • Think it's your fault.
  • Fight back or bully a person back.
  • Reply to online bullying
The American Sociological Association contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

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Kinesiologists Design Tiny Treadmill To Help Balance Baby Steps In Down Syndrome Infants

by sai kiran reddy


Down syndrome affects one in every 800 babies. It's a genetic condition that causes delays in intellectual and physical development. Researchers have now developed a treadmill for Down's babies to help them walk earlier than ever before.
Six-year-old Evan keeps his big brothers busy. Nothing can slow him down, and that's just the way his mom likes it. "He loves to run and play with his brothers," mother Jeanette Kurnik said.
Evan has Down syndrome, a genetic disorder caused when a fetus has 47 chromosomes instead of the usual 46. Typical kids learn to walk at 12 months. Babies with Down syndrome learn at 24 to 28 months.
Kinesiologist Dale Ulrich, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., studies human movement and led the team who developed a tiny treadmill specifically for children with Down syndrome.
"The idea is we want to support this underlying pattern of coordination in their legs, this alternating stepping," Dr. Ulrich said.
The treadmill training helps babies with Down learn to balance earlier. Signe Newcomb helps her daughter Lauren use the treadmill at home for eight minutes every day. "She likes to stand more and is building her core muscle strength," Newcomb said.
Once the babies take eight to ten steps by themselves, they are evaluated at the Gait Laboratory where information from light-reflecting markers attached to the child is recorded on cameras.
"Basically, we know how long their step is, how wide they walk and how fast they walk," Rosa Angulobarroso, a research scientist at the University of Michigan, said.
Studies show the babies learn to walk six months earlier than kids without treadmill training, and the quality of their walking is much better. It doesn't sound like much, but it can mean a world of difference.
"Once locomotion occurs, it really advances cognitive development, social skill development and language, so the sooner you get them walking, [the sooner] they can explore their environment," Dr. Ulrich said.
Babies can start their treadmill training as early as eight to 10 months of age.
WHAT CAUSES ABNORMAL NUMBERS OF CHROMOSOMES? Chromosomes are tiny structures in the cells of the human body that contain roughly 30,000 to 35,000 gene pairs. The genes determine traits like eye and hair color, and also how our bodies grow and develop in the womb. Each person normally has 23 pairs of chromosomes (46 in all), inheriting one chromosome per pair from each parent. Unlike other cells in the body, sperm and egg cells only have 23 unpaired chromosomes; when a sperm and egg unite, they form a fertilized egg with all 46 chromosomes. But sometimes, in the process of cell division, an error occurs, so that a sperm or egg cell has too many or too few chromosomes. Scientists don't know what exactly causes this, but the resulting embryo has a chromosomal abnormality. About 70 percent of such pregnancies result in a miscarriage, but if carried to term, the baby could have any number of disorders because of the abnormality.
ABOUT DOWN SYNDROME AND CHROMOSOMAL ABNORMALITIES: Down syndrome is the most common of these disorders, affecting about 1 in every 800 to 1,000 live-born babies. Babies with Down syndrome have three copies of a particular chromosome instead of two. Children with Down syndrome can suffer from intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as heart defects. Babies born with extra copies of other chromosomes can be severely retarded with many physical birth defects; most die before their first birthday. Other chromosomal abnormalities include small missing sections of the chromosome; a missing single gene; a section of one chromosome attaching itself to another; and a chromosome that is somehow snipped out and reinserted upside down in the sequence.
HOW WE WALK: Walking is different from a running gait because only one foot at a time lifts off the ground. During forward motion, the leg that leaves the ground swings forward from the hip, like a pendulum. Then the leg strikes the ground with the heel and rolls through the toe in a motion similar to an inverted pendulum. The motion of the two legs is coordinated so that one foot or the other is always in contact with the ground -- a so-called 'double pendulum' strategy. The process of walking recovers about 60 percent of the energy expended thanks to the pendulum dynamics and the ground reaction force. The legs act as long levers that transfer ground reaction force to the spine

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Sociologists Weigh In On Obesity Increasing The Length Of Hospital Stays

by sai kiran reddy


The numbers on our nation's scales are going up. A recent study puts Mississippi at the top of the list with the highest rate of adult obesity in the country. New research shows how extra weight is adding up to longer hospital stays.
Annette Armstead knows what it takes to stay healthy. Before she started exercising, she weighed 225 pounds.
"I was tired of people telling fat jokes," said Armstead. "I was in pain all the time. I was so heavy that my knees would give out on me, and I was always falling down."
Obesity is linked with increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other illnesses.
"I had problems with arthritis and different health problems, and everything they were saying [indicated] I was too heavy and I needed to lose weight," Armstead said. A new study by sociologists at Purdue University found obesity also leads to more frequent and longer hospital stays.
"Obese people, on average, stay at least one to one and a half days longer than a normal-weight individual," said Ken Ferraro, Ph.D., a sociologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.
The main reason for extra hospitalizations is disease. Forty-six percent of obese adults in the study had high blood pressure, and obese adults who have been overweight since childhood and carried extra weight into adulthood pay the highest price for being heavy.
"The longer the person is obese, the longer their stay in the hospital," Dr. Ferraro said.
Tackling obesity at a young age is crucial to staying out of the hospital later on.
"If you can tell other people that you're on a diet, a lot of them actually might help you to stay on that diet, but if you're silent to your friends, then obviously they can't support you," Dr. Ferraro advised.
Armstead credits her weight loss to diet and exercise and has never felt better.
"I feel healthier at 55 than I did at 25," she said.
ABOUT TYPE II DIABETES: Type II diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. In this form of the disease, either the body does not produce enough insulin, or the cells in the body ignore insulin. This can stop glucose from moving out of the bloodstream and into cells. Cells need the energy that glucose provides, and too much sugar in the blood can cause damage to the eyes, nerves, kidneys, or heart. These complications are very similar to the threats from type I diabetes, though type II can sometimes be treated with medications and diet instead of insulin (obtained through injections or in an inhaled form).
WHAT IS BLOOD PRESSURE: Blood pressure is the force in the arteries when the heart beats, and when the heart is at rest. When blood pressure is high, there is an increased risk of heart disease (which leads to heart attack) and stroke. It is most common in adults over age 35, and is especially prevalent in African Americans, the middle-aged and elderly, obese people, heavy drinkers, and women who are taking birth control pills. Those with diabetes, gout or kidney disease are also prone to suffer from high blood pressure.
WHAT CAUSES HEART ATTACKS: Heart attack is the leading cause of death in North and South America and in Europe. It is usually the result of prolonged hardening and narrowing of the arteries that direct blood into the heart. When blood vessels are healthy, oxygen-rich blood flows easily to all the muscles and organs of the body. But if they become clogged by the buildup of fatty deposits on vessel walls, blood can be cut off, killing heart muscle cells. This is called coronary heart disease, and it can lead to heart attacks or strokes.
The American Sociological Association contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

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A Biochemist Explains The Chemistry Of Cooking

by sai kiran reddy


You love to cook, but have you whipped up some disasters? Even the best recipes can sometimes go terribly wrong. A nationally recognized scientist and chef says knowing a little chemistry could help.
Long before she was a cook, Shirley Corriher was a biochemist. She says science is the key to understanding what goes right and wrong in the kitchen.
"Cooking is chemistry," said Corriher. "It's essentially chemical reactions."
This kind of chemistry happens when you put chopped red cabbage into a hot pan. Heat breaks down the red anthocyanine pigment, changing it from an acid to alkaline and causing the color change. Add some vinegar to increase the acidity, and the cabbage is red again. Baking soda will change it back to blue.
Cooking vegetables like asparagus causes a different kind of reaction when tiny air cells on the surface hit boiling water.
"If we plunge them into boiling water, we pop these cells, and they suddenly become much brighter green," Corriher said.
Longer cooking is not so good. It causes the plant's cell walls to shrink and release acid.
"So as it starts gushing out of the cells, and with acid in the water, it turns cooked green vegetables into [a] yucky army drab," Corriher said.
And that pretty fruit bowl on your counter? "Literally, overnight you can go from [a] nice green banana to an overripe banana," Corriher said.
The culprit here is ethylene gas. Given off by apples and even the bananas themselves, it can ruin your perfect fruit bowl -- but put an apple in a paper bag with an unripe avocado, and ethylene gas will work for you overnight.
"We use this as a quick way to ripen," Corriher said. Corriher says understanding a little chemistry can help any cook.
"You may still mess up, but you know why," she said. When it works, this kind of chemistry can be downright delicious.
WHAT ARE ACIDS AND BASES? An acid is defined as a solution with more positive hydrogen ions than negative hydroxyl ions, which are made of one atom of oxygen and one of hydrogen. Acidity and basicity are measured on a scale called the pH scale. The value of freshly distilled water is seven, which indicates a neutral solution. A value of less than seven indicates an acid, and a value of more than seven indicates a base. Common acids include lemon juice and coffee, while common bases include ammonia and bleach.
WHY DOES FOOD SPOIL? Processing and improper storage practices can expose food items to heat or oxygen, which causes deterioration. In ancient times, salt was used to cure meats and fish to preserve them longer, while sugar was added to fruits to prevent spoilage. Certain herbs, spices and vinegar can also be used as preservatives, along with anti-oxidants, most notably Vitamins C and E. In processed foods, certain FDA-approved chemical additives also help extend shelf life.


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Radiologists Develop Asthma Imaging Method

Posted on Monday, September 13, 2010 by sai kiran reddy

Radiologists developed a new method for viewing the lungs of asthma sufferers. The method uses a polarized helium-3 gas--making it visible during an MRI. The patient inhales the helium-3 and undergoes an MRI, where doctors can see how far the atoms in the gas can travel in the lungs. This gives an image of what airways are blocked and what parts of the lungs ventilate. The black areas of the image indicate portions of the lung where air does not reach--areas where the helium-3 atoms could not travel.

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Mechanical Engineers Rock Out On Guitars They Construct Themselves

by sai kiran reddy


Mechanical engineers combined their skills with that of electrical engineering and computer science to create a college class inspired by the Guitar Hero game. The hands-on course requires students to build their own guitar. To do this, students choose a shape for the guitar, which is cut out of lumber by a computer. Located under the guitar strings, magnets detect vibrations and wire coils send an electronic signal to an amplifier and speaker. Effects pedals can also distort the sound and add special effects.

Skills from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science come together to form a cool kind of class that's a hit with students.
The video game Guitar Hero is a chart-busting hit. It was the inspiration that mechanical engineering graduate student and teacher Gavin Garner needed for a class assignment.
"I realized the students enjoyed pretending they were actual guitar players, and I thought, 'Why not have them actually build the real thing in the lab?'" said Garner, of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va.
Garner's class isn't a music class. It's a new hands-on course combining skills from mechanical, electrical and software engineering called mechatronics. Mechanical engineering student Brad Nichols' guitar rocks.
"I was thrilled with the guitar," Nichols said. "I thought it looked great for something that was made with two by fours by students in a lab in two or three weeks. It actually sounds pretty good."
Students pick the shape and a computer automatically cuts the guitar from lumber. Basic magnets, nails and wire coils are mounted under the strings. The magnets pick up the vibrations of the strings and the wire coils send an electronic signal to an amplifier and speaker to produce sound.
"Then, the electrical signal travels down through into these effects pedals which distort the sound and add special effects, which changes the tone of the music," Garner said.
The designs show the creativity that went into the guitars, and the sound shows the science skills that created fun, useable objects that students love. "When I want to appreciate what I learned in school, I'll plug that in and strum around on it a little bit," Nichols said.
Another class assignment had students design a Mech-E-Mouse, a robot programmed to navigate through mazes to find a piece of electronic cheese.
WHAT IS PITCH: Sound waves are pressure waves. A vibrating object creates a disturbance in the surrounding air, much like a stone cast in a quiet pond will cause waves to ripple outward from the spot where the stone hit. All sound waves have wavelength and frequency. Objects that vibrate very quickly create short wavelengths and a high-pitched sound. Objects that vibrate very slowly create long wavelengths and a low-pitched sound. Frequency measures the speed of vibration in a unit called a Hertz (Hz), and 1 Hz is equivalent to 1 vibration per second. Pluck a string on a guitar, and it might vibrate 500 times per second, so the sound wave's frequency would be 500 Hertz. Pitch simply denotes those frequencies within the range of human hearing (from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz). The faster the rate of vibration, the higher the pitch; the slower the rate of vibration, the lower the pitch.
WHAT MAKES ELECTRIC GUITARS LOUD? Essentially this is possible because of two items: an amplifier and a pick-up. Amplifiers, as you may expect, increase the amplitude or volume of sound and other signals. For audio amplifiers that means a sound must be turned into an electric signal, and sent into the amplifier before it emerges many times louder than the level at which it was originally produced. It is essentially a speaker whose source can be a guitar, a CD, a microphone, or many other items. A pick-up transforms the movement of guitar strings into an electrical signal that can be transmitted to amplifiers or recording equipment. Some use magnets wrapped inside a coil of wire, while others use alternate methods, such as piezoelectric crystals (which respond to physical stress or deformity by creating electrical energy).

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Embryonic Cell and Adult Pig Islet Transplants Cure Diabetes in Rats

Posted on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 by sai kiran reddy


The rats adopted the pig transplants as their own and produced enough insulin to control their blood sugar -- all without the need for anti-rejection drugs. The researchers report their findings online in the American Journal of Pathology.
Using a two-step approach, the researchers first transplanted a cluster of embryonic pig pancreatic cells into diabetic rats. These cells grow to become the pancreas, which houses the islet cells that produce insulin. The embryonic cells primed the rats' immune system to accept a second implant of islets from adult pigs several weeks later.
The new research -- the first long-term, successful cross-species transplant of pig islets without immune suppression -- raises the prospect that it may one day be possible to cure diabetes in humans using a similar strategy. Pig cells could overcome the shortage of human islets available from deceased donors and the need for transplant patients to take anti-rejection drugs for life.
"While human islet transplants have cured diabetes in some people, there are so few donors that only a small percentage of patients get transplants," says senior author Marc Hammerman MD, the Chromalloy Professor of Renal Diseases in Medicine. "Moreover, those who receive human islet transplants must take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives, so essentially they are trading daily insulin shots for immune-suppression drugs, which carry their own risks. Our research paves the way for a new approach to treating diabetes, one that features a virtually unlimited supply of islets and no need for immune suppression."
Pig insulin has been used to treat diabetes in humans, making the animals potentially good islet donors for humans with the disease. Insulin from pigs was routinely given to patients with diabetes until the 1980s, when DNA technology enabled pharmaceutical companies to manufacture human insulin.
In the new study, the researchers transplanted clusters of embryonic pig pancreatic cells into 10 diabetic rats that could not produce any insulin on their own and had very high glucose levels. The cells were retrieved from the pig embryos early in their development, which is believed to make them "invisible" to the rats' immune system or induce a state of immune tolerance.
As the immature pancreatic cells developed, they began to produce insulin, significantly lowering blood glucose in the rats, though not to normal levels. Then, eight weeks later, some of the rats underwent a second transplant of islet cells from adult pigs. Other diabetic rats in a control group did not receive any embryonic pancreatic cells but only adult pig islets.
After 12 weeks and for the several months that followed, the rats that got both the embryonic pig pancreatic cells and the islets had normal blood glucose levels, a strong indicator that the pig islet cells were producing ample insulin. The rats in the control group that received only embryonic pancreatic cells continued to have higher-than-normal glucose levels.
The researchers determined by multiple methods that the successfully transplanted pig islets had become established in the rats that had earlier received embryonic pancreatic cell transplants. In contrast, the pig islet cells underwent immune rejection in the rats that did not get the embryonic pancreatic cell transplants.
"This is a major advance and a completely new way to employ pig islets for the treatment of diabetes," Hammerman says. "In essence, first transplanting embryonic pig pancreatic cells enables adult pig islet implants to cure diabetes in rats without immune suppression drugs. We are now carrying out experiments to test whether the same transplant strategy works in diabetic non-human primates without using immune suppression drugs. If it does, we hope to evaluate pig cell transplants in people with diabetes."
In earlier research, Hammerman and his colleagues demonstrated they could cure diabetes in rats using larger quantities of embryonic pig pancreatic cell clusters alone, without the need for immune suppression drugs. But they hit a roadblock when they attempted the same transplant procedure in non-human primates. The embryonic pig pancreatic cells engrafted in the primates and lowered their blood sugar levels but not enough to wean the animals completely off insulin injections.
"Primates are much larger than rats, and we learned we would need to give them massive amounts of embryonic pig pancreatic tissues, which is not practical," Hammerman says. "Adult pig islets provide a more concentrated source of insulin and are easier to obtain. We are hopeful their ability to effectively control blood sugar levels in rats without an immune suppression requirement will carry over to non-human primates and eventually to humans."
Hammerman and lead author Sharon Rogers, research instructor of medicine, are leaders in the emerging field of organogenesis, which focuses on growing organs from stem cells and other embryonic cell clusters known as organ primordia. Unlike stem cells, which can become virtually any cell type, primordia are locked into becoming a particular cell type or set of cell types that make up an organ.
Funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (to Washington University's George M. O'Brien Center for Kidney Disease Research) supported the work.

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