The Hario V60 is the coffeemaker you've seen at all manner of hipster coffeeshops. Although it's easy to be intimidated by its coffee credentials, once you get the hang of using it, it's a great way to make daily coffee. It's simple. It takes two minutes. It reliably and consistently makes a good cup of pourover coffee. Here's how you use it. More »
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In some rural African communities, where men are allowed more than one wife, women with breast cancer have a great fear of being disfigured by surgery and losing a husband and support for their children, so they will often hide the disease and not seek treatment until they are in severe pain. (Credit: United Nations Photo/Flickr)
PURDUE (US) ? A new program that uses local volunteers helps overcome the shame and social barriers faced by women in sub-Saharan Africa that prevent early screening for breast cancer.
In rural Sudan, lack of resources, social stigmatization, and religious beliefs can keep women from seeking help for breast cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of death in women.
?Patients in Africa often present with late-stage breast cancer that has spread to other organs and is very difficult to treat,? says Sulma Mohammed, an associate professor of cancer biology at Purdue University.
?There is a strong social stigma associated with the disease and a great lack of awareness of the importance of early detection. The same approaches that are successful in the United States don?t work in these rural areas. We need an approach that could overcome the barriers preventing these women from seeking help because thousands of women are dying needlessly.?
Mohammed, who is from Sudan, says the social barriers to screening programs and early detection are especially difficult to overcome. ?The stigma surrounding cancer is so great that people hide the disease from their family and friends and will not seek treatment until they are in severe pain,? she says.
?Women in rural areas where men are allowed more than one wife have a great fear of being disfigured by surgery and losing a husband and support for their children.?
In addition, some African communities are Muslim and women cannot expose their breasts to a male doctor or nurse as part of a screening program.
?We used young female volunteers from the community so that the screenings came from a familiar and trusted person who shares the patient?s social fabric and belief system,? Mohammed says. ?If you are approached by someone you know and trust, you tend to be more relaxed and more forthcoming with any symptoms you may have.?
Researchers first met with village leaders to discuss the effects of cancer on the community and to get approval of the screening program. The leaders then chose candidates for the training, Mohammed says.
Health-care workers provided a five-day intensive training course to female volunteers from selected villages in cancer risk factors, the importance of early detection, and how to examine breasts for abnormalities. The volunteers then went door to door in their village to screen women 18 and older. The volunteers referred women with suspected breast cancer to the district hospital for diagnosis. The program also included a cancer awareness campaign for both men and women.
Between Jan. 1, 2010, and Oct. 15, 2012, in Keremet County 10,309 women were screened, which is roughly 70 percent of the female population. Breast abnormalities were found in 138 women, who were then referred to the district hospital. Seventeen of the women referred were diagnosed with various stages of breast cancer. After treatment, 12 were reported to be disease-free and had good prognosis as of the most recent follow-up.
In contrast, in the socially and economically similar villages of Abugota County, where no screenings took place, four women reported to a health center and three were diagnosed with advanced breast cancer and had poor prognosis.
?Despite the small size of the screened population, 12 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and treated that otherwise may not have been seen until their cancer progressed into an advanced stage,? Mohammed says. ?We hope that one day such screening programs will be common throughout rural Africa.?
In addition to the social barriers, sub-Saharan African countries like Sudan do not have the infrastructure, resources, equipment, or trained personnel to follow successful initiatives used in the United States and other high-income countries.
Mammography-based screening, which is standard in many countries, is not a realistic screening model for sub-Saharan Africa, Mohammed says.
?For the time being, let?s forget looking deeper through mammography and start by catching the stuff we can see and feel,? she says. ?Awareness campaigns and self-examination are cheap, easy to implement, and could have a dramatic effect on the survival chances of these women.?
Even if it were feasible, mammography-based screening methods may not have as great an impact in Africa. Mammography-based screening has not been shown to be beneficial to women younger than 40, and breast cancer in African women occurs most often in women 34 to 45 years old.
The Sudan National Cancer Institute-funded study is ongoing, and the team plans to follow the women who took part in the study for at least five years. The group also is working to spread the program to another state in Sudan.
Researchers from the University of Gezira in Sudan participated in the study.
FILE - This April 12, 2010 file photo shows former Olympic figure skater Dorothy Hamill at an event celebrating Good Housekeeping magazine's 125th anniversary in New York. Hamill is one of eleven celebrity contestants who will compete on the next edition of "Dancing with the Stars." The new season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, file)
FILE - This April 12, 2010 file photo shows former Olympic figure skater Dorothy Hamill at an event celebrating Good Housekeeping magazine's 125th anniversary in New York. Hamill is one of eleven celebrity contestants who will compete on the next edition of "Dancing with the Stars." The new season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, file)
FILE - This April 4, 2011 file photo shows country singer Wynonna Judd from The Judds, performing at the Girls' Night Out: Superstar Women of Country in Las Vegas. Judd is one of eleven celebrity contestants who will compete on the next edition of "Dancing with the Stars." The new season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, file)
FILE - This Nov. 15, 2012 file photo shows comedian Andy Dick speaks onstage during the American Cinematheque 26th Annual Award Presentation To Ben Stiller 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Andy Dick is one of eleven celebrity contestants who will compete on the next edition of "Dancing with the Stars." The new season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP, file)
FILE - This June 6, 2012 file photo shows singer Kellie Pickler at the 2012 CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tenn. Pickler is one of eleven celebrity contestants who will compete on the next edition of "Dancing with the Stars." The new season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP, file)
FILE - This June 20, 2012 file photo shows boxer Victor Ortiz training during the media workout at Fortune Boxing Gym in Los Angeles. Ortiz is one of eleven celebrity contestants who will compete on the next edition of "Dancing with the Stars." The new season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18. (AP Photo/Grant Hindsley, file)
NEW YORK (AP) ? A gold-medal figure skater, a country music legend and a kooky comedian are stepping their way onto "Dancing With the Stars."
ABC says Dorothy Hamill, Wynonna Judd and Andy Dick are among 11 contenders for the mirrored ball on the new season of the celebrity dance competition.
Other famous faces in the show's 16th edition include standup comic and actor D.L. Hughley, Baltimore Ravens football player Jacoby Jones and former "American Idol" contestant Kellie Pickler.
Also on hand will be former welterweight boxing champ Victor Ortiz, "General Hospital" star Ingo Rademacher, actress-singer Zendaya Coleman and Lisa Vanderpump from "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," as well as Olympic gold-medal gymnast Aly Raisman.
The new "Dancing With the Stars" season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18.
It may be time to crown male newts as the female-arousing kings ? the amphibians release powerful pheromones that put females in the mood to mate with practically any adult around, even other females from different newt species, new research shows.
"The females react as if they're under the influence of drugs," said lead researcher Franky Bossuyt, a biologist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels) in Belgium. "We were convinced that if we put in a plastic toy moving at the right speed, they would follow it."
Newts typically live on land as adults and mate exclusively in water. During the breeding season, males adopt intense color patterns and grow skin extensions on their legs, tail and crest. These changes are thought to make males more attractive to females.
When two newts meet, the male releases pheromones and waves his tail, sending the chemical signals to the female. They then play out a mating dance akin to a short game of tag, with the female following after the male. To let him know she's ready to get down to business, the female touches the male's tail with her nose, prompting him to deposit his spermatophore ? a jellylike mass containing sperm??onto a substrate in the water, such as a leaf. Finally, he leads the female over the sperm packet, which sticks to her cloaca (the orifice leading to intestinal, reproductive and urinary tracts), resulting in insemination.
For years, scientists thought males waved their tails to disperse "attractant pheromones," which broadcast the male's presence and bring newt pairs together. But there's a problem with this idea: The newts have already introduced themselves before the male waves his tail. "The females are not attracted to the males by the tail-waving, at least with the newts I've seen," Bossuyt said.
Instead, the researchers thought, the tail fanning might disperse "courtship pheromones" that alter the female's behavior to stimulate mating.
Newt mating game
To find out, researchers placed male-female pairs of alpine newts (Ichthyosaura alpestris) and palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) into water-filled plastic containers for receptivity tests. The newts passed the test and were ready for the next phase if they completed the courtship ritual (females weren't allowed to complete the insemination).
The team then put two-female pairs into pheromone-infused courtship?water; some pairs consisted of two alpine newts, other pairs had one female of each species. If the water contained pheromones from a male of her species, the female would desperately try to court the other female. In some cases, two female alpine newts tried to follow each other, resulting in the pair circling one another. In some two-species trials, one female chased after another, even as the unreceptive partner tried to escape the container. [See video of the sex-crazed newts]
But the amphibians didn't remain patient forever. Not receiving the spermatophore she expected, the courting female eventually started waving her tail at her partner, possibly sending out pheromones.
Frustrated females
"Female tale-waving?is a kind of frustration behavior," Bossuyt explained, adding that females also tail-waved in receptivity tests to get males to continue courtship after researchers removed the spermatophores. In natural settings, this behavior probably happens only in uncommon situations, such as when a male is too tired for courtship. "So female tail-waving likely happens in nature, but you will not easily observe it," he said.
The results suggest the pheromones don't just announce the male's arrival, given how they induced such an overpowering mating reaction in the females. The researchers think males may have evolved such potent pheromones out of necessity, since newts often breed in turbid water with other newt species, making it difficult to mate based on vision alone.
It seems a male newt's flashy appearance matters little to females: It's all about his smell.
The research was detailed online this month in the journal PLOS ONE.
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Liquid water might flow seasonally at some places on Mars, potentially supporting microbial life, say some researchers.
By Rod Pyle,?SPACE.com / February 25, 2013
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this shot of Mars on Aug. 26, 2003, when the Red Planet was 34.7 million miles from Earth. The picture was taken just 11 hours before Mars made its closest approach to us in 60,000 years.
NASA/ESA
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While Mars was likely a more hospitable place in its wetter, warmer past, the Red Planet may still be capable of supporting microbial life today, some scientists say.
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Ongoing research in Mars-like places such as Antarctica and Chile's Atacama Desert shows that microbes can eke out a living in extremely cold and dry environments, several researchers stressed at "The Present-Day Habitability of?Mars" conference held here at the University of California Los Angeles this month.
And not all parts of the Red Planet's surface may be arid currently ? at least not all the time. Evidence is building that liquid?water might flow seasonally?at some Martian sites, potentially providing a haven for life as we know it.
"We certainly can't rule out the possibility that it's habitable today," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, principal investigator for the HiRise camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. [The Search for Life on Mars: A Photo Timeline]
Surface water on Mars?
McEwen discussed some intriguing observations by HiRise, which suggest that briny water may flow down steep Martian slopes during the local spring and summer.
Sixteen such sites have been identified to date, mostly on the slopes of the huge Valles Marineris canyon complex, McEwen said. The tracks seem to repeat seasonally as the syrupy fluids descend along weather-worn pathways.
While the brines may originate underground, Caltech's Edwin Kite noted, there is an increasing suspicion that a process known as deliquescence ? in which moisture present in the atmosphere is gathered by compounds on the ground, allowing it to become a liquid ? may be responsible.
Astrobiologists are keen to learn more about these brines, for not much is known about them at the moment.
"Briny?water on Mars?may or may not be habitable to microbes, either from Earth or from Mars," McEwen said.
Hardy microbes
Martian life?may be able to survive even in places where water doesn't seep and flow, some scientists stressed.
For example, microbes here on Earth make a living in the Atacama and the dry valleys of Antarctica, both of which are extremely cold and arid, said Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
Antarctic sites also receive seasonally high ultraviolet radiation doses thanks to a hole in the ozone layer that tends to develop every August through November. This provides yet another parallel to Mars, whose thin atmosphere and lack of a protective magnetic field make the planet more radiation-bombarded than Earth.
In the Antarctic dry valleys, McKay said, organisms dwell within rocks, just deep enough to be shielded from the worst of the UV but close enough to the surface to receive the benefits of photosynthesis. Something similar might be happening on Mars today, if life ever evolved there.
McKay also discussed deliquescence, which in the Atacama allows salts to gather enough water to support the existence of life.
McKay offered some advice to NASA's?Mars rover Curiosity, which landed in August to determine whether Mars could ever have supported microbial life: "Watch for salt along the road!"
A possible energy source
A number of presenters spent some time talking about perchlorate, a chlorine-containing chemical that NASA's Phoenix lander spotted near the Martian north pole in 2008.
McKay and other researchers think perchlorate may be the reason that NASA's twin Viking landers didn't detect any organic compounds ? the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it ? on the Red Planet back in the 1970s.
The Vikings vaporized Martian soil and looked for any organics boiling off. They found nothing but a few chlorine compounds that were attributed to contamination. But after Phoenix's perchlorate find, McKay and some other researchers performed an experiment.
They added perchlorate to some desert dirt from Chile known to contain organics. They heated the soil up and found the same chlorine compounds the Vikings did, suggesting that organics may have been present in the Vikings' samples but were broken down by the combination of heat and perchlorate.
While this backstory is interesting in its own right, perchlorate is also relevant to the possible habitability of present-day Mars.
"Perchlorate, it turns out, is a potent chemoautotrophic energy source," said Carol Stoker, also of NASA Ames, noting that the chemical could potentially sustain microbes in the dark?Martian subsurface, where photosynthesis is not an option.
And some Earth microbes use perchlorate for food, so that could be happening on Mars as well, scientists have pointed out.
"The Present-Day Habitability of Mars" took place Feb. 4-5 and was co-hosted by the NASA Astrobiology institute and the UK Centre for Astrobiology. Archived videos of conference presentations are?available here.
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.
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FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2012 file photo, M23 rebels withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Goma. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. A U.N. report last year said that Rwanda and Uganda helped aid M23 rebels inside Congo. The two countries denied the allegations. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2012 file photo, M23 rebels withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Goma. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. A U.N. report last year said that Rwanda and Uganda helped aid M23 rebels inside Congo. The two countries denied the allegations. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2012 file photo, M23 rebels sit in a vehicle as they withdraw from the eastern Congo town of Goma. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. A U.N. report last year said that Rwanda and Uganda helped aid M23 rebels inside Congo. The two countries denied the allegations.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
Joseph Kabila , President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, waits for the signing of the Congo peace agreement, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Eleven African countries have signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. (AP Photo/ Elias Asmare)
Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, during the signing of the Congo peace agreement, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal on Sunday to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government.( AP Photo/Elias Asmare)
GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Despite the signing of a Congo peace accord on Sunday, this Central African country remains unsettled by signs of a return to war.
The peace agreement, signed in Ethiopia by 11 neighboring countries and backed by the United Nations, elicited much praise from African and other world leaders who said it points the way to stability in Congo.
But on the ground here in eastern Congo, there are signals that fighting may soon erupt between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels. The regional peace accord is helpful but it does not have specifics to immediately improve the tense security situation, said an expert on eastern Congo.
"I think it is a step in the right direction. But the agreement is more a statement of principles than a concrete action plan. It is lacking in details, such as what an oversight mechanism for its implementation would look like," Jason Stearns, a Congo specialist for the Rift Valley Institute, said to The Associated Press.
The agreement did not mention the much-awaited intervention forces that would come to reinforce the UN peacekeeping troops in eastern Congo, nor did it state how a drone force could patrol the border.
Another problem is that no conclusion has been reached in the negotiations between the M23 rebels and the Kinshasa government of President Joseph Kabila.
Instead the M23 rebels appear to be positioning themselves for a new attack. And the Congolese government is making alliances with other rebel militias. The result is that eastern Congo remains tense and unsettled.
Just over three months ago, on Nov. 20, the M23, who are allegedly backed by neighboring Rwanda, seized this strategic city of 1 million and threatened to take the rest of mineral-rich eastern Congo. Two weeks later, as a result of international pressure and the Congolese army's pledge to negotiate, the rebels withdrew from Goma. But now it appears the rebels are poised to strike again.
The rebels have reinforced their positions and are just 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Goma airport. Rebel soldiers are visible along the road from Goma to Rutshuru, unbothered by the daily patrols of U. N. peacekeepers.
Little progress has been made in the negotiations between the rebels and the Kabila government that have been going on for two months in Kampala, Uganda, said Stanislas Baleke, an M23 official.
The M23's nearly one-year-old rebellion is led by fighters who defected from the Congolese army. They are from an earlier rebel group and complain that the Congo government did not properly implement a previous peace accord signed on March 23, 2009. The M23 take their name from the date of that accord.
Neither the rebels nor the Congolese government are willing to compromise on their demands. The rebels' insist that President Joseph Kabila must resign and be replaced by a transitional government that would run the country while new elections are organized, say experts following the talks.
"The M23 has political ambitions that Congo does not want to discuss. And the government wants the arrest of the top five M23 leaders, which is a completely unacceptable condition for the rebels. The talks will go nowhere," said Stearns, the author of "Dancing in the Glory of Monsters" and a Congo expert.
Last month several high-ranking M23 officers were called back from the Kampala negotiations to the rebels headquarter in Rutshuru, Congo, as the armed group is planning new operations, according to rebel sources.
When the M23 rebels seized Goma in November, the UN peacekeepers were harshly criticized because they failed to defend the city, the capital of North Kivu province. The U.N. has 17,000 troops in Congo, its largest mission in the world, but they do not have the authority to intervene to stop fighting, only to protect the civilian population.
Meanwhile, the Congolese army is enrolling new recruits throughout the country and has been forging new alliances with other militia forces in North Kivu province.
Since the creation of the M23 last year, many areas North Kivu have suffered from a security vacuum as the army has focused its forces on fighting the M23 and has ignored the several other militias operating in the area.
Aware that it cannot fight several fronts at once, and playing on the anti-Rwandan feelings of these militias, the army has forged alliances with them. The army has supplied the militias with weapons and ammunition, with the agreement they will fight alongside the regular forces, according to a Congolese colonel speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
"The M23's main problem is its lack of weapons and troops. So if the army can gather more men, they would have the upper hand," explained Congo analyst Stearns. "Militia proxys are a very crude tool for the Congolese army to use, but they are very efficient as well."
Armed by the Congolese army, the militias have started patrolling the muddy tracks running around the hills of Masisi, and are terrorizing the local population with impunity, according to residents. The undisciplined militias stir up ethnic rivalries, force children into their ranks and claim taxes, report residents.
"Our army is weak, they cannot protect us, and now they are letting the armed groups do their job. They have no discipline and they create trouble for us. They are drunk most of the time," said a Felicite, who would only give her first name because she feared reprisals.
North of Rutshuru, the M23's stronghold, the army is also using local militias to regain territory it had lost in recent months.
"The army sees us as cows. They push us ahead to regain territory and they come after us to settle in the areas we have retaken from our enemies," said Col. Moise Visika, the second-in-command of the Mai Mai Shetani, a local militia in the areas of Ishasha and Nyamilima.
The city of Goma remains vulnerable. Few government troops came back to Goma after the M23 rebels withdrew from the town, leaving the city susceptible to an M23 comeback despite the presence of U.N peacekeepers.
The result of all these factors is that, despite Sunday's peace agreement, eastern Congo remains threatened by a return to conflict, say experts.
"The overall situation is volatile and precarious," said Roger Meece, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, speaking to the Security Council on Friday. He said that eastern Congo "could break down at any time into large-scale conflict without much, if any, prior warning."
Gaming is of special interest with the ASD community. Here, ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorders, a range of conditions with some common elements but for which the names keep changing, thanks to the folks in charge of the DSM who recently removed Asperger Syndrome as a diagnosis. Personally, I happen to disagree with them, but that isn?t necessarily why I?ll continue to use both terms in this post (Autism and Asperger). Of necessity, most of these videos predate the name change, so it?s easier to use the common lingo from when the videos were made.
Gaming is big in ASD for a few different reasons. (1) Many kids and adults on the ASD spectrum show a strong affinity for games and gaming. One hypothesis is because it is easier to understand social expectations within the structure of games, or that the representations of social interaction in videogames are easier to understand than those with real people and all their complexity of body language and expression. (2) Gaming is being used for education, health behavior change, social change, and more. The combination of so many ASD folk connecting with gaming makes it a good match to reaching out to them to build needed skills and behaviors.
?Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have an affinity for video and computer games. CAR?s FaceStation project is designed to capitalize on this interest and use computerized games as a therapy.? Center for Autism Research: Computerized Gaming. http://www.centerforautismresearch.com/trial_interventions/computerized_gaming/
Last year, University of Michigan engineering students were in the news for having developed some games for the Kinect for kids on the autism spectrum.
Toppo, Greg. Video games help autistic students in classrooms. USA Today 6/1/2012 3:10 AM, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-31/video-games-autism-students/55319452/1
Since I couldn?t figure out how to get the video from that article to embed on WordPress.com, I went hunting for other videos showing ASD kids using the Kinect. Here?s one of the University of Michigan project.
EECSatUM: Software engineering class hacks autism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUT-Chcffqc
And one from the Lakeside Center for Autism, not developing tools so much as using existing ones.
Lakeside Center for Autism uses Kinect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZEo7vLwgf8
And other gesture-based computing.
Severely nonverbal autistic teen uses Wii UDraw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMkDIhS7sSM
Now, thinking games and play as a window into social skills, here are a few other examples. MyFriendQuest teaches recognition of emotions in facial expressions.
Asperger?s Games: MyFriendQuest, the Trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXe86w8tJDI
So does this Secret Agent game for older kids.
Secret Agent Society Computer Game for Autism + Asperger?s Syndrome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEJuvqMgbI0
Facial recognition is pretty common for autism games. There is a substantial series of face training games from the Center for Autism Research. This is just one.
Facestation Games:TrexTrample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXvqQezcVAM And other FaceStation games: Face Puzzle Fighter | Face Invaders | The Adventures of Pennsylvania Jones | TrainZoom | EmbedFaces | Dr. Face?s Potion Shop
There is actually evidence behind the idea of using videogames and role play for teaching and learning social skills.
Video Games and Social Skills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJm8B4cwaeQ Citations: http://www.ckolson.com/cites/ Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=(Autism+OR+Asperger)+AND+(Game+OR+Games+OR+Gaming)
And there are other kinds of games, not just computer games or video games.
Autism & Board Games at Autistically Inclined https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhqB-E3hgxk
One of the most phenomenal local resources for kids on spectrum is the Wild Swan Theater social skills theater summer camp. My son participated in it for a couple years, and it changed his life. Currently, he is majoring in theater in college. There aren?t any videos of Wild Swan doing their thing, but here is another video about the benefits of theatrical thinking and improv types of thought for people with autism.
TEDxBloomington ? Stephen Volan ? ?Approaching Autism Theatrically?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN1bKV5nxy0
Games are also used to teach life skills, like this street crossing game.
DigitalSpace: Street Crossing Safety Game for Autistic Children, for DoToLearn.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiZuUyso4-0
Learn by example from other parents how to play with your young autistic child to help them build needed skills. Includes social skills games, attention, and adventures. Check out their Game Collections https://sites.google.com/site/autismgames/home/games-pages
Autism Games (AU): http://www.autismgames.com.au/
A group from Australia provides free online games for children with autism. ?The games are a free resource that aim to help autistic children to develop independent living skills. Please contribute to our forums and help us to develop more games.?
Whiz Kid Games: http://www.whizkidgames.com/
A more child-friendly interface to the games from Autism Games (AU).
The jewels in Nokia's Windows Phone crown have been its Here location services -- anyone wanting them on Microsoft's platform has usually had to snap up a Lumia or make do with the Drive+ beta. Nokia is about to share that wealth, as it's bringing Drive, Maps and Transit to other Windows Phone devices under a new name. Don't switch your shopping plans to include an HTC 8X just yet, though. Apart from a lack of specific timing, Nokia is limiting the availability to certain regions, and it's promising that the "first and best" Here experience will remain on its own smartphones. We'll still take the leftovers if they give the overall platform a boost.
If you'll recall, Nokia actually enabled its homegrown mapping arsenal to spread to other Windows Phone products some time back, but it's taking things to a new level with the Here platform underneath.
If the Ravens want to make Joe Flacco the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, and if Flacco is satisfied to barely clear the bar set last year by Saints quarterback Drew Brees, there?s a quick and easy way to get this contract done.
Using Brees? 2012 contract as the starting point, Flacco would get a $40 million signing bonus, a fully-guaranteed base salary of $5 million in 2013, and base salaries of $10 million in 2014, $13 million in 2015, $15 million in 2016, and $18 million in 2017.
Under the rules of signing-bonus proration, $8 million would be applied to each year?s salary cap.? That would result in a cap number of $13 million in 2013, $18 million in 2014, $21 million in 2015, $23 million in 2016, and $26 million in 2017.
It equates to a five-year payout of $101 million ? $1 million better than Brees and, for now, making Flacco the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL.
The two sides would have to decide whether and to what extent the money due beyond 2013 would be guaranteed, for injury only or fully.? Last year, Brees received $40 million in the first year, with $20 million guaranteed for injury only in future years.? (The injury guarantees eventually convert to full guarantees.)
The cap number in the final year would be a potential problem for the Ravens, since Flacco presumably would have one more long-term contract left before retirement.? Specifically, the $26 million cap number in 2017 would translate to a franchise tag of $31.2 million in 2018.? Thus, it would make more sense for the Ravens to tack on a sixth year at a base salary of, say, $21 million.
This would keep the average north of $20 million per year and it would give the Ravens a more manageable franchise number of $25.2 million for 2019.
Is it really that simple?? Yes, it is.? Which means that it likely won?t happen this way.
Even though it could be worked out in a matter of hours.? Or, if both sides are truly motivated, a matter of minutes.
Rumors that Apple is working on a cheaper version of the iPhone?dubbed the iPhone Mini?got a bit of a boost last week when Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty commented how a lower-priced iPhone made sense.
At the core of Huberty's argument is the fact that Apple wants to expand into China, and Chinese consumers want access to the latest version of the iPhone at a lower price, rather than discounted older generation hardware. Huberty believes that an iPhone Mini would help Apple gain a stronger foothold in China.
While an iPhone Mini would have lower gross margins, and certainly cannibalize iPhone sales to a certain, albeit unknown, degree, it would boost the company's revenues and profits.
But how much cheaper could Apple make an iPhone Mini? Let's take a look at a few options open to Apple.
Cut profit margin on existing hardware. The iPhone commands a huge profit margin, estimated to be anywhere between 35 and 50 percent. I find it unlikely that Apple sell the iPhone cheaper in China than anywhere else in the world.
Release an iPhone Mini based built using last-generation technology. While Huberty says that Chinese consumers want the latest version of the iPhone at a lower price, rather than discounted older generation hardware, repackaged older tech might fit the bill. After all, Apple doesn't focus that much on hardware spec, so old-tech packaged in a new shell could pass for new tech.
A new, cheaper iPhone 5. Another possibility would be to for Apple to come up with a cheaper iPhone 5. An IHS teardown of the handset from September 2012 suggested that a 16GB iPhone 5 with a price tag of $649 cost Apple $207 to make. (Source: IHS) That was a few months ago, so chances are the iPhone 5 now costs Apple less to make, thanks to falling component prices. It's also possible that Apple could shave a few bucks off certain components. Processor, the display and touchscreen assembly, and wireless chipsets could all see few bucks shaved off the price.
Stick cellular capability into the iPod touch. The iPod touch retails for $299 for the 32GB model. This could be an ideal platform from which Apple could build a cheaper iPhone.
So, Apple has options open to it. But no matter what route the company takes in China, if it decides to come out with a cheaper iPhone then it will need to carefully address the issue of cannibalization. A cheaper iPhone will need to be inferior in some way to the full-priced iPhone. Either that, or Apple could limit availability of the iPhone Mini to certain territories.
An iPhone Mini would certainly be disruptive, but Apple would need to be careful not to disrupt its already profitable business in order to expand, and potentially pull in more money.?
Ahead of annual, routine military exercises between South Korea and the United States, North Korea issued its usual caustic objections Saturday.
It threatened "miserable destruction," if "your side ignites a war of aggression by staging the reckless joint military exercises ... at this dangerous time."
Though customary, the stark posturing by North Korea stands in the shadow of an underground nuclear test two weeks ago that was preceded by the launch of a long-range missile capable of transporting a warhead.
The detonation of the nuclear charge was the third in Pyongyang's history and the first under supreme leader Kim Jong Un's rule. South Korea's military reacted with fierce military drills, including a public display of newly deployed cruise missiles with pinpoint accuracy.
It has been on heightened readiness ever since.
The test also triggered a global wave of condemnation, including from Beijing, and plans for new sanctions against Pyongyang.
North Korea issued the objections to exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle scheduled for March and April to U.S. commander James D. Sherman, state run news agency KCNA reported.
The message was delivered over the phone in English, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
It also condemned the threat of new sanctions over North Korea's recent actions.
A United Nations military commission informed Pyongyang of the upcoming routine exercises, according to a joint statement from U.S. and South Korean military officials.
The commission also told North Korea that they are "not related with the current situations on the Korean Peninsula."
Around 10,000 U.S. forces will participate in Foal Eagle from March 1 to April 30. Key Resolve will involve 10,000 South Korean troops and 3,500 U.S. troops in exercises March 11 to 21.
Key Resolve will include U.N. troops and neutral supervisors.
According to the Financial Times, Google is currently in talks with "big music labels to launch a streaming service to compete with companies such as Spotify." Google previously launched its own digital music store over a year ago but this service will be different than the digital tunes shop, Google's streaming music service will offer free unlimited access to songs (with advertisements), along with subscription options. [Financial Times] More »
SMART BOMB DRUG: Federal health regulators approved an innovative breast cancer drug on Friday that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.
PHARMA COCKTAIL: The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the older drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together.
TUMOR TARGETING: The binding chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it hits a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.
Dravid said he couldn't have finished a two-mile run like Shah Rukh Khan but was happy that the Bollywood actor was promoting sports not only at the elite level with the Indian Premier League but also at the grass root level.
Indian cricket great Rahul Dravid on Saturday said it was important to revive university cricket and thought using the T20 format was the best way to go about it.
"It is important that university cricket becomes popular and boys play. We have seen in the last 20 years, university cricket has died a bit. It has become dead. So to revive it, if T20 is needed then there is no problem," Dravid said.
"It is a good thing that boys would get an opportunity to play and cricket will revive. Then taking it forward, three-day four-day cricket can come also come. But you need to revive university cricket first," he said at the Toyota University Cricket Championship event.
The inter-university tournament played in the T20 format, is an extension of the existing Rohinton Baria Trophy and will feature eight teams.
"I think university cricket and especially Rohinton Baria at one time was one of the most high profile elite tournament in? this country. A lot of cricketers came and played for India from their performances in university cricket. That over the years has died down.
"With initiatives like this and competition like this there is a great opportunity to revive cricket in the universities and give people a chance to play in universities.
"For me it is special because it allows children -- the young boys and girls -- the opportunity to study as well to play sport. I think that is very important in today's day and age," the former Indian skipper said.
Asked if people prefer the shorter format, Dravid said, "Obviously T20 cricket is easy to come and watch in the evenings. You don't have to spend the whole day so that makes a big difference. I think people still follow Test cricket and support it in their own way. They might not be able to come to the ground," he said.
Dravid said he couldn't have finished a two-mile run like Shah Rukh Khan but was happy that the Bollywood actor was promoting sports not only at the elite level with the Indian Premier League but also at the grass root level.
Story first published on: Saturday, 23 February 2013 09:02 IST
A meeting of like minds at the Combined Logistics Networks annual meeting in Bangkok from May 25-30, 2010, aims to be a good start to rebounding quickly from the impacts of the Global Financial Crisis.
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Naruto Ringtones is an application that features Naruto songs that can be use as ringtones. There are 16 sounds with more to come.
1:AliveI 2:AliveII 3:Rythem 4:WindI 5:WindII 6:Naruto 7:Combat animation 8:The moonlight stone 9:Naruto theme 10:Wave wind 11:Series 12:Naruto 13:Lies 14:Inverse 15:Lost tower 16:The simplicity of the rainbow
feature -- set phone ringtones -- set notification ringtones -- save to sd card or Internal phone storage
Enjoy these ringtongs.
Naruto (NARUTO??????, romanized as NARUTO) is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become a Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all. The series is based on a one-shot comic by Kishimoto that was published in the August 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump.
Sydney,?New South Wales,?Australia Posted: 2013-02-21
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Mark Cerny, lead system architect for the Sony Playstation 4 speaks during an event to announce the new video game console, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Mark Cerny, lead system architect for the Sony Playstation 4 speaks during an event to announce the new video game console, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Andrew House speaks at an event to announce the Sony Playstation 4 Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Mark Cerny, lead system architect for the Sony Playstation 4 speaks during an event to announce the new video game console Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
David Perry, CEO of Gaikai, speaks during a news conference to announce the Sony Playstation 4 Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Yoshinori Ono, of Capcom, speaks during a news conference to announce the Sony Playstation 4 Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Sony showed off what the PlayStation 4 can do, but not what it will look like.
The Japanese electronics giant talked about its upcoming game console for the first time and said it will go on sale this holiday season.
But Sony didn't reveal the device itself. Presenters played games that were projected on screens in a converted opera house, but the PlayStations themselves were hidden backstage throughout Wednesday evening's two-hour event.
"I don't know that the box is going to be something that's going to have a dramatic impact on people's feelings about the game. It will be a color and a size fairly comparable to previous consoles," said Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, the U.S.-based arm of the PlayStation business.
"There's a big story to tell here, and it's going to take between now and the holiday season to get all the details out there," Tretton said in an interview.
Tretton said the price of the PS4 hasn't been decided yet, but hinted that it won't be as high as the PlayStation 3 was initially. The PS3 debuted in 2006 with two models for $500 and $600. It now sells for about $300.
The PS4 will be jostling for attention this holiday season with Microsoft's successor to the Xbox. Details on that device are expected in June. Xbox 360 came out a year before PS3 and has been more popular, largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online. Having an event this early allows Sony to grab the spotlight for a few months, though the absence of an actual device was noted by many people on Twitter and elsewhere.
Some analysts said the lack of details made it difficult to say whether Sony had a winner in PS4. The company's U.S.-based stock fell 2.6 percent in midday trading Thursday. Analysts at Jefferies & Co. called the announcement "ho-hum" and said PS4 was "not a must have." Success will depend on further details from Sony and from Microsoft on its rival Xbox, they wrote in a research note Thursday.
Sony did reveal that the insides of the PS4 will essentially be a "supercharged PC," much like an Xbox. That's a big departure from the old and idiosyncratic PlayStation design and should make it easier for developers to create games. Sony Corp. is using processing chips made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
"One of the big challenges we faced in the past was that we created great technology that we handed over to the development community, and they had to go through a learning curve before they could harness it. And when they did, we saw some phenomenal games," Tretton said. "We wanted to lower that barrier of entry and really give them the ability to create tremendous gaming experiences from Day One."
The adoption of PC chips also means that the new console won't be able to play games created for any of the three previous PlayStations, even though the PS4 will have a Blu-ray disc drive, just like the PS3. Instead, Sony said gamers will have to stream older games to the PS4 through the Internet.
Other new features revolve around social networking and remote access. With one button, you can broadcast video of your game play so friends can "look over your shoulder virtually," said David Perry, co-founder of the Sony-owned Internet game company Gaikai. With remote play, you can run a game on the PS4 to stream over the Internet to Sony's mobile gaming device, the PlayStation Vita, which debuted last year.
The goal is to make the PS4 so good at figuring out what games and other content you want that it can download it without being asked, so that it's available when you realize you do want it, Sony said.
"Our long-term vision is to reduce download times of digital titles to zero," said Mark Cerny, Sony's lead system architect on the PS4.
The PS4 is arriving amid declines in video game hardware, software and accessory sales. Research firm NPD Group said game sales fell 22 percent to $13.3 billion in 2012. With the launch of the PS4, Sony is looking to attract people who may have shifted their attention to games on Facebook, tablet computers and mobile phones.
Forrester analyst James McQuivey said Sony is missing the point by building what amounts to an upgraded PS3.
"Sony believes the future will be like the past and has built the game console to prove it," he said. "Tablets and smartphones now engage more people in more minutes of gaming than consoles will ever achieve."
Sony showed an updated controller that adds a touchpad and a "share" button. The controller also features a light bar, which means a new PlayStation camera can more easily track the device for motion control.
Dennis Fong, CEO of the gaming-centric social networking site Raptr, thinks Sony's focus on sharing with the PS4 will be good for both gamers and business.
"The ability to capture an image, video or instantly broadcast what's on players' screen to their friends is transformational for the new generation of consoles," said Fong. "Providing them with community tools to create videos and live broadcasts is a cool feature for gamers, and also great for business. User-generated content keeps players engaged with the game even while they aren't playing it and also attracts new users from the buzz generated around this content."
The bulk of Wednesday's event was devoted to demos of games for the PS4, including a realistic team racing simulator, "Drive Club," super-powered action sequel "Infamous: Second Son," artsy puzzler "The Witness" and several first-person shooter games, including "Killzone: Shadow Fall." Beyond games, the PS4 will let people create animation in 3-D using a Move motion controller ? all in real time.
Last fall, Nintendo launched the next generation of gaming consoles with the Wii U, which comes with a tablet-like controller called the GamePad. The controller allows two people playing the same game to have different experiences depending on whether they use the GamePad or a traditional Wii remote, which itself was revolutionary when it came out because of its motion-control features.
Judging by Wednesday's event, Sony seeks to improve but not revolutionize game play. The games were updates to existing ones, with improved graphics.
"At the end of the day, this is a device by gamers for gamers," Tretton said. "The games that people go out and spend billions of dollars on are your traditional shooters."
The original Wii has sold more units since its launch than both its rivals, but it has lost momentum in recent years as the novelty of its motion controller faded. Nintendo said it sold 3.1 million Wii Us by the end of 2012. It was a disappointing start for the first of a new generation of gaming systems.
In some ways, notably its ability to display high-definition games, the Wii U was just catching up to the PS3 and the Xbox 360, the preferred consoles to play popular games such as "Call of Duty."
All three console makers are trying to position their devices as entertainment hubs that can deliver movies, music and social networking as they try to stay relevant in the age of smartphones and tablets. The PlayStation online network will have access to Sony's video and music services, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, with paid subscriptions to those services. People will also be able to access Facebook.
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Lang contributed from Los Angeles.
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Follow AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/petersvensson and AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.
DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Doug" (24), and I (22) have been in a long-distance relationship for a year, but we were friends for a couple of years before that. I had never had a serious relationship before and lacked experience. Doug has not only been in two other long-term relationships, but has had sex with more than 15 women. One of them is an amateur porn actress.I knew about this, but it didn't bother me until recently. Doug had a party, and while he was drunk he told one of his buddies -- in front of me -- that he should watch a certain porn film starring his ex-girlfriend. ...
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