Ever dreamed of being a Heart Surgeon?
Well, here’s your chance…
Have a go at Open Heart Surgery. Definitely not for the faint of heart. With a simulated heart monitor beeping away, the pressure is on to perform. There’s a choice of three levels – intern, surgeon, and specialist. I should have chosen intern but I wanted to be the top gun. Bad move. As a specialist, I killed the patient within seconds. I was advised to ‘call my lawyer’.
Or maybe something a little less challenging – performing open heart surgery on a stuffed bunny . Easy you think! Think again! You have 60 seconds to shock the heart, …read more
Is Playing Tetris the Answer to Dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
A recent UK study has found that playing the computer based puzzle game Tetris soon after witnessing a traumatic event might just help erase memories of the events witnessed.
In the study, forty participants between the ages of 18 and 47 were subjected to a 12 minute video that featured horrific images of physical injury and death. After watching the video, all the participants were then kept busy for the next half hour filling out forms. Then 20 of the participants were installed in front of computers screens and instructed to play Tetris for 10 minutes. The other 20 participants were left to sit quietly …read more
Foldit for Science.
Protein folding as a competitive sport?
Sounds bizarre but researchers at the University of Washington are hoping that Foldit, a new computer game will help uncover the key to medical mysteries ranging from Alzheimer’s Disease to vaccines.
There are more than 100,000 different kinds of proteins in the human body. These proteins form cells, make up the immune system, and determine the speed of chemical reactions.
Scientists already know the genetic sequence of many of the proteins but not how they fold up into the complext shapes that play the crucial biological roles within the human body.
This is where Foldit comes in.
This computer …read more
