me ns a i n te r n a ti on a l j o u r n a l

Put down that Xbox remote: FSU researcher suggests video games may not boost cognition
Wouldnt it be nice if all those hours kids spent glued to their PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo DS video games actually resulted in something tangible? Better grades, perhaps? Improved concentration? Superior driving skills?
compared the cognitive skills of frequent gamers to non-gamers and found gamers to be superior. However, Boot and his coauthors point out that this doesnt necessarily mean that their game experience caused better perceptual and cognitive abilities. It could be that individuals who have the abilities required to be successful gamers are simply drawn to gaming. Over the past decade, many Researchers looking for cognistudies and news media reports have tive differences between expert and suggested that action video games novice gamers often recruit research such as Medal of Honor or Unreal participants by circulating ads on Tournament improve a variety of college campuses seeking expert perceptual and cognitive abilities. video game players. That wording But in a paper published this week in alone, Boot argues, lets participants the journal Frontiers in Psychology, know how researchers expect them Walter Boot, an assistant professor to perform on challenging, often in Florida State Universitys Degame-like computer tests of cognipartment of Psychology, critically tion. reevaluates those claims. Media reports on the superior Together with FSU psychology skills of gamers heighten gamers doctoral student Daniel Blakely and awareness of these expectations. University of Illinois collaborator Even studies in which non-gamers Daniel Simons, Boot lays out what are trained to play action video he believes is a persuasive argument games have their own problems, that much of the work done over the often in the form of weak control past decade demonstrating the bengroups, according to Boot and his efits of video game play is fundamencoauthors. tally flawed. Boot, who grew up playing video Despite the hype, in reality, there games, said at first he was excited is little solid evidence that games about research that claimed playing enhance cognition at all, he said. action video games could enhance The authors make the case that a basic measures of attention. He and number of influential studies suphis fellow researchers conducted porting the superior skills of action their own video-game training study gamers suffer from a host of methodto determine what other abilities ological flaws. Many of those studies
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might improve following video game play, but they were unable to replicate the training benefits found in earlier studies. The idea that video games could enhance cognition was exciting because it represented one of the few cases in which cognitive training enhanced abilities that werent directly practised, Boot said. but we found no benefits of video game training. Not only did some of his studies fail to replicate those earlier findings, but no study has yet met the gold standard methods necessary in intervention studies of this sort. In fact, certain methodological problems appeared again and again in the studies that Boot and Blakely and reviewed. Even more important than identifying flaws of previous studies, Blakely said, their new paper outlines a series of best practices for researchers who want definitive answers on the potential benefits of video game play. Boot and Blakely havent entirely written off video games as a way to boost perceptual and cognitive abilities; in fact, theyre still open to the possibility. But before they start recommending video game interventions as a means to improve perception and cognition for kids, adults and senior citizens, they say more evidence is necessary.
www.eurekalert.org, September 15, 2011

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This year, the now traditional event known as MY-Camp, an activity of the international MY-SIG (Mensa Youth Special Interest Group), was held in Eket, near Helsingborg (Sweden). The event was attended by 75 people from Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Lithuania, Australia, United Kingdom, Hong-Kong, Finland and Spain. Some of these countries regularly organise weekends based on the same theme for the younger sector of their respective National Mensas. Previous MY-Camps were held in Denmark (2007), Holland (2008), Bulgaria (2009) and Spain (2010). This time, the MY-Camp venue consisted of two houses with rooms for two to six people and many different communal areas - a large kitchen, dining room, gym and even a chapel (which became the regular spot for the Werewolf sessions). The outdoor facilities included a volleyball court, lawned area and a large terrace with tables and chairs, with a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside. As a regular feature of this event, the activities were designed to make the most of the outdoors, physical exercise and, in many cases, doing what Mensans enjoy most: playing
mensa international journal november 2011

MY-CAMP 2011 in Sweden

games. This time, the participants could choose from any of the following activities: River descent in 3-person canoe A lovely trip through water lilies and dragonflies Visit to a zoo farm Bowling Bead workshop (given by Mia Bruksman) Ballroom Dancing workshop (led by Patrick Van der Tas) Yoga workshop (thanks to Peter Ring.) Singing workshop (conducted by Robert-Jan Huijsman) Ping-pong and Volleyball championships Cake Day, when everyone made their favourite recipe Laser and paintball combats depending on whether you minded being bruised or not. Karting Trek on horseback through one of those woods that allows us to enjoy our IKEA furniture... Trips to Helsingborg and Copenhagen Bicycle ride around Ven island, which is home to the Tycho Brahe Museum (and if youre late and miss the ferry, you can enjoy a short visit around Landskrona and its fortress) Lolly-stick bridge building contest (pictured right), with surprising and striking results. And of course, as well as all the planned activities, we were able to

enjoy all those activities that rely more on improvisation, such as sunbathing, NERF fights, hundreds of board games, a bonfire under the stars or roasting marshmallows. As an added bonus, the three pianos available in the house made our days and nights even more enjoyable, as we were lucky enough to have many musicians among us, although we have to admit that they werent all of the same competence. The same can be said of the Rock Band performances... which went on non-stop over the ten days! Swedish Mensa organised the event, although most of the work rested on Erik Myklebusts shoulders; in the same way, Mia Bruksman collaborated in the logistics, among other things, and Emil Bohman was the final member of the local group of organisers present at Eket. The last (but not the least) to be mentioned would

be Mikael Jensen, who was mainly in charge of the bar. Something that deserves a special mention is that EVERYONE took part in the necessary cleaning,

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shopping and cooking tasks in an orderly but flexible way. There was a prevailing spirit of living together in harmony, which is always desirable but not always achievable in all groups of people. Many of the activities came about naturally and spontaneously, by the hand of any of the young Mensans: someone offered to be head chef, others collaborated by bringing the drinks which was actually quite an arduous task, given the amount and the distance from where they were purchased; others made the most of the days they were not taking part in group activities to join one of the cleaning groups, someone baked fresh bread every day, someone else dared to make a Spanish omelette... As another regular feature, on the last day, the organisers of all the MY-Camps met to assess the one that was coming to an end and discuss the location for the next one. Every year we learn something new and the group of people involved grows... This will undoubtedly help to make future MY-Camps even better. However, the main ingredients are guaranteed: fun, a desire to share with others and a playful spirit.

supplementally...
Balloony I bought a wireless home weather station last year. It records wind direction and speed, temperature, rainfall, barometric pressure, and humidity. With optional software, it will download stored information to your computer and generate charts from the data. Very cool. Wind is difficult to record properly on home equipment. You cant really trust ground level readings because buildings and trees redirect the breeze. I started to think I should have acquired a different station so the anemometer could be mounted on the chimney. But that concern was unfounded, as Ill explain below. After fooling around with helium balloons and a bubble machine at a picnic this summer, I thought of using balloons to learn the real wind direction. So I started releasing them at home. Sometimes, a balloon would rush down the street at roof level until it was out of sight. Pretty often, a balloon would rise to about 50 feet before taking off in a different direction. In late August, one went almost straight up to about 200 feet before taking off toward the northeast at a fast pace. This is the reason why a chimney mount for the wind indicator would be futile: it isnt high enough to matter.

john blinke

If there were no local pull of gravity and no breeze, a helium balloon would stay wherever you put it.

On those occasions when balloons rise high and clear into the sky, they are fascinating to watch. The feeling of altitude and airy space can be giddy: another example of science meeting the arts. Also, I just now clamped a balloon to a soldering station to keep it from heading for the ceiling. As I look at it, Im imagining why it hangs there, pulling upward on its tether. Its because the air is more dense under the balloon than above it. In trying to move with the pressure gradient, the balloon attempts to rise. If there were no local pull of gravity and no breeze, a helium balloon would stay wherever you put it. I wonder if anyone on the International Space Station has played around with toy balloons to demonstrate this? Nuking Malaria NY Times.com, 22 August 2011. Malaria Gets the Foil-in-a-Microwave Treatment. Malaria parasites hide out in many different parts of the body, but they always return to the blood stream to move around. If blood could be treated to kill them, there would be a chance of curing the disease. A method being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would use a custom microwave machine to treat a leg or arm every day for some period of time

Elena Sanz Mensa Spain

Advertise your national Mensa event in the IJ ijeditor@mensa.org

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to eventually eliminate the organisms from the body. This could work because the organisms store iron in their food vacuoles. Microwaves at the right frequency could heat that iron and cook the little monsters from the inside out. The procedure works in a petri dish. The next step is to test it in mice, and eventually in humans. Input-Output Harvard Health Letter, September 2011, p. 7. Fiber on a Winning Streak. Dietary fiber has not turned out to be a great preventer of colon cancer. But it does seem to help against respiratory problems, infections, strokes, and heart attacks. The reasons for these benefits are not entirely clear, although it is known that fiber interferes with the absorption of cholesterol and sugar. Anti inflammatory abilities may account for the other benefits. The very best sources of dietary fiber are raw, unprocessed fruits and veggies. Juice is only half as good as whole fruit for this purpose. Kidney Stones Harvard Health Letter, September 2011, p. 7. Avoiding Kidney Stones. To avoid kidney stones, be sure to eat foods that are naturally high in calcium. Although this sounds wrong, it works because 85% of kidney stones start when calcium binds with oxalate in the urine to form chunks of insoluble calcium oxalate. This can create stones big enough to cause lots of trouble in the kidney. If enough calcium is available from food, oxalate can be bound up in the gut so it doesnt get into the urine. Calcium supplements dont work for this. In fact, they can cause more stones mensa international journal november 2011

possibly because they release calcium at the wrong point in the gut.

Fire With Fire BBC Knowledge, September/October 2011, p. 18. Living Antibiotics. Sunshine Solution Your enemys enemy could be your Science Illustrated, September/Octo- friend. This is certainly the hope of ber 2011, p. 24. How Much Oxygen scientists who want to use predatory Can a Plant Probacteria to fight duce? other bacteria All green plants that threaten use photosynthesis human health. to get energy for Bdellovibrio is growth. They release a microbe that oxygen as a byprodrams into a uct, but they are not prey cell like a all equally good at it. Greek trireme, Cool weather plants then digests the like wheat can provictims innards duce oxygen at the like a microrate of 48.9 grams bial spider. The per square meter. good thing Warm weather about Bdelloviplants like corn can brio is that it is make 57.6 grams of not interested oxygen per square meter. As for energy in attacking anything but other bacproduction, typical green plants con- teria. Unlike antibiotics, such hunter vert 1% to 3% of the sunlight hitting cells will not cause resistant strains to them into energy. Manufactured solar develop: if the prey species evolves in cells can convert 6% to 20% of incia way that will help it to escape, the dent light into electrical energy. hunter is likely to evolve as well, keeping pace with its prey. Ultrasound for Algae EurekAlert. Los Alamos technology Reptile in Your Rig strikes a chord with algal biofuels. ScienceDaily, 17 August 2011. Gator Contributed by Dave Carver. in Your Tank: Alligator Fat as a New Its one thing to grow algae for the Source of Biodiesel Fuel. (Industrial purpose of extracting biofuel from it. It & Engineering Chemistry Research) is another thing to perform the extrac- If youre old enough, you might retion economically. Los Alamos Namember the gasoline company slogan tional Lab has come up with a process Put a Tiger in Your Tank. A new slousing ultrasound to make extraction gan might mention an alligator in your easier. Instead of using power hunautomobile. Thats because alligator fat gry centrifuges to compress the algae can be made into pretty good biodiesel and break their cell walls, the LANL fuel. And 15 million pounds of the method bombards the algae growth stuff are dumped in landfills every year. medium with ultrasound to get the Gator fat is said to be easier to convert same result at considerably lower cost. into fuel than other animal fats.

Cool weather plants such as wheat can produce oxygen at the rate of 48.9 grams per square meter. Warm weather plants like corn can make 57.6 grams of oxygen per square meter.

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