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Dillon Patel

Scientists agree: Humans causing global warming - 0 views

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  • Scientists agree: Humans causing global warmin
  • Report today makes strongest assertion to date
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  • the world's leading climate scientists are reporting today that they are basically certain
  • the effects are likely to last for centuries.
  • Evidence of climate warming is unequivocal.
  • "We did it."
  • "Scientists are pretty well done arguing about whether the warming in the last 50 years is related to burning fossil fuels," Mote said.
  • Researchers said they are more than 90 percent certain that global warming is caused by humans
  • their most powerful assertion to date.
  • the report says, the warming is likely to mean intensified droughts and heat waves, along with unusually strong storms
  •  
    This source, which is pretty reliable states that scientists are making a STAND that humans are a huge, and most of the contribution for global warming, and are responsible.
golan elzur

BBC - Ethics - Animal ethics: Experimenting on animals - 1 views

  • eriments are widely used to develop new medicines
  • Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.
  • Two positions on animal experiments In favour of animal experiments: Experimenting on animals is acceptable if (and only if): suffering is minimised in all experiments human benefits are gained which could not be obtained by using other methods
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  • Against animal experiments: Experimenting on animals is always unacceptable because: it causes suffering to animals the benefits to human beings are not proven any benefits to human beings that animal testing does provide could be produced in other ways
  • Are animal experiments useful? Animal experiments only benefit human beings if their results are valid and can be applied to human beings. Not all scientists are convinced that these tests are valid and useful.
  • Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.
  • In November 2008 the European Union put forward proposals to revise the directive for the protection of animals used in scientific experiments
  • The proposals have three aims: to considerably improve the welfare of animals used in scientific procedures
  • to ensure fair competition for industry to boost research activities in the European Union
  • The main changes proposed are:
  • to make it compulsory to carry out ethical reviews and require that experiments where animals are used be subject to authorisation to widen the scope of the directive to include specific invertebrate species and foetuses in their last trimester of development and also larvae and other animals used in basic research, education and training to set minimum housing and care requirements to require that only animals of second or older generations be used, subject to transitional periods, to avoid taking animals from the wild and exhausting wild populations to state that alternatives to testing on animals must be used when available and that the number of animals used in projects be reduced to a minimum to require member states to improve the breeding, accommodation and care measures and methods used in procedures so as to eliminate or reduce to a minimum any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm caused to animals
Bhavya Puri

Shark Fin Soup Facts - 0 views

  • But we’re not paying enough attention to what we are taking out of our oceans – sharks – and they’re being killed at the rate of up to 73 million per year.
  • You may not really care much about sharks but our oceans account for about half of the planet’s oxygen supply and sharks play a key role in maintaining the health of the oceans.
  • 73 million sharks a year are being served up to make celebration soup.
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  • If you feel this way, you’re not alone, but it might surprise you to know that although there are more than 350 distinct species of sharks, only a few even bother with humans. The giant Whale Shark doesn’t even have teeth.
  • As of late 2009, the world’s population of sharks had already diminished by 50 to 75%.
  • A North Atlantic population survey reports as much as an 89% decrease.
  • show that for the 181 species of sharks for which they have adequate data, over 64% of those populations are noted as “threatened” or “vulnerable”. Of those, over 21% are categorized as “endangered” or worse. At least one species is already listed as “extinct in the wild.”
  • Sharks are pulled onto fishing boats where their fins are cut off and their bodies are thrown back into the ocean as waste. A large percentage of these animals are still alive and suffocate. Even though less than 5% of the shark is fin, the rest is usually thrown away because of the economics of it. Shark meat must be properly refrigerated and takes up a lot of space on a boat. Fins, however, can be cut off, bundled, and hung to dry in large nets. It is the fin that produces the largest profit by far and can be sold for hundreds of dollars per pound.
Simran Fabiani

Eating Disorders and the Media | Media Influence on Eating Disorders | Anorexia | Bulim... - 0 views

  • Okay, so we all want to hear how Calvin Klein is the culprit and that the emaciated waif look has caused women to tale-spin into the world of Eating Disorders. While the images of child-like women has obviously contributed to an increased obsession to be thin, and we can't deny the media influence on eating disorders, there's a lot more to it than that.
  • Images on T.V. spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful, buy more stuff because people will like us and we'll be better people for it. Programming on the tube rarely depicts men and women with "average" body-types or crappy clothes, ingraining in the back of all our minds that this is the type of life we want. O
  • characters are typically portrayed as lazy
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  • while thin women and pumped-up men are the successful, popular, sexy and powerful ones. How can we tell our children that it's what's inside that counts, when the media continuously contradicts this message?
  • Super models in all the popular magazines have continued to get thinner and thinner.
  • Modeling agencies have been reported to actively pursue Anorexic models.
  • he average woman model weighs up to 25% less
  • han the typical woman and maintains a weight at about 15 to 20 percent below what is considered healthy for her age and height.
  • By far, these body types and images are not the norm and unobtainable
  • Diet advertisements are another problem.
  • hese images are fake.
  • the ideal body" combined with the diet industry's drive to make more money, creates a never-ending cycle of ad upon ad that try to convince us
  • Pop-culture's imposed definition of
  • Barbie-type dolls have often been blamed on playing a role in the development of body-image problems and Eating Disorders.
  • Not only do these dolls have fictionally proportioned, small body sizes, but they lean towards escalating the belief that materialistic possessions, beauty and thinness equate happiness.
  • Barbie has more accessories available to purchase than can be believed, including Ken, her attractive boyfriend.
  • personally do NOT believe every girl that has a Barbie-type doll is at risk of disordered eating,
  • We need to remind ourselves and each other constantly (especially children) that
  • With an increased population of children who spend a lot of time in front of television, there are more of them coming up with a superficial sense of who they are.
  • we are continually exposed to the notion that losing weight will make us happier and it will be through "THIS diet plan".
  • if you lose weight, your life will be good."
  • These images may not help, and for those already open to the possibility of negative coping mechanisms and/or mental illness, the media may play a small contributing role -- but ultimately, if a young man or woman's life situation, environment, and/or genetics leave them open to an Eating Disorder (or alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, OCD, etc.), they will still end up in the same place regardless of television or magazines.
  • it helps to perpetuate an ideal of materialism, beauty, and being thin as important elements to happiness in one's life.
Ben Walters

Part 1 - How video games are good for the brain - The Boston Globe - 0 views

  • How video games are good for the brain Concerns about violent programs persist, but researchers are discovering that playing can boost cognitive function and foster positive behavior
  • In his speech to America’s schoolchildren last month, President Obama had a clear directive about video games: Put them away.
  • But the latest science shows that there’s a lot more to video games than their dark reputations suggest.
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  • “There’s still a tendency to think of video games as a big wad of time-wasting content,’’
  • “Games are a medium. They’re not inherently good or bad.’’
  • After years of focusing on the bad - and there are still legitimate concerns, for instance, about the psychological effects of certain violent games - scientists are increasingly examining the potential benefits of video games. Their studies are revealing that a wide variety of games can boost mental function, improving everything from vision to memory. Still unclear is whether these gains are long-lasting and can be applied to non-game tasks. But video games, it seems, might actually be good for the brain.
  • The very structure of video games makes them ideal tools for brain training.
  • games have figured out a way to encourage players to persist at solving challenging problems.’’
  • This adaptive challenge is “stunningly powerful’’ for learning, said John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at MIT.
  • Most games involve a huge number of mental tasks, and playing can boost any one of them. Fast-paced, action-packed video games have been shown, in separate studies, to boost visual acuity, spatial perception, and the ability to pick out objects in a scene. Complex, strategy-based games can improve other cognitive skills, including working memory and reasoning.
  • Researchers now know that learning and practicing a challenging task can actually change the brain.
  • Richard Haier,a pediatric neurologist and professor emeritus at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Irvine, has shown in a pair of studies that the classic game Tetris, in which players have to rotate and direct rapidly falling blocks, alters the brain. In a paper published last month, Haier and his colleagues showed that after three months of Tetris practice, teenage girls not only played the game better, their brains became more efficient.
Shumona Raha

Euthanasia- Is mercy killing justified? - 0 views

  • On June 14 2005 , the newspaper headlines sprang the news that the central Government in India was mulling over the idea of legalising euthanasia
  • There are many religious and humanistic societies which protest against this mercy killing.
  • That can be done by a drug overdose, a lethal injection, or the withdrawal of medical support.
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  • Voluntary euthanasia is when the person who is killed requests to be killed. On the other hand, non voluntary euthanasia is when a person made no request and gave no consent.
  • When it is a doctor who helps another person to kill themselves it is called "physician assisted suicide."
  • Why keep a burden around? All you are doing is justifying your self seeking nature by getting rid of a problem.
  • Supporters of euthanasia argue that "mercy-killing" is necessary because patients, particularly those with terminal illness, experience uncontrollable pain. They argue that the only way to alleviate the pain is to eliminate the patient. What else can we do? They ask.
  • The medical expenses are so high when lifesaving medicines from good companies cost the earth.
  • In the west, nobody bothers much about old people because they are bundled up into old people's homes whenever the children think them a burden, physical, emotional and financial. But in India, grandparents are still a power in the house and the family.
  • Remember that the old and elderly are a valuable fabric of the Indian society
  • A terminally ill patient is suffering physically. But he's also suffering from mental and social pain. The social pain is that he is a financial burden upon his family. His children have to take time off their busy lives to take him to the doctor. Sometimes patients are reluctant to report that they are feeling any pain, because it will be a trouble to their family members.
Ben Walters

Were video games to blame for massacre? - Technology & science - Games - msnbc.com - 0 views

  • The shooting on the Virginia Tech campus was only hours old, police hadn't even identified the gunman, and yet already the perpetrator had been fingered and was in the midst of being skewered in the media.
  • Video games. They were to blame for the dozens dead and wounded. They were behind the bloodiest massacre in U.S. history. Or so Jack Thompson told Fox News and, in the days that followed, would continue to tell anyone who'd listen.
  • But whether Seung-Hui Cho, the student who opened fire Monday, was an avid player of video games and whether he was a fan of "Counter-Strike" in particular remains, even now, uncertain at best.
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  • Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the school shootings and the finger-pointing that followed, game players and industry advocates say they're outraged that the brutal acts of a deeply disturbed and depressed loner with a history of mental illness would be blamed so quickly on video and computer games. They say this is perhaps the most flagrant case of anti-game crusaders using a tragedy to promote their own personal causes.
  • "It's so sad. These massacre chasers — they're worse than ambulance chasers — they're waiting for these things to happen so they can jump on their soapbox," said Jason Della Rocca,
    • Ben Walters
       
      'common sense tells me'
  • When Jack Thompson gets worked up, he refers to gamers as "knuckleheads." He calls video games "mental masturbation." When he's talking about himself and his crusade against violent games, he calls himself an "educator." He likes to use the word "pioneer."
  • On those rare occasions when a student opens fire on a school campus, Thompson is frequently the first and the loudest to declare games responsible. In recent years he's blamed games such as "Counter-Strike," "Doom" and "Grand Theft Auto III" for school shootings in Littleton, Colo., Red Lake, Minn. and Paducah, Ky.
  • He's blamed them for shootings beyond school grounds as well. In an attempt to hold game developers and publishers responsible for these spasms of violence, Thompson has launched several unsuccessful lawsuits.
  • "It disgusts me," said Isaiah Triforce Johnson, a longtime gamer and founder of a New York-based gaming advocacy group that, in response to the accusations, is now planning what is the first ever gamer-driven peace rally. 
  • Microsoft did not create "Counter Strike" but did publish a version of it for the Xbox.
  • authorities released a search warrant listing the items found in Cho's dorm room. Not a single video game, console or gaming gadget was on the list, though a computer was confiscated. And in an interview with Chris Matthews of "Hardball," Cho's university suite-mate said he had never seen Cho play video games.
  • "This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he's a video gamer,"
  • And in a letter sent to Bill Gates Wednesday, he wrote: "Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable (for) the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill."
    • Ben Walters
       
      See how bad his research is, the only possibility of him ever playing a game was on his computer, yet he blames Microsoft, who created a game for the Xbox (which would be incompatible for a PC) for directly and massively influencing these events.
    • Ben Walters
       
      Counter Strike, the game he blamed for these killings, has two objectives. Protect an objective from a bomb that the team of terrorists are going to try to plant, or to plant this bomb. Neither of these objectives have to include murder, or solo missions.
  • Fed up with the scapegoating and lack of understanding, gamer groups have begun to get increasingly organized in their attempts to change public perception of their favorite hobby.
  • While Thompson concedes that there are many elements that must have driven Cho to commit such a brutal act, he insists that without video games Cho wouldn't have had the skills to do what he did. "He might have killed somebody but he wouldn't have killed 32 if he hadn't rehearsed it and trained himself like a warrior on virtual reality. It can't be done. It just doesn't happen."
  • Dr. Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern Calfornia and author of the book " Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth," disagrees. She believes that it didn't require much skill for Cho to shoot as many people as he did. After all, eye witness accounts indicate many of the victims were shot at point-blank range.
  • And for all of Thompson's claims that violent video games are the cause of school shootings, Sternheimer points out that before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin… in 1966. Not even "Pong" had been invented at that time.
  • Sternheimer says the rush to blame video games in these situations is disingenuous for yet another reason. Although it remains unclear whether Cho played games, it seems nobody will be surprised if it turns out he did. After all, what 23-year-old man living in America hasn't played video games?
  • "Especially if you're talking about young males, the odds are pretty good that any young male in any context will have played video games at some point,"
  • "I think in our search to find some kind of answer as to why this happened, the video game explanation seems easy," she says. "It seems like there's an easy answer to preventing this from happening again and that feels good on some level."
  • The blame game
  • Jason Della Rocca agrees. "Everyone wants a simple solution for a massively complex problem. We want to get on with our lives."
  • As the leader of an organization that represents video game creators from all over the world, Della Rocca knows the routine all too well.
  • Someone opens fire on a school campus. Someone blames video games. His phone starts ringing. People start asking him questions like, "So how bad are these games anyway?"
  • Of course, he also knows that this is far from the first time in history that a young form of pop culture has been blamed for any number of society's ills. Rock and roll was the bad guy in the 1950s. Jazz was the bad guy in the 1930s. Movies, paintings, comic books, works of literature…they've all been there.
  • Still, Della Rocca believes that people like Thompson are "essentially feeding off the fears of those who don't understand games."
  • For those who didn't grow up playing video games, the appeal of a game like "Counter-Strike" can be hard to comprehend. It can be difficult to understand that the game promotes communication and team work. It can be hard fathom how players who love to run around gunning down their virtual enemies do not have even the slightest desire to shoot a person in real life.
  • "It's the thing they don't understand," Della Rocca says. "It's a thing that's scary."
  • "You cannot tell me — common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that."
  • the members of Empire Arcadia — a grassroots group dedicated to supporting the gaming community and culture — have been so incensed by the recent attempts to blame video games for the Virginia Tech shootings that they've begun planning a rally in New York City with the assistance of the ECA.
  • "There we will protest, mourn and show how real gamers play video games peacefully and responsibly," organizer Johnson wrote on the group's Web site. "This demonstration is to show that gamers will not take the blame of this tragic matter but we will do what we can to help put an end to terrible events like this." Johnson says that, ultimately, he hopes the rally — scheduled for May 5 — will help people better understand video game enthusiasts like him. "We are normal people," he says. "We just play games."
Anjan Narain

Before I Die: Opinions - 0 views

  • The two most common reasons that lead people to think about or to commit suicide, whether they are terminally ill or not, are untreated pain or depression
  • should be a lawful medical procedure for competent, terminally ill adults, because it is a compassionate response to relieve the suffering of dying patients.
  • physicians are not trained to offer adequate treatment for pain or depression
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  • But good medical care can give patients relief from pain and control over their medical destiny without creating the severe risks posed by assisted suicide.
  • In a workable system, the option of physician-assisted suicide would arise only after all treatment options are exhausted, the best of hospice and palliative care has failed to relieve unbearable suffering
  • Legalizing assisted suicide would be profoundly dangerous. The risks would extend to all who are ill, but would be greatest for patients who lack access to high quality medical care.
  • Then, with outside opinion concurring, a physician would be permitted to prescribe medication that the patient could use to hasten death at a time of the patient's choice.
  • who are not ill-intentioned but hurried or insensitive;
  • Patient and family anxiety about future suffering and death would be reduced; care and comfort at the end of life would be improved.
  • A request for suicide is often a plea for help. How many doctors know their patients well enough to hear that plea
  • we must commit ourselves to caring better for patients at life's end.
  • A more rational law than the current ban on assisting a terminally ill patient who requests help in dying will extend the length of lives of those who are dying by preventing the suicide of those who will benefit from relieved suffering.
Ben Walters

Six Wonderful Things About Games - 0 views

  • Research is mounting that playing games can make you smarter.
  • At the 2009 MI6 conference, he pointed out that games engage the same brain machinery that’s used when one is learning.
  • Is it a coincidence that “nerds” often possess an interest in computer games, as well as have an aptitude for subjects like maths and science?
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  • A huge number of engineers, designers and artists have taken up their careers because of the excitement they gained from their exposure to games. Games challenge the imagination, and designing them is a fun and rewarding experience.
  • Part of this includes challenging kids to design games
  • This hasn’t been lost on the Obama Administration, which is including educational games in a $260mm program
  • It is often said that playing video games improves one’s hand-eye coordination.  This is a very important skill to have outside the realm of video games
  • playing games could help someone become a better surgeon (it does—a lot).
  • games have gotten people excited about learning something new.
  • eople do learn new things they might never have, just by playing these games.
  • Academic research has shown that games can increase the feelings that lead to creativity
  • laying WoW directly intersects with the study of applied mathematics.
  • ophisticated spreadsheets and statistical models to reach their conclusions
  • their first exposure to formal applied mathematics
  • well-researched tables, proofs and statistics.
  • If only my gradeschool teachers had come up with something this engaging to get me interested in in the almost impenetrable world of mathematics!
  • Furthermore, games themselves are becoming an increasingly creative medium
  • video and computer games
  • an be quite influential in fostering creative expression
  • Games even inspire creativity outside of the game
  • games as creative catalysts
  • we’re still at the very beginning of games as a means of artistic and creative expression
  • games provide a venue for expression
  • Furthermore, the study found that teens who are exposed to civics within games (e.g., city-simulators like SimCity, or running a guild/clan in other games) are more likely than other teens to be interested in political and civics activities.
  • players are learning real economics and business skills
  • Such claims have been repeatedly debunked after extensive research,
  • Unlike any other medium, games gets different people from different countries, political views and religions all playing together. Not because they are elite; not because they’re spectators, but because you must work together to solve problems.
  • I’m convinced that the more we play together, the more we’ll learn to live with each other
  • Games are fun, and that’s enough for me. Maybe it isn’t enough for you—or for your friends or for your family. I hope you the information I’ve presented is helpful to you in explaining many of the other positives about games.  Not only are games fun, but they’re also healthy, and can promote positive brain development, career opportunity and social behavior.
Puja DeGamia

anorexia and the media Essay - 0 views

  • Two main eating disorders pertain to thinness they are Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa
  • A National survey revealed that up to seventy five percent of women consider themselves too fat when in reality they are below the ideal weight standards that are established.
  • In America fifty six percent of all women are on diets.
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  • Women of ages eleven years of age to seventeen years old number one wish is to lose weight and keep it off.
  • By the time these girls reach the age of eighteen eighty percent of them have dieted.
  • with young women
  • This is not only a problem
  • The advertisement for this product displays a thin, beautiful model dressed in a short, low-cut dress lounging on a bar stool. They have her long thin legs that take up most of the page with not a trace of cellulite on them. The caption for this advertisement is written across her tiny waist and it reads "Everybody could use a little less fat"
  • Lite Cheese portrays that a women cannot be thin enough an even every women who is thin must worry that their bodies are "too fat".
  • The ideal thin appears in television and magazines especially for women.
  • standard in television is slimmer for female then it is for males.
  • Popular women's magazines contain approximately ten times as many dieting articles
  • These students will gain weight and then diet. This triggers eating disorders
  • Suddenly they are on their own with food, usually for the first time in their lives
Bhavya Puri

STOP SHARK FINNING - 0 views

  • Shark finning is the practice of slicing off the shark's fins while the shark is still alive and throwing the rest of its body back into the ocean where it can take days to die what must be an agonising death.
  • Shark fin soup, which can easily cost $100 a bowl, is often served at wedding celebrations so that the hosts can impress their guests with their affluence. Because there is such a high demand for shark fins, traders can make a lot of money from shark fin, but it is the restaurant owners who really "make a killing" in this foul trade.
  • 3 sharks are being killed every second so people can use their fins to make shark fin soup.
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  • Tens of millions of sharks are slaughtered every year to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup; at least 8,000 tonnes of shark fins are shipped to restaurants around the world.
  • Shark populations take a long time to recover as they can take over seven years to reach maturity and they only raise one or two pups a year. Twenty species of sharks are listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
    • Bhavya Puri
       
      Good Statistics of amount of shark species that are currently vulnerable/endangered
  • In a few years many species of shark could become extinct if action is not taken immediately. Populations of many shark species have fallen by over 90%. Since 1972 the number of blacktip sharks has fallen by 93%, tiger sharks by 97% and bull sharks, dusky sharks and smooth hammerheads by 99%.
  • once they are gone, all hell will break loose. For example along the US East Coast where large sharks such as black tip and tiger sharks have been virtually elimated, there have been declines in shellfish numbers and a reduction in water quality (shellfish filter sea water).
Ben Walters

Part 2 - How video games are good for the brain - The Boston Globe - 0 views

  • A type of scan that illuminates brain activity showed that at the end of the three months, the girls’ brains were working less hard to complete the game’s challenges. What’s more, parts of the cortex, the outer layer of their brains responsible for high-level functions, actually got thicker. Several of these regions are associated with visual spatial abilities, planning, and integration of sensory data.
  • Other researchers are hoping to use video games to encourage prosocial behaviors - actions designed to help others.
  • Generalizability to non-game situations is the big question surrounding other emerging games, particularly software that is being marketed explicitly as a way to keep neurons spry as we age. The jury is still out on whether practicing with these games helps people outside of the context of the game. In one promising 2008 study, however, senior citizens who started playing Rise of Nations, a strategic video game devoted to acquiring territory and nation building, improved on a wide range of cognitive abilities, performing better on subsequent tests of memory, reasoning, and multitasking. The tests were administered after eight weeks of training on the game. No follow-up testing was done to assess whether the gains would last.
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  • Now that researchers know these off-the-shelf games can have wide-ranging benefits, they’re trying to home in on the games’ most important aspects, potentially allowing designers to create new games that specifically boost brain power.
  • “Until now, people have been asking can you learn anything from games?’’ MIT’s Klopfer said. “That’s a less interesting question than what aspects of games are important for fostering learning.’’
  • Do students learn more with a more narrative game?
  • is assessing whether games that are novel, include social interaction, and require intense focus are better at boosting cognitive skills. McLaughlin and her colleagues will use the findings to design games geared toward improving mental function among the elderly.
  • Does this mean that Tetris is good for your brain?’’ Haier said. “That is the big question. We don’t know that just because you become better at playing Tetris after practice and your brain changes . . . whether those changes generalize to anything else.’’
  • an international team of researchers, including several from Iowa State University, reported that middle school students in Japan who played games in which characters helped or showed affection for others, later engaged in more of these behaviors themselves.
  • Researchers also found that US college students randomly assigned to play a prosocial game were subsequently kinder to a fellow research subject than students who played violent or neutral games.
  • Unlike, say, movies or books, video games don’t just have content, they also have rules. A game is set up to reward certain actions and to punish others. This means they have immense potential to teach children ethics and values
  • (Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Games could reward negative, antisocial behavior just as easily as positive, prosocial behavior.)
  • Some off-the-shelf games already contain strong prosocial themes
  • he classic Oregon Trail, which make players responsible for the well-being of other characters and feature characters who take care of one another.
  • “Ultimately, the video game needs to be an entertaining experience,’’ Seider said. “The game has to be fun.’’
Simran Fabiani

Anorexia: A Media-Borne Illness - BusinessWeek - 0 views

  • he top shows watched by female college students: Gossip Girl, Project Runway, and America’s Next Top Model. Likewise for magazines: Vogue, Seventeen, and Allure.
  • The media I’ve listed contribute to shaping what society considers beauty. The common denominators are tall, desperately skinny women who look fabulous. It should come as no surprise the media is to blame for today’s artificial standard of beauty.
  • The constant bombardment of skinny models and diet plans will certainly have an effect on women whose bodies are just not meant to be that small.
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  • Low self-esteem and eating disorders are the side effects from the media’s portrayal of artificial beauty
  • as of 2004, 8 million people—7 million of them women—had an eating disorder (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, etc.).
  • According to the American Psychiatric Assn.’s Diagnostic & Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, people who suffer from anorexia typically have an underlying personality disorder and seek more control over their environment.
  • indicate that discipline and control, rather than thinness, were their true goals
  • 66% of Americans do not even come close to conforming to that supposed ideal. Meanwhile, less than 3% of the U.S. population suffers from an eating disorder
  • We know Barbie is anatomically impossible.
  • magazine covers featuring celebrities have been airbrushed,
  • blaming the media for eating disorders is a lot like laying the blame for underage smoking on TV characters
  • "over three-quarters of the female characters in TV situation comedies are underweight, and only one in 20 are above average in size.
  • Heavier actresses tend to receive negative comments from male characters about their bodies
  • 80% of these negative comments are followed by canned audience laughter."
Ingrid Sande

Early Drinking - Early Drinking a Warning Sign for Later Problems - 0 views

  • Children who are drinking alcohol by 7th grade are more likely to suffer employment problems, abuse other drugs, and commit criminal and violent acts once they reach young adulthood, according to a RAND Health study.
  • "Early alcohol use is a signal that someone is likely to have more problems as they transition into adulthood."
  • Underage drinking is a major national problem, with estimates suggesting that by the 8th grade one-fourth of all adolescents have consumed alcohol to the point of intoxication.
  •  
    Children who are drinking alcohol by 7th grade are more likely to suffer employment problems, abuse other drugs, and commit criminal and violent acts once they reach young adulthood, according to a RAND Health study.
Shumona Raha

Euthanasia - Described and Debated - 0 views

  • active and passive
  • the elimination of the old, weak, and disabled.
  • People who are "not useful" could be exterminated simply for that reason
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  • request death for the sick because of questionable reasons. Someone might only be thinking of their own gain, knowing that they are mentioned in a will.
  • Many believe that "only God can give life and only God should take it away" (Cundiff, 64). There is also the question to consider of the fallibility of physicians. Many lives could be ended too hastily as a result of incorrect prognosis or diagnosis.
  • While the pain should be treated (for example, with painkillers), the person should not be forced to live through methods like life-support,
  • In most cases, people who request assisted suicide or euthanasia are actually crying for help
  • Euthanasia could easily become a way to minimize health care costs.
  • physicians are being offered cash bonuses if they fail to provide care for their patients. Doctors could face financial risks for actually doing their jobs.
  • Medical care is something that must be provided. We cannot walk out on people who are suffering
  • No person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibility of any person by whom death may be inflicted on the person by whom consent is given.
  • it is called passive
  • "the government [does] not have the right to [allow] one group of people . . . to kill another group of people"
  • The government also does not intend to make anyone suffer
  • The allowance of euthanasia would open up doors of undesirable practices.
Shaakya Vembar

You Say Potato, I Say Cassava: Language, Culture and Perception: Scientific American Po... - 0 views

  • "Do you think its just a coincidence that the same culture that uses this kind of indeterminate word is the culture that came up with the uncertainty principle
  • we are obsessed with time, we talk about time all the time and in fact time is the number one noun in terms of usage according to the Oxford [English] Dictionary.
  • So we are talking about time all the time, but if you actually ask someone to define what time is, [they] really can't do it.
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  • So how do we talk about time? We talk about it metaphorically, and for the most part and this not just in English, but across the world in many different languages.
  • So the metaphors we have like time being a landscape that we are moving across; so we talk about "coming up to Thanksgiving," as though Thanksgiving is a location that we are moving towards, but we also sometimes talk about time as something that's moving while we are static.
  • Kuuk Thaayorre, the language of Pormpuraaw, is that time moves for them from east to west, so they don't talk about it as moving from east to west, but in terms of nonlinguistic cognition—we've tested this in various ways—they seem to depict it as moving from east to west
Puja DeGamia

media influence on anorexia - 0 views

  • connection between the increasing thinness of so many celebrities and the alarmingly rapid rise in eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa?
  • much debate still centers around the extent of media influence on anorexia.
  • despite the evidence
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  • accept that extreme thinness is anorexia.
  • norexia is the desire to maintain a lower body weight than is normal and healthy.
  • If a little girl sees a variety of thin/anorexic celebrities on TV, in magazines, decides with her friends that they are beautiful, that she'd like to look like them and, in an attempt to do so, she proceeds to lose 20 kilos, she's anorexic!
  • The danger is that the numbers of women who have uncomfortable thoughts about their bodies are far, far higher than those suffering from full blown anorexia
  • once these thoughts have first sprung into existence, all they need is a little nourishment to make them sprout roots...and grow.
  • First into a diet, often into an eating disorder such as anorexia.
  • she just feels inadequate and guilty because she can't bring herself to starve her body to the same extent as the models and celebrities do.
  • it's impossible to find a magazine without at least one spread on some amazing diet and exercise regime, always with the implicit message that we are 'wrong/lazy' if we don't follow it.
  • not only does media influence on anorexia exist, anorexia is deliberately being perpetuated by the media and the mixed messages it portrays
  • he media, especially ads and commercials for appearance-related items, suggest that we can avoid the hard character work by making our bodies into copies of the icons of success.
  • ads reveals a not-so-subtle message ? ‘You are not acceptable the way you are. The only way you can become acceptable is to buy our product and try to look like our model, who is six feet tall and wears size four jeans - and is probably anorexic’
  • In 1995, before television came to their island, the people of Fiji thought the ideal body was round, plump, and soft. After 38 months of Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210 and similar Western shows being beamed into their homes, Fijian teenage girls showed serious signs of eating disorders.
  • To underestimate media influence on anorexia is to underestimate the power it has to influence the self esteem of us all.
Puja DeGamia

Debate: Portrayal of women in mass media - Debatepedia - 0 views

  • A big part of media audience consists of teenagers, who are particularly vulnerable
  • This is because the mentality of young people is in the process of formation.
  • The impact of media on the morality of the younger generation can affect the future of our society negatively.
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  • Women are portrayed as perfect models. Although very often "Photoshop-edited",
  • hile stressing the importance of being slim. This leads in consequence to "promotion of anorexia", which is clearly undesirable.
  • Many girls idolize models and feel the need to mirror their thinness.
  • Models of a very low weight are setting bad examples to these girls
  • can be held responsible for the increasing number of girls with eating disorders
  • The fashion industry is not to blame for eating disorders. Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses and are not simply triggered by models and images of thin people.
Dillon Patel

Solar Cycles Cause Global Warming & Cooling, not Humans - 0 views

  • Planetary warming has also been observed on Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and on Neptune's largest moon Triton during the decades following the peak of the "Solar Grand Maximum" - wonder why - there are no humans there!
  • And Pluto is moving further from the sun in its orbit,
  • it should be cooling, but instead it is warming.
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  • due to solar changes rather than mere human antics.
  • t Earth's oceans are now beginning to cool.
  • The Earth heats up after a Solar Grand Maximum, lagging a bit after the peak. With a Solar Grand Minimum now on its way, a "global cooling" is on the horizon--a natural oscillation occurring in much longer solar cycles.
  • continue to ignore all of this, perpetuating fear and advocating spending billions of dollars on non-solutions.
  • humans contribute to greenhouse gases,
  • the overall effect is a tiny fraction compared to natural causes.
  •  
    Humans ARE NOT the cause of Global Warming. Against my argument.
Anjan Narain

Essay on Euthanasia in America - 0 views

  • Euthanasia is a choice everyone should have, but like all rights, it should not be taken advantage of. By legalizing euthanasia the practice of assisted suicide would be an available choice as well as regulated to see that it does not get abused and used for the wrong reasons.
  • My four primary arguments for legalizing euthanasia are as follows: The mercy argument, which states that the immense pain and indignity of prolonged suffering, cannot be ignored. We are being inhumane to force people to continue suffering this way. The patients right to self-determination.
  • The reality argument. "Let's face it people are already doing it".
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  • Some terminally ill patients who have been denied assistance in dying, have attempted to terminate they're suffering by ending their lives themselves or with the help of loved ones, who are not trained in medicine. Some patients have botched their suicides and brought further suffering to themselves and those around them. Patients should not have to resort to suicide to end their suffering. It is their life, their pain. They should be able to get the treatment they want.
  • " if we so choose, the end of life need not be preceded by intolerable pain, or by senility and loss of bodily functions.” Death with dignity is the right of every person who faces an incurable, painful or degrading future.
  • Caring for terminally ill patients requires a vast amount of money. In 1997, shortly after the senate voted to overturn the Northern Territory's euthanasia law, doctors from both sides of the euthanasia lobby united in calling for more funds for palliative care. There is a requirement for several hundred million dollars extra to really adequately provide for the needs of the dying, particularly in country areas.
  • Why does the government choose to outlaw euthanasia when it is done anyway? Legalizing it would mean that patients would be able to consult doctors, and not resort to taking it into their own hands, making it safer and better. There would be no need for suicide attempts; consequently there would be less tragedies
  • Passive euthanasia is defined as allowing a patient to die by withholding treatment, while active euthanasia is defined as taking measures that directly cause a patient's death
  • Those who argue against active euthanasia understand that there is a demand for active euthanasia as a response "to the fear of entrapment in a technologically sophisticated, seemingly uncaring world of medicine
  • offers several arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of active euthanasia, one of which is an argument from mercy. He begins by describing a classic case where a person named Jack is terminally ill and in unbearable pain and states that Jack's condition alone is a compelling reason for the permissibility of active mercy killing.
  • active euthanasia is morally permissible since it produces the greatest happiness
  • . The categorical imperative supports active euthanasia since no one would willfully universalize a rule, which condemns people to unbearable pain before death. It is also reasoned that it is considered bad to be the cause of someone's death and that death is regarded as a great evil. However, if it has been decided that active or passive euthanasia is desirable in a given case, it has also been decided that in this instance death is no greater an evil than the patient's continued existence
  • A good point is raised here, because death is supposedly inevitable in either case, so according to Rachel, if a doctor allows a patient to die or gives him a lethal injection, then the motives and ends are essentially the same.
  • In conclusion, denying patients the right to die with dignity and lucidity is unfair and cruel. If physician assisted suicide means giving a patient the right to choose between a life without dignity and hope, or ending their pain and suffering with an honorable closure on life, than it should be permitted.
  • When a patient has no desire to go on living and wants to die before their condition gets worse, they should be allowed to decide how their life ends and why. Assisted suicide is known to have been going on without fanfare and without legal support for many years. It is time to give physician-assisted suicide the legal justification that it deserves.
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