Here’s a fun video to start your week with, this old fellow plays all day for his health and to inspire his next invention. He wants all people from kids to seniors to play all day, everyday to help their mental and physical health. At the very least, his enthusiasm is infectious.
Thanks to Christine!
There is strong evidence that physical activity and good grades at school are directly connected. It’s a good idea to let kids go outside and just run around!
“The findings of one high-quality intervention study and one high-quality observational study suggest that being more physically active is positively related to improved academic performance in children,” the authors write.
The article suggests several reasons for such a link:
- Exercise improves blood and oxygen flow to the brain, improving cognition.
- Exercise boosts levels of endorphins and norepinephrine, decreasing stress and improving mood.
- Exercise helps to create new nerve cells and supports synaptic plasticity.
If you thought playing games was just for fun, well Foldit is a game that has people solve problems for science. That itself is pretty neat, but what pushes this one over the edge is that Foldit has brought some great results and fast!
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — using a set of online tools.
To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
Cracking the enzyme “provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs,” says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem.
“We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” Firas Khatib of the university’s biochemistry lab said in a press release.
Thanks Kathryn!
As one of the organizers of this event I hope you all make it out to Board Game Jam! We’re putting together a weekend filled with building board games and playing them. We figure that through play we can build a bunch of games to bring more fun to the world as well as liven up the gaming community.
It’s happening January 29th-30th and we’d love to see you come out and make a game – particularly if the game is about good things!
Board Game Jam is an opportunity to play creatively with a freedom not normally seen these days. It’s a celebration of simplicity, and a return to some pretty awesome fundamentals. Do you love board games? Then you’re perfectly qualified to do this.
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The point is that board games are both wonderfully accessible and quite deep. Everyone can intuitively understand the basics of what goes into making a board game. On a mechanical level, it’s simple arts and crafts. For people looking to be creative, that can be a great change from making a film or any kind of digital media, which require significant technical knowledge and a team of specialists. But making a board game can be lead you down a rabbit-hole into a world of rich creative exploration and sophisticated design. Like the best games of any sort, making a board game is both easy to learn, and tough to master.
Check out Board Game Jam!
Here’s the Facebook event page.
The game scene in Toronto is booming and this is a good thing. Games can bring people together in many aways, sometimes through online interaction, butI think the best connections come from playing games in person with other people. Indeed, a new cafe called Snakes and Lattes has opened in Toronto that caters to playing games with friends and strangers.
Now, a friend of Things Are Good is combining a scavenger hunt with beer. It’s to promote small breweries and encourage people to explore the streets of Toronto. Readers of this site will probably remember that we think beer is good. Just don’t drink too much in one sitting.
“This is an opportunity for people to show off their knowledge of both beer and Toronto in a fun and competitive way,†said Mirella Amato, Owner of Beerology. “While the focus of the event is on beer, it is also about discovering Toronto in a new light, making it a fun addition to Toronto Beer Week.â€
“Urban adventures test skill as much as determination, and this is an event that will appeal to adults with a broad range of ages, knowledge, and interests, so there is something for everyone,†adds Rachel Young, Co-founder of Camaraderie. “Team work and collaboration are definitely encouraged.â€