Blog Archive
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2009
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September
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- Sixty gun salutes fired marking China’s 60th anniv...
- China kicks off National Day extravaganza
- The60th anniversary of the founding of the People'...
- 60th anniversary of China's National Day
- News Today
- Rome: 10 Things to Do in 24 Hours
- Do-It-Yourself Translations Through Facebook Connect
- 1-800-Flowers Gets Analytics Tool for Measuring Fa...
- Mad Men Keeps Viewers Involved Through Interactive...
- YouTube Falls Short In Facebook Popularity Contest...
- Love, pleasure, duty: Why women have sex
- Plan your ideal walking workout
- Parents clueless when it comes to kids' growth charts
- 'Sorry I Haven't Written': A Scientific Explanation
- What You Need To Know About The H1N1 Vaccine
- News Today
- T-ara Celebrates Chuseok
- Rain’s Shanghai Concert Is A Scam
- Wonder Girls’ Diary in America Part 1
- Kris Allen Working With Adele and Duffy's Collabor...
- Rob Thomas' 'Someday' Music Video Debuted
- Radiohead's Thom Yorke Forms New Band With RHCP's ...
- Mitchel Musso's 'Shout It' Music Video Comes Out
- Lady GaGa Reveals Storyline of Her Joint Tour With...
- Mayday Parade Premiere 'The Silence' Music Video
- '90210' 2.05 Preview: Naomi Goes Green
- Preview of 'Melrose Place' 1.05: Canon
- 'Grey's Anatomy' Welcomes Sarah Drew as New Doctor
- A New Trailer of Epic Miniseries 'The Pacific'
- The Sue Storm of 'Fantastic Four' is in talks to j...
- Jessica Alba to Stir Things Up in 'Little Fockers'
- 'Whip It!': On the Set With Jimmy Fallon, Ellen Pa...
- Sylvester Stallone in New 'The Expendables' Photo
- 'Avatar' Sequel Could Explore Pandora Deeper
- Mandy Moore Talks Disney's 'Rapunzel'
- Emmy Rossum Reportedly Dating Counting Crows' Adam...
- Jon Cryer and Wife Lisa Joyner Adopt a Baby Girl
- Christina Milian and The-Dream Planning Another We...
- Private Memorial Service for Patrick Swayze Set fo...
- Scarlett Johansson: 'I Have Terrible Stage Fright'
- Karina Smirnoff Has New Boyfriend
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- The Obama Assassination Poll — Another Story About...
- New England Patriots Use Facebook As Primary Onlin...
- Taylor Swift’s Facebook Page Still Growing Fast, W...
- Miami: 10 Things to Do in 24 Hours
- Want to Lose Weight? Avoid Skinny Overeaters
- Scientists Announce Trove of Fragile New Species i...
- Miss Switzerland 2009 Linda Faeh
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- Giant panda twin cub
- T-ara And Supernova To Unleash TTL Listen.2
- What’s long, black and fits nicely in SNSD’s hands?
- Opening Dance Stage at Girl Groups Chuseok Special
- Sugababes' Amelle Reportedly Receives Death Threat...
- Snippet of The Queen Project's Debut Single
- Weezer Will Duet With Lil Wayne on 'Can't Stop Par...
- Lady GaGa Named Billboard's Rising Star
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- 'Camp Rock 2' Invites Fans to Join the Filming
- 'One Tree Hill' 7.04 Preview: Believe Me, I'm Lying
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- 'Wizards of Waverly Place' Receives More Episodes
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- Oren Peli's 'Paranormal Activity' Expands to 20 Mo...
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- 'New Moon' Unleashes Three Fresh Character Posters
- No 'Valentine's Day' for Joe Jonas
- First Look at Amanda in 'Saw VI'
- Plot Details on Robert Rodriguez's 'Predators'
- 'The Princess and the Frog': Extended Clip and Fea...
- Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush 'Totally Back Toget...
- Emmy Rossum's Husband Justin Siegel Files for Divorce
- Robert Pattinson Isn't an 'Attention-Seeker'
- Hayden Panettiere Denies Dating Kevin Connolly
- Fred Durst and Wife Divorcing
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- Iran Says It Test-Fires Longest-Range Missiles
- Five insider strategies for avoiding a hotel billi...
- Chicago: 10 Things to Do in 24 Hours
- Cartoons of the Week, September 26, 2009 - October...
- How Can A Pregnant Woman Get Pregnant Again?
- Why Doctors Are Giving Heroin to Heroin Addicts
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- Follow Ivy Behind the Scenes
- Lee Hyori’s New Album is going to be off the hook!
- JQT Releases Teaser
- Brown Eyed Girls @ Circle Nightclub Teaser!
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- Artist of the Week: Mariah Carey
- Video: Jenny Slate Dropped the F-Word on 'Saturday...
- 'Amazing Race' Eliminates Two Pairs Early in Its S...
- Cloudy with a Chance' Sticks to Box Office's Top
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- Tickets for Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' On Sale
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- Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom's Wedding Is On, t...
- Justin Guarini Weds Fiancee Reina Capodici
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September
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Thursday, September 24, 2009
How Xbox Can Help Fight Heart Disease
functioning virtual heart to help train cardiologists and doctorsIan Nicholson / PA / AP Countless medical studies have concluded that playing too many video games can be harmful to one's health. Now, however, it turns out that one of the more popular video-game consoles on the market, the Xbox 360, could be used to save lives. A computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England has devised a way to use an Xbox 360 to detect heart defects and help prevent heart attacks. The new tool has the potential to revolutionize the medical industry because it is both faster and cheaper than the computer systems that are currently used by scientists to perform complex heart research. The system, detailed in a study in the August edition of the Journal of Computational Biology and Chemistry, is based on a video-game demo created by Simon Scarle two years ago when he was a software engineer at Microsoft's Rare studio, the division of the U.S.-based company that designs games for the Xbox 360. Scarle modified a chip in the console so that instead of producing graphics for the game, it now delivers data tracking how electrical signals in the heart move around damaged cardiac cells. This creates a model of the heart that allows doctors to identify heart defects or conditions such as arrhythmia, a disturbance in the normal rhythm of the heart that causes it to pump less effectively. "This is a clever use of a processing chip ... to speed up calculations of heart rhythm. What used to take hours can be calculated in seconds, without having to employ an extremely expensive, high-performance computer," Denis Noble, director of Computational Physiology at Oxford University, tells TIME. To create a heart model now, researchers must use supercomputers or a network of PCs to crunch millions of mathematical equations relating to the proteins, cells and tissues of the heart, a time-consuming and costly process. Scarle's Xbox system can deliver the same results at a rate five times faster and 10 times more cheap, according to the study. "These game consoles aren't just glorified toys. [They] are pieces of very powerful computing hardware," Scarle says. "I can see this ... being most useful for students and early-career scientists to just quickly and cheaply grab that extra bit of computing power they otherwise wouldn't be able to get." Scarle attributes his breakthrough creation to his unusual background of working as a software engineer in the gaming industry and performing electrocardio-dynamics research at the University of Sheffield in England. The idea for the heart-modeling tool came from a "little shooter game" he developed at Microsoft in which a player trys to gun down enemies in an arena meant to resemble a heart. "I did a game-ified version of my old cardiac code. I could actually present some 'proper' science [based on] the cool things us game developers do," Scarle says. The Xbox 360 isn't the only video-game console that is being used for scientific research. At the University of Massachusetts campus in Dartmouth, scientists are using Sony PlayStations to simulate black-hole collisions to try to solve the mystery of what happens when a supermassive black hole swallows a star. So perhaps parents shouldn't be too worried if their children are spending an inordinate amount of time playing video games. Who knows, today's Grand Theft Auto or Halo addict may end up discovering a new moon around Saturn or finding a cure for cancer. source : time.com