- Russia may send spacecraft to knock away asteroid – From Infinite Monkey.
- Enhanced plasma accelerates the healing process – “The athletes own platelets and plasma, extracted from his own blood are injected into the injured tissue and injuries that once required surgery are healed with injections.” From Mark.
- Plant uses “mind control” chemical to make ants do its bidding – From Steve.
- Study finds women play harder than men in online games – “The women play more intensely than the guys…They’re less likely to quit, and they’re happier playing.”
Yeah, reposted the gaming one, since my ex has discovered the wonders of DDO…
I am skeptical of the enhanced plasma injections.
If concentrating the platelets work so well, why didn’t evolution cause this to happen?
NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/sports/17blood.html
@NewEnglandBob: I’m not sure about this but platelets seem expensive.
Re: Video Games? Yeah not surprised to hear any of the results of this. A tiny group of women I PVPed with in WoW would be the most blood thirsty. And always more violent when it was just us. No boys allowed. They are wusses.
Most of my WOW characters are female, does that count?
A few reasons, @NewEnglandBob:
1) There may be downsides to having constantly enhanced platelet production… such as excessive clotting, which would lead to strokes and heart attacks. At least, that’s what a quick perusal of the Wikipedia article, combined with some almost-20-years-old Shadowrun supplements tell me.
2) It may be a mutation that simply didn’t catch on for other reasons… if it developed recently (past 2000 years or so), for example, our technology would mean that it would not pose a significant survival advantage, especially compared to the weight of humanity.
3) Jesus doesn’t love us enough. After all, only his blood can save us.
@Zapski: The just means you like looking at a woman’s ass as you recreate. Though if you play Tauren, I’m calling the ASPCA.
“Tropical Plant Uses ‘Mind Control’ Chemical to Make Ants Do Its Bidding”
Wait…. I think I saw that movie….
Trying to come up with a decent “In Soviet Russia…” tagline for the Apophis asteroid story, but failing miserably… :(
Anyone? Bueller?
Odd thing about the online gaming study is that its using data from a sampling of Everquest II players and trying to make statements about the general case.
That’s like sampling Shasta afficianados and saying you’d captured the demographics of soday drinkers.
Am I thinking that Russia, with their “intervention” is just going to make matters worse?
“In Soviet Russia, if astroid not going to hit, we make it hit!”
@MonTemplar: The problem with that is that the pure version of those jokes were about how things were comically bad in soviet russia. This is about something that’s just different or, arguably, better.
“In soviet russia, asteroid impacts you.” Doesn’t work because the story is about them trying to make it not do that, for example.
Regardless, it is remarkably forward thinking that they’re using a known low-risk target to practice on, given that a high-risk one wouldn’t exactly allow you and do-overs.
@swordsbane: Invasion of the Colony Snatchers?
infinitemonkey: Could be….. though I might just be remembering the last time I watched C-SPAN…
I’ve heard psychologists say men are more aggresive, but women are more competitive.
I occasionally wonder is that’s a distinction without a difference.
@NewEnglandBob:
Evolution is not a pro-active process. It’s a process where things change and hopefully don’t kill us all off, and sometimes those changes help us. It doesn’t take notes and change accordingly.
I just wish I could play a video game with Mr. Bug without having to let him win :(
Frustrating!!
@Elyse: I’ve often thought of evolution as more of an eraser for things that don’t work as well as other things that come along.
@SKrap: I was wondering about that myself, since I don’t know much about online game playing.
Re: online gaming – Felicia Day (of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Buffy TVS and Dollhouse fame) has a great comedy web series on YouTube called The Guild. It’s a satirical story about a fictional group of MMORPG addicts, and what happens when they are forced to associate offline. Felicia writes all of the episodes and is the principal star. Having spent 2 years of her life hopelessly caught up in W0W, she knows what she parodies! There are 3 seasons available to watch so far. She’s had some notable guest stars, including Wil Wheaton (in a kilt!) and Nichelle Nichols. Definitely worth checking out… I’m not an online gamer, and totally get it, and love it! (Of course, my crush on Felicia Day weighs in there too….)
@SKrap: While I don’t necessarily disagree with the findings, I completely agree that the study was far too limited. First of all, EQII is a poor choice in the first place as it’s an older game and its community is fairly insular. Second, if you were going to pick a game most likely to be attractive to female gamers, EQII would be among the games at the top of the list. I’d like to see a study that included, say, EVE Online, which I believe skews more male.
Basically any article claiming a generalization to “online videogames” and is based on the population of one old game has a highly shaky premise to begin with.
It would also be interesting to see what part of the game the women spent their time on. I bet the time difference can partially be accounted for by the retardedly time-consuming crafting system in EQ2. I know a lot of female players from that game who had far more crafting characters than the guys at the same level of play.
In Soviet Russia, asteroid hits YOU!