Tag Archives: children

Artistry of ‘Contre Jour’ Comes to the Web with Internet Explorer 10

By Guest PostOctober 9, 2012Technologyartistry, atari, black, book, busy summer, children, contre jour, creature, danny elfman, david ari leon, debussy, Environment, feedback, film director, french, gaming experience, html5, internet explorer, le petit prince, maksym hryniv, master composer, mokus games, multitouch, music, one eyed, petit, piano solo, pulse, ravel, satie, sin city, the find, tim burton, ukrainian developer, visual feature, web, white, windows 8

Game’s creator brings his vision to life with Internet Explorer’s immersive multitouch capabilities.

REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 9, 2012 — After a busy summer with The Find, Pulse and Atari, Internet Explorer 10 today brings another well-known gaming experience to the Web in HTML5. The experience immerses users into a game rich with artistry and music, all while main character Petit – the one-eyed creature – seeks to save his love, The Rose. This world is “Contre Jour,” which is now available to play online as an interactive multitouch experience on the Web with Internet Explorer 10.

“Contre Jour” is not your typical game. Designed by Ukrainian developer Maksym (Max) Hryniv, the game draws many of its visual features, such as the use of black-and-white environment, from modern film noir titles such as “Sin City.” This design aesthetic is at the heart of the game. When making the decision to bring it to the Web, Hryniv was concerned whether it would really be possible. Assuming he could even build it, would any browser be capable of supporting the rich design, visual features and gameplay that requires multiple simultaneous touch gestures (i.e., multitouch)? After seeing Internet Explorer 10, the browser for Windows 8 that is leading the industry in its multitouch capabilities, he was willing to give it a try. (more…)

Chain of Violence: Study Shows Impact on Palestinian and Israeli Children

By Guest PostAugust 23, 2012Culture, General, Politicsactual violence, aggressive behaviour, chain of violence, children, eric dubow, israeli, israeli arab, israeli jewish, khalil shikaki, l rowell huesmann, middle east, neighborhood, palestinian, palestinian children, paul boxer, shira gvirsman, simha landau

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Children exposed to ethnic and political violence in the Middle East are more aggressive than other children, a new study shows. And the younger children are, the more strongly they are affected, in a “chain of violence” that goes from political and ethnic strife, to violence in communities, schools, and families, and ends with their own aggressive behavior.

“Our results have important implications for understanding how political struggles spill over into the everyday lives of families and children,” says psychologist Paul Boxer, lead author of the study.

The study, forthcoming in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development, was conducted by a consortium of researchers from the U.S., Palestine, and Israel, and funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health. (more…)

Divorced Couples’ Co-Parenting Relationships Can Improve, MU Researcher Says

By Guest PostAugust 19, 2012Culturechildren, communicating issues, conflict, divorced couple, divorced mother, ex spouse, family studies, hostile relationship, human development, kansas state university, marilyn coleman, marriage, mindy markham, the bad, the good, the ugly, university of missouri

Focusing on children instead of relationship problems helps separated couples parent effectively, civilly

COLUMBIA, Mo. – New research conducted at the University of Missouri offers hope for divorced parents and suggests hostile relationships can improve when ex-spouses set aside their differences and focus on their children’s needs.

“Most people falsely believe that, when people get divorced, they’ll continue to fight, to be hostile,” said Marilyn Coleman, Curators’ Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at MU. “We found in our study that’s not always true. Some couples get along from the very beginning, and, for about half of the women we interviewed, the couples whose relationships started badly improved over time.” (more…)

Molecular Spectroscopy Tracks Living Mammalian Cells in Real Time as They Differentiate

By Guest PostMay 2, 2012Scienceals, alzheimer's disease, amino acid residues, apoptosis, bacteria, berkeley lab, carbohydrates, cell change, cell death, children, diabetes, fibroblasts, fluorescent dyes, fourier transform infrared, ftir, function, hans bechtel, hoi ying, hyperspectromicroscopy, ir, kevin loutherback, liang chen, lipids, macular degeneration, michael martin, mitochondrial diseases, pc12, phosphorylation, phosphorylation process, power plant, protein, rafael gomez sjoberg, retina, san diego, serine, spectromicroscopy, threonine, tyrosine, ultraviolet, university of california, zhao hao

Berkeley Lab scientists demonstrate the promise of synchrotron infrared spectroscopy of living cells for medical applications

Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation to differentiation to metabolism to signaling, and even programmed cell death (apoptosis), in cells from bacteria to humans. It’s a chemical process that has long been intensively studied, not least in hopes of treating or eliminating a wide range of diseases. But until now the close-up view – watching phosphorylation work at the molecular level as individual cells change over time – has been impossible without damaging the cells or interfering with the very processes that are being examined.

“To look into phosphorylation, researchers have labeled specific phosphorylated proteins with antibodies that carry fluorescent dyes,” says Hoi-Ying Holman of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). “That gives you a great image, but you have to know exactly what to label before you can even begin.” (more…)

Dennis Hogan: Understanding Families of Children with Disabilities

By Guest PostApril 22, 2012General, Mediabest job, challenge, children, consequence, courtney coelho, dennis hogan, disability, down syndrome, family, katie beckett, oxygen tank, parent, plethora, raising robbie, rhode island, russell sage foundation, ssi, supplemental security income

In his recently published book, Family Consequences of Children’s Disabilities, Dennis Hogan offers the first comprehensive account of families of children with disabilities. He talked with Courtney Coelho about his findings, including some of the more surprising ways having a child with a disability can affect the family structure.

Families of children with disabilities often face a plethora of challenges, ranging from the financial to the emotional. Still, little research has been done to document exactly how families are affected by a child with a disablity. Dennis Hogan’s recently published book, Family Consequences of Children’s Disabilities (Russell Sage Foundation), is the first comprehensive account of these experiences. Motivated by his own experience of growing up with a brother with Down syndrome, Hogan, the Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor of Population Studies, merged existing data with interviews with more than two dozen family members of disabled children. He talked with Courtney Coelho about his findings, including some of the more surprising ways having a child with a disability can affect the family structure. (more…)

Seeing Double: 1 in 30 Babies Born in U.S. is a Twin

By Guest PostApril 4, 2012Healthbarbara luke, birth of twins, children, fertility therapies, fertility treatment, fetal loss, fetuses, joyce martin, medication, ovulation stimulation, reproductive technologies, twin, twin birth, united states, women

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Women having children at older ages and the growing availability of fertility treatments has led to a marked increase in the birth of twins: In 2009, one in every 30 babies born in the United States was a twin compared with one in every 53 in 1980.

The findings, presented by Michigan State University’s Barbara Luke this week at the 14th Congress of the International Society of Twin Studies in Florence, Italy, have important health implications, including greater morbidity and mortality risks and higher health care costs. (more…)

U of T Research Demonstrates How Children Learn About Prejudice

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2012Generalanjum nayyar, children, elementary school, external instruction, kang and inzlicht, kids, michael inzlicht, negative experience, prejudice, red group, sonia kang, toronto, university of toronto

How do children come to realize that they themselves might be targets of prejudice? It may depend on their age. New research conducted at the University of Toronto shows that a six-year-old may be influenced most by direct instruction about prejudice, but once that child gets closer to 10, she begins to rely more on her own experiences.

“Young children are information hungry – they are eagerly searching for general rules to help in mapping out their social worlds,” write researchers Sonia Kang, an assistant professor in the Department of Management at U of T Mississauga and the Rotman School of Management, and Professor Michael Inzlicht of the Department of Psychology in this month’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. (more…)

Extreme Poverty: 2.8 Million Children in the U.S. Live on $2 per Day

By Guest PostFebruary 26, 2012Economyamerican children, children, economic climate, food stamp program, gallon of milk, h luke shaefer, harvard kennedy school, households, income, kathryn edin, national poverty center, poverty, poverty trends, snap

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— One in five households with children in poverty are surviving on the cash equivalent of a half gallon of milk per person per day in a given month.

The National Poverty Center has released a new report that examines poverty trends between 1996 and 2011. The number of households with children who are in extreme poverty in a given month—living at $2 or less in income per person per day—in 2011 totaled roughly 1.46 million households, including 2.8 million kids. This number is up from 636,000 households in 1996, nearly a 130 percent increase. (more…)