Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

roelbj writes "Automotive stories are few and far between on Slashdot, but today's news from Chevrolet might just make a few readers' mouths water at the chance to own their own Bumblebee. Today at Comic-Con, General Motors officially announced the 2010 Chevy Camaro Transformers Special Edition. The $995 appearance package can be applied to LT (V6) and SS-trim Camaros in Rally Yellow with or without the optional RS package."

mightysquirrel writes "It's been a year since Bill Gates left Microsoft in his official capacity. At the time many speculated his departure would spark a significant shift in Redmond. But how much has really changed during Microsoft's first year without Gates?"

mir42 writes "The OpenSource multimedia authorware project Sophie, formerly hosted by USC Los Angeles, may just have been killed by new funding. The original funding organization, Mellon Foundation, approved a grant to redevelop the four year project from scratch in Java. The grant was awarded to a Bulgarian company based on their proposal, which is simply an exact description, including the UI and the artwork, of the current Sophie. Being an OpenSource project, this isn't strictly illegal, but let's say, not nice and definitely not innovative, coming from a former sub-sub-contractor on the project. Some of the original, now laid-off developers started OpenSophie.org trying to salvage the project. As the current version is still somewhat buggy and slow, it might just be enough to alienate all potential users of Sophie to the point that nobody will even try to use the next version. Have others faced similar situations? How would you deal with a situation like this?"

Kotaku has up a feature piece looking at the opening of a new studio in mainland China. Staffed by expatriate Western game developers, it represents something that founders Chris Pfeiffer and Max Garber see as a future trend: developing games in the west is soul-crushing. The two participated in the grind to get Resistance: Fall of Man out in time for the PlayStation 3 launch, and have now opened a studio with the goal of 'making great games while living a good life.' Lower costs in China allow for a higher standard of living, while labour laws will force game studios to stick to rational work-weeks. Pfeiffer also suggests that the overwhelming costs involved in making games will force U.S. studios to outsource development work to Asian nations. When that happens, Pfeiffer's studio and compatriots will be ready.