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Medicine

Doing Internet Searches Boosts Older Brains 65

Posted by kdawson from the you-are-what-you-search dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Medical News Daily reports that researchers have found signs of enhanced neural stimulation in parts of the brain that control decision-making and reasoning when they scanned the brains of middle-aged and older first-time Internet users after only seven days of performing Internet searches. 'We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function,' says Dr Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. At the start of the study, the participants performed Internet searches while the researchers took fMRI scans of their brains to track changes in blood flow in the brain and record subtle changes in neural activity. After practicing searching the Internet for 7 days over 2 weeks at home, the brains of the Internet novices showed activity in the same regions as before, but this time there was new activity in the middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, the parts of the brain that are important for working memory and decision-making. 'You can exercise your mind by using the Internet, but it depends on how it's used,' adds Small. 'If you get hooked on gambling or eBay shopping, that may not be positive.'"

Comment Open OS not open Market (Score 3, Informative) 361

by Walker_Boh_Druid (#27427847) Attached to: Google Bans Tethering App From Android Market
Just because the project and OS are open source doesn't mean Google's Marketplace have to be. Anyone who's used the phone knows it's incredibly simple to install apps from the web without using the marketplace at all. Banning it from the marketplace isn't banning it from the phone, it's merely Google's way of saying they're not condoning this type of use. It's still possible to tether.

Comment Experience (Score 5, Insightful) 82

by Walker_Boh_Druid (#27119385) Attached to: Is It Worth Developing Good Games For the Web?
I think generally most people who are producing web games are doing so less to make money in the short term and more for the experience that it gives them. Producing a web game lets people test it quickly and you'll get a fast response as to whether they like it or not. Seems like most people I know producing games online do so to expand their personal work portfolios. As for facebook, it's not exactly a great cross section of the average web user.

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