Sir Richard Branson Joins 'Kiters' To Boost Ocean Conservation

Sir Richard Branson delivering the keynote address at last year's inaugural Ocean Gala. Photo credit: Ruprecht Studios. (PRNewsFoto/The Ocean Gala)

Jackson Browne, Dr. Sylvia Earle, and Rob Stewart expected to walk the 'Blue Carpet' at The Ocean Gala

Luminaries Sir Richard Branson, Jackson Browne, Mission Blue heroine Dr. Sylvia Earle, and Sharkwater creator Rob Stewart will attend The Ocean Gala, a benefit for ocean conservation in San Francisco on December 3, 2016.

The second annual Ocean Gala (#TheOceanGala) organized by MaiTai Global and OceanElders brings together global leaders in business and kiteboarding communities for a fundraiser to raise awareness and support for ocean causes.

Psychology Behind The Unfunny Consequences Of Jokes That Denigrate

A joke isn’t just a joke. elycefeliz, CC BY-NC-ND

By Thomas E. Ford, Western Carolina University

Q: Why did the woman cross the road?
A: Who cares! What the hell is she doing out of the kitchen? 

Q: Why hasn’t NASA sent a woman to the moon?
A: It doesn’t need cleaning yet!

These two jokes represent disparagement humor – any attempt to amuse through the denigration of a social group or its representatives. You know it as sexist or racist jokes – basically anything that makes a punchline out of a marginalized group.

Disparagement humor is paradoxical: It simultaneously communicates two conflicting messages. One is an explicit hostile or prejudiced message. But delivered alongside is a second implicit message that “it doesn’t count as hostility or prejudice because I didn’t mean it — it’s just a joke.”

By disguising expressions of prejudice in a cloak of fun and frivolity, disparagement humor, like the jokes above, appears harmless and trivial. However, a large and growing body of psychology research suggests just the opposite – that disparagement humor can foster discrimination against targeted groups.

Gaming In The Classroom: What We Can Learn From #PokemonGO Technology

Despite the negative press, Pokémon Go should be approached with an open mind when it comes to student education. (AAP Image/David Moir, CC BY)

Pokémon Go has already had over 100 million downloads since it launched in July.

Despite its popularity, it has received significant negative media attention, with reports of people falling off cliffs, crashing cars and trespassing. The game has even been attacked for turning users into anti-social zombies.

Yet there could be more positive aspects to the phenomenon if we look past its entertainment value and the moral panic some have attached to it. For instance, how could we potentially harness this app, and the technology associated with it, to support education?

Pokémon Go is not the first augmented reality (AR) app, but it is by far the most popular.
Unlike virtual reality, which replaces or simulates reality, AR takes reality and adds something to it.

Bar codes, QR codes, Viewa - which allows readers to watch videos related to magazine content by scanning the page with their phones – and sound-recognition apps such as Shazam are all examples of AR that have been embraced by society.

QR codes are an example of augmented reality that has been embraced by society. (wikimedia.com, CC BY-SA)

In education, AR has already been employed to make otherwise difficult concepts, such as the structure of DNA or the inner workings of the heart, more accessible.

We know that effective teaching is more than a teacher in front of a whiteboard disseminating information. Learning occurs through problem-solving, enquiry and by working collaboratively with teachers and peers in a student-centred approach.

Experiential learning pedagogy advocates involving all the senses in hands-on, practical education, integrating aspects of more than one discipline in the task and ensuring the learning incorporates student interest as well as developing skills such as creativity, communication and digital competence.

All these factors help students see the relevance of their education and keep them engaged and motivated. Apps like Pokémon Go could be used to advance this agenda.

Playing computer games can be seen as an opportunity to improve students' academic performance, with studies reporting an increase in maths and science scores among regular players.

Gaming in the classroom
Game-based learning is another way popular digital games can be harnessed to teach 21st-century or enterprise skills in classrooms; even decisions about in-app purchases address financial literacy.

Minecraft, for example, has and continues to be used in classrooms to teach concepts such as deforestation, sustainability, communication, problem-solving and teamwork.

Popular video game Minecraft has been used in classrooms to teach concepts such as deforestation, sustainability, communication, problem-solving and teamwork. (Marco Verch/flickr, CC BY-NC-SA)

Pokémon Go makes game-based learning even more accessible as it harnesses technology that the majority of people already have in their pockets.

Pokémon Go has a big fan base among school students and it is clearly keeping them engaged. It can be used as a stimulus for a wide variety of topics over a number of year levels. Pokémon Go is a pedometer, GPS, data collection and journalling tool, and requires maths skills to play. These features can be employed to link playing the game with student learning and the curriculum.

Some of the potential curriculum links are:

• whole-class discussions of how the movement of tectonic plates has affected GPS readings in Australia (science, geography, English)
• photographing both real insects and virtual Pokémon and then writing up Pokédex entries for the insects they have collected (science, media studies, ICT, English, art)
• designing classification flowcharts for Pokémon as a lead-up to classification of animals (science, English, maths)
• assigning students the job of Pokéstop tour guide (Pokéstops are often positioned in front of historical locations), requiring them to research and report on the history of the area (history, art, English)
• framing maths problems around the data available for each Pokémon such as height, weight and strength. For example, if I have 3,700 stardust, what combination of Pokémon can I power up that will use up all my stardust? Or Asha’s house is 600m from school. The only time she plays Pokémon Go is as she walks to and from school every day. How many days will it take her to hatch a 5.0km egg?

Despite media reports to the contrary, there are many positive outcomes for Pokémon Go users. As a direct result of their involvement with the game, they are exercising and often engaging with others, discussing where to find rare Pokémon and co-ordinate lures.

While critics show photos of groups of people each staring at their own devices, anyone who has encountered a “Poképatch” (a group of players standing around a Pokéstop) will know that a lot of communication is taking place, with even “Pokédates” becoming a thing.

Looking at the Australian curriculum, the general capability priorities such as critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability and, of course, ICT, could also be taught using Pokémon Go as students manage their school and social lives, build relationships with others, work effectively in teams and make responsible decisions.

As this game is not played from behind closed doors, it even encourages conversations about personal safety. Discussions about the intersection between reality and the virtual world and digital etiquette are easy to imagine.

Blippar allows users to scan their environment, providing webpages and information when it recognises objects. (Ian Hughes/flickr, CC BY)

There are already apps such as Blippar that allow people to use phones to scan their environment. The app recognises objects (such as your shoe, a phone, the Eiffel Tower) and instantly finds webpages that can provide more information (such as where you can buy it, how it works or its history).

Add that to existing technology such as Google Glass and you can imagine a world where students visit the zoo on a school excursion and have been asked to research an animal of their choice for a class presentation.

As Mia approaches the elephant enclosure, information about what she sees appears before her eyes. She looks at some carrots and data about how much food an elephant eats in a day appears. She turns her gaze to the elephant’s tusks, and a video about poaching plays. As she pulls her focus out to see the whole elephant, an interactive hologram of the animal floats before her eyes, allowing the student to explore features such as the elephant’s DNA or digestive system.

Content becomes immediate and relevant to students as they take charge of their own learning.

Apps, games and technologies such as Pokémon Go should be approached with an open mind as they offer many potential avenues to employ an engaging, student-centered approach to education.

About Today's Contributors:

Amber McLeod, Lecturer in Education, Monash University and Kelly Carabott, Assistant Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Monash University., Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

US: Presidential Candidates Face Off In Parody Flip Book

The two most unpopular candidates in U.S. Presidential history have been commemorated in a thumb-powered flip book entitled "Tough Decision 2016," created by Flippies Custom Flip Books. (PRNewsFoto/Flippies, Inc.) 

The two most unpopular candidates in U.S. Presidential history have been commemorated in a thumb-powered flip book entitled "Tough Decision 2016," created by Flippies Custom Flip Books (flippies.com/).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo & Los Angeles' Mountain Lion: Danish Film Composer Jacob Groth To Headline Benefit Concert

Nordic Noir LA: A Benefit Concert for Friends of Griffith Park (PRNewsFoto/Friends of Griffith Park)

On September 25, 2016 renowned film composer Jacob Groth (Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy - 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,' 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest' and 'The Girl Who Played With Fire') and the Danish Film Harmonics Orchestra will headline a special benefit concert for Friends of Griffith Park at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre.

Factors That Contribute To The Popularity Of The Netflix Series 'House Of Cards'

For those of you who are series addicts or have a certain series that keeps you anticipating what's going to happen next, then you most likely have heard of not watched the Netflix series “house of cards”. The show which is ongoing premiered on the 1st of February, 2013 to rave reviews. It even as a good rating on the review site Rotten Tomatoes which everyone knows is hard to come by. Since its premiere, the show has gained a cult following which has led to its continuous renewal over the years. With the President of the United States said to be a fan of the series, the question then is what makes this series different from every other one out there that causes it to have such popularity?

How To Stop A Zombie Apocalypse – With Science

Shutterstock

By Joanna Verran, Manchester Metropolitan University and Matthew Crossley, Manchester Metropolitan University

Zombie films often end with a miracle cure or the arrival of the army (or the protagonists and the world facing uncertain doom). But what would happen if a new disease started converting humans into a zombie-like state for real, and how might we actually stop it? Answering this kind of question isn’t just a fun exercise – it can tell us a lot about how a genuine highly infectious condition might spread.

Scientists who study disease – epidemiologists – need to answer questions such as how a disease spreads, how fast it is likely to move through a population and, most importantly, how best to stop the outbreak and prevent future events.

Imagine if a new “zombieism” disease broke out that spread through the commonly portrayed method of infected saliva that enters a person’s bloodstream after being bitten by a zombie. This kind of direct contact spread would normally be quite an inefficient method for disease transmission compared to airborne infections, which can be spread much more easily. But zombieism is interesting because, like rabies, its symptoms can include anxiety, agitation, paranoia and terror that alter the behaviour of the infected individual. So zombies will actively try to bite or eat their victims, thereby spreading the disease faster.

Finding the source
The original source of the zombie outbreak is rarely a concern in horror films, whereas epidemiologists spend a lot of time using analysis and models to track back to the first case(s) of disease. For example, a biological agent released into the air or contaminated food consumed at a large social event might cause a large number of infected individuals at one time. A laboratory accident, on the other hand, might initially affect a reasonably small, possibly contained number of individuals, in a small area. These parameters, as well as the mode of transmission, will affect the disease’s spread.

Armed with an understanding of the transmission method, we can consider how fast the disease could move through a population. For any epidemic, epidemiologists will try to calculate a basic reproduction ratio that describes the average number of additional cases an infected individual will generate. This number (often referred to as R₀) describes how severe an outbreak is. One with an R₀ of less than 1 will eventually die out, but greater than 1 will spread through a population.

Our zombies do not expire naturally and require the removal of their head or destruction of their brain for permanent death. So the main consideration in a zombie epidemiology model is how many people a zombie can bite before it either runs out of victims or is destroyed. This is a function of many other variables including population density and people’s ability to destroy zombies. The zombies might be the slow shambling monsters of tradition, or perhaps the faster, more deadly infected humans portrayed in the film 28 Days Later.

If we assume that the zombies hunt naively, then population density is one of the most important considerations. A heavily populated area provides plenty of opportunities for any given zombie to feed, and infected cases will increase rapidly. Isolated zombies, however, would have a tendency to shuffle around causing no real harm.

Finally, having established how our disease is spread and how fast it could bring about the end times (or not, as the case may be), we need to identify the best method for reducing our R₀ below 1. This will ensure the infection does not lead to a zombie apocalypse.

There are typically four response strategies to zombieism, each with a grounding in epidemiological study. An obvious strategy is to quarantine the infected individuals, possibly with the hope of developing a cure or vaccine. While this can be successful, the process of developing a cure is lengthy and difficult, and maintaining a perfect quarantine is difficult and risky. In cases with a high R₀, as is typical of zombie epidemics, even one infected individual that breeches quarantine or is not captured risks annihilating the host species.

A strategy often seen in zombie stories is for the uninfected to hide away, essentially isolating those who are healthy from those who are infected. This is typically employed when the infected individuals vastly outnumber the healthy. This protection could be seen as some sort of immunisation but success relies on a continued ability to remain apart. Once the infected hordes have breached your protected zone, you have already created a perfect environment for the disease to spread rapidly in a small space.

Extreme solutions
With no treatment option, a selective cull that involves attempting to remove the infected individuals from the population permanently is a tempting option. But this suffers from the same problems as quarantine. Not only does it require efficient removal of the infected, there also needs to be some diagnostic screening process in hand so that early cases with fewer symptoms can be detected.

This leaves the scariest of the options: eradicate the infected area with a pre-emptive cull, with little to no concern for who, or what, is destroyed in the process. With heavy casualties but a guaranteed end to the infection, this is often the choice the “military” characters plump for in a zombie story. Assuming you could successfully eradicate all of the infected individuals, this might appear the best option. But moral issues remain regarding the heavy losses of uninfected individuals that would also take place.

Real diseases are rarely as powerful as those in zombie films, which usually have a 100% transmission rate and come with a near complete lack of immunity, recovery or treatment. But exploring fictitious zombie-like pandemics also offers an exciting way to discuss infectious disease transmission, prevention and treatment. So next time you sit down to watch your favourite zombie film or TV show, put yourself in the shoes of the world’s epidemiologists: What would you do, and why?


About Today's Contributors
Joanna Verran, Professor of microbiology, Manchester Metropolitan University and Matthew Crossley, Lecturer in Web Technologies, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

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Donald Trump Vs Theresa May [Petition]

The following is the email I've received today from Greenpeace... 

It looks like Donald Trump and co have a rather dangerous agenda regarding Climate Change and the Paris Climate Deal. But, if enough of us sign the petition, they might not succeed after all. 

Definitely worth adding our names to it.

Keep up the good fight...

Loup Dargent

We're No Strangers To 'Alien' False Alarms – One Was Caused By A Microwave Oven

By Mark Gallaway, University of Hertfordshire

The group of Russian astronomers spotted something unusual. They were observing the rather innocuous star HD 164595, located in the constellation of Hercules 94 light years (or about 900 trillion kilometres) from Earth. It’s a sun-like star of a similar age to the Sun and is known to have at least one large planet orbiting it. So it was with some surprise that the astronomers at the RATAN-600 radio telescope, located in Zelenchukskaya and led by Nikolay Bursov, received a short but loud radio burst from the direction of HD 164595.

News of the signal broke in mid August this year – even though it was originally picked up on May 15 2015. Given the possible origin of the radio signal, its frequency, and the signal strength there has been much speculation about what the source could be, including the possibility that it is a beacon signal from an advanced alien civilisation.

Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn Is Living Proof That The Right Doesn't Do Satire

The joke’s on LIttlejohn. Press Gazette, CC BY-SA

By Allaina Kilby, Cardiff University

The Daily Mail has never tried to hide its anti-immigration stance, but there can be few more egregious examples of out-and-out bigotry than Richard Littlejohn’s recent attempt at a satirical article which outlined an unconventional approach to weeding out Britain’s illegal immigrant population.

The article relates to an essay written in the Mail on Sunday by an anonymous, yet experienced asylum judge. In it, the judge makes the case that Britain’s asylum system is broken by highlighting how immigrants can “go below the radar for years”. Apparently, their cover could now be blown because evidence supplied by the sewage industry reveals that “that there are more than a million more people in London than are legally registered”.

Cue Littlejohn’s proposal of monitoring sewage waste as a way of efficiently “flushing out” illegal immigrants.