Slashdot Mirror
Videogames, Learning, And Literacy
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GameZone.com article interviewing Professor James Paul Gee, the author of a new book advocating videogames as a learning tool. According to Gee, "It dawned on me that good games were learning machines... Many of these [game-contained] principles could be used in schools to get kids to learn things like science, but, too often today schools are returning to skill-and-drill and multiple-choice tests that kill deep learning." He goes on to reference "good learning principles" built into games like System Shock 2, Rise of Nations, and Arcanum, and advocates early gaming for learning: "In my view - and I know it is controversial - kids should be playing games from early on, from three years old, say."
A CARCASS OF GIANT SEA MONSTER FOUND ON A SHORE OF CHILE
Whale-Size Mystery Creature Washes Ashore in Chile
John Roach
for National Geographic News
July 3, 2003
A mysterious, 41-foot-long and 19-foot-wide (12.4-meters by 5.4-meters) gelatinous mass of flesh washed ashore in southern Chile serves as reminder that the sea may be full of creatures yet discovered by humankind.
The creature was first thought to be a dead whale when it appeared last week on the coast near the town of Puerto Montt, but scientists who went to inspect the creature determined it was an invertebrate, or spineless, creature
"It had a very particular smell, very different from a dead cetacean and from anything we have smelled before," said Elsa Cabrera, director of the Center for Cetacean Conservation in Santiago, Chile.
After showing images of the fleshy blob to an Italian zoologist and comparing them to reports from a stranding off the coast of Florida in 1896, Cabrera said that the decomposing fleshy blob is most likely a giant octopus (Octopus giganteus).
The Center for Cetacean Conservation in Santiago is sending skin samples to Chilean and international organizations to try and identify the species, which was originally discovered by the Chilean Navy floating alongside a dead humpback whale.
"If the analysis confirms the finding of a giant octopus, this will be a major scientific finding for the Chilean and international scientific community, and it will be one step forward to increase our knowledge about the incredible creatures that are still unknown to humans," said Cabrera.
Whale Skin?
Steve Webster, a marine biologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, was one of the scientists contacted by the organization and shown a photograph of the specimen.
"Based on what I see in the picture, I would opt for whale skin since that is a part of world where whales are not uncommon," he said.
Webster also said that reports describing the specimen as both leathery and gelatinous were conflicting. If it is indeed leathery, he said, it is most likely a whale skin. But if it is more gelatinous, then it could be something else. One possibility is a giant salp, a deep-sea fish known as a pyrosome.
The possibility that it might be a giant squid does not make much sense to Webster.
"If it is skin of squid rather than a big intact sheet like that, you would expect to see some indication that it once had arms or tentacles--and I dont see anything that speaks to that," he said. "And for just a body of a squid to be that big, then you are talking about a squid that is larger than any known to man. That seems less likely to me than whale skin."
Cabrera said that she does not believe the blob is a whale because the texture, smell, and coloring are different from known decomposing whales.
"We also consulted experts from the National Museum of Natural History that confirmed to us that when a whale decomposes at sea, the smell and texture of its blubber and skin are still recognizable," she said.
Giant Squid?
William Gilly, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who has studied the behavior and biology of squid for more than two decades, said that the creature as described in news reports was a mystery to him, but that it could be a giant squid.
"Over the last few years they've found several big sorts of new species of squid that were surprises or extra-colossal-size specimens of species previously known," he said.
There is much to be learned about giant squid, said Gilly. For example, little is known about their habits. Scientists with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC suspect that giant squid mostly live at depths of 660 to 2,300 feet (200 to 700 meters).
Eve
Haha that show was hillarious.
You can see the video here, r kelly remake (need real player)
you're the kind of guy that thinks "it's not in agreement with my idea of how the world works, so it *must* be a troll right?"
dumbass.
Machine9dotNet
and like record it all scientifical and shit like that
"Language is where it is", not "where it's at." Do not end with a preposition. Saying "where it's at" is common...and incorrect.
I have perty brown eye's shoulder lenth hair i am very outgoing i love supries i love sports also brown complect i also like to sing and dance i am very honsty and i like a very honsty person someone who very resepctful person i have a good loveing sence of houmer and some one that is very trustwourthy. i have two loveing children someone love chrildren also i also love to travle and site see i am not afriad to try new things someone also i love myself and my chrildren i like to go on picnic and i like to take long walk in the park i like to express my feelings to someone that will listen with arguing and someone that i can laugh with soneone that who like's to sit at home and watch movie's with someone that want me for me and not for what i can give them and someone that doe's not like to hurt no one's fellings or to play game's withand someone that nose's what they want out of life someone who's not afarid of life.
GET THESE FUCKING SQUIDS OUT OF MY COFFEE CUP, CHRIST!!!! shit that is not in caps, blah blah jesus loves me this i know, for altavista tells me so