Not directly, of course, but the implication of a recent story from NPR’s Future Tense is that video games have a positive stimulative effect on doctors who are about to perform surgery. A new study is out, and according to FT, “Surgeons who played games for 20 minutes immediately prior to performing surgical drills were faster and made fewer errors.” The study focused on a particular type of surgery, specifically “laparoscopic” procedures. Again, from FT, “The results supported findings from...

“Last week, the Department of Education reported that science aptitude among 12th-graders has declined across the last decade.” Anthony Bradley explores some of the root causes for why science education continues to falter in schools across the country. Bradley asserts that the typical American now views education as a means for fortable lifestyle rather than a means to knowledge about the world. The purpose of education, instead of producing knowledge and insight into the workings of nature and society, is...

I have to admit I was skeptical myself of Gregg Easterbrook’s self-proclaimed “long record of opposing alarmism” regarding global warming. To be sure, a bit of my own research showed that Mr. Easterbrook has long opposed alarmism, just not of the global warming variety. In this June 2003 Wired magazine article, “We’re All Gonna Die!,” Easterbrook debunks a number of apocalyptic myths, including the dangers of germ warfare, runaway nanobots, supervolcanoes, and shifting magnetic poles. He does include “Sudden climate...

Hear ye, hear ye! The U.N. Environmental Programmmmme’s World Environment Day is June 5. Wiki – The topic for WED 2006 is Deserts and Desertification. The slogan for WED 2006 is “Don´t desert drylands”. The slogan emphasises the importance of protecting drylands, which cover more than 40% of the planet’s surface. This ecosystem is home to one-third of the world’s people who are more vulnerable members of society. The main international celebrations of the World Environment Day 2006 will be...

Abner Ramos, an alumnus of Acton’s September 2005 Toward a Free and Virtuous Society conference, experienced a change of heart not so long ago. In his work at the the East Los Angeles College Intervarsity Fellowship, he was seeing how some people displayed a sense of entitlement on matters of charity and financial assistance (like the students who were using financial aid checks to buy fancy wheels for their cars). And Abner, as he tells it on the El Acceso...

Rodney Dangerfield is famous for saying, “I don’t get no respect!” plaint is shared in the laments that I often hear from academics, that electronic journals are not afforded the same respect as print journals. I explored some of the reasons for this as well as some of the results that have implications for journal publishers in an article published last year, “Scholarship at the Crossroads: The Journal of Markets & Morality Case Study,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 36, no....

According to published reports, market mechanisms, and petition, are plishing what many decriers of the “digital divide” have long contended only big government could do. The AP, via , reports, “Middle- and working-class Americans signed up for high-speed Internet access in record numbers in the past year, apparently lured by a price war among panies.” The study, provided by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that broadband subscription “increased 40 percent in households making less than $30,000 a...

Writing in the San Diego Union Tribune, Ruben Navarette explains how the Mexican economy and corruption are related to the U.S. immigration problem. After talking with a Mexican born, U.S. citizen, Navarette observes: In Mexico, the elites take pride in the fact that Mexicans abroad send home nearly $20 billion a year. But for González, that figure is a national embarrassment – an advertisement of a government’s failure to provide sufficient opportunity for its own people. So Navarette presses him:...

Entry #2 in Joe Carter’s Know Your Evangelicals Series is Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and founder of Call to Renewal. The one-sentence summary? “While Wallis appears to be a genuine and passionate Christian he would do well to base his political views a bit more on the Bible and a bit less on leftist ideology.” Acton’s Jay Richards reviewed Wallis’ recent book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, in the...

In an earlier post on illicit Catholic ordinations in China, I noted that there appeared to be a rift developing between the Patriotic Association and the rest of the government. Chinese Cardinal Joseph Zen confirmed that impression in remarks he made yesterday in Rome, as reported by AsiaNews: The Patriotic Association wanted “it to be a slap in the face, but actually, they were defeated by the clear statement of the Holy See, to which the government responded very mildly”,...