Video games - the good news

This week a British teenager won almost a million in championships of the the computer game Fortnite.

So what other good news can we find in evidence of the positive aspects of gaming.
in a 2014 article
Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. (2014). The benefits of playing video games. American Psychologist, 69, 66-78. summarise the evidence in favour of playing and call for future research. they focus specifically on mental health advantages.


Cognitive and emotional skills


Video Games for Well-Being: A Systematic Review on the Application of Computer Games for Cognitive and Emotional Training in the Adult Population (2018) reviewed evidence from 35 studies which found benefits.

A 2017 systematic review - Neural Basis of Video Gaming: A Systematic Review reviewed 116 articles. it looked for evidence of neural change and impact of playing. Including evidence of adverse effects. It found some impacts on: regarding attention, cognitive control, visuospatial skills, cognitive workload, and reward processing


Better spatial cognition

Bediou, B., et al (2018). Meta-analysis of action video game impact on perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills. Psychological Bulletin, 44, 77-110. found that domains of top-down attention and spatial cognition, were enhanced.

Creativity.


Moffatt (2017) found links between certain types of creativity including flexibility and the playing of games.


Intelligence


Exploring the relationship between video game expertise and fluid intelligence
Athanasios V. Kokkinakis (2017)


for further references to articles on video games learning and intelligence try searching ERIC


However for others they cause harm

According to the latest classification of mental health diseases IC 11 from the World Health Organisation. Gaming is listed as an addiction.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) 2016 update to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) also listed gaming as a disorder in a recent update


Search Pubmed to find further articles on the medical/ cognitive aspects of gaming

Is your office too hot? is the tube too hot? is it illegal?

With the rising temperatures this week. The TUC has been campaigning for a change in the law 

to make it illegal.
The UK government legislation does not currently specify a maximum temperature. the Health and Safety Executive has advice on max and minimum temperatures and uses the term reasonable, its law section provides more detailed guidance. It includes a section on heat stress, the risks and official guidance.

At an international level the ILO provides guidance on international standards covering occupational Health

 on a worldwide scale this recent document considers the effect of climate change on productivity, and work standards.

 in terms of the impact of hot offices on health. Pubmed has some recent systematic reviews of scientific evidence

they include worldwide impact because of global warming.

as well as from the Lancet in December 2018 

Workers' health and productivity under occupational heat strain: a systematic review and meta-analysis. its conclusions were 'Occupational heat strain has important health and productivity outcomes and should be recognised as a public health problem. Concerted international action is needed to mitigate its effects in light of climate change and the anticipated rise in heat stress'

what about transport?
If you work in London the tube may seem too hot Transport for London  has official data on average monthly temperatures on different lines. The Central and Bakerloo are the hottest
.An FOI request retrieved information from London transport on cooling programmes

 Train operators have offered advice on why trains are delayed in hot weather

and measures they are taking. There are no specific rules on temperature apart from the general national conditions

Do we get enough sleep? Does it matter?

This week the newspapers reported that the Uk government was considering issuing sleep hygiene guidelines amid publicity of studies which seem to show a crisis of sleeplessness


How much sleep do we need?

the Sleep council has some facts and a sleep calculator.

The US National Sleep Foundation also has examples of hours required. Its Sleep Health Journal has academic articles on all aspects of sleep and health

The NHS has guidance on the amount of sleep children need


Which countries sleep the most?

Interesting study from Science Advances in 2016 used an app to measure sleep patterns worldwide.
People in the UK averaged just under eight hours less than France and the Netherlands. Women also tended to have less sleep than men.
Sleep Cycle App also has some real time statistics from users on its website. read methodology to see how they are obtained.

Are we getting less sleep than in the past?

this interesting academic article studied 1960- 2013 and founded from reviewing scientific studies no significant evidence of a decline.
However there are still concerns that high numbers do not get enough sleep in the USA the Center for Diseases and Control has this data for 2014 which also shows considerable geographical variation

The Sleep council has national surveys for the UK. it found that in 2013 One third of Britons now sleep for just five-to-six hours per night,

Does it matter?

A systematic review of The impact on health on short sleep duration found- Short sleep was significantly associated with the mortality outcome Similar significant results were observed in diabetes mellitus hypertension cardiovascular diseases coronary heart diseases and obesity. However. sleeping too long may also be bad. Another systematic review summarised evidence on the impact on health of long sleep duration stating that ."Meta-regression analyses found statistically significant linear associations between longer sleep duration and increased mortality and incident cardiovascular disease"
The costs of lack of sleep may also be bad for the economy. Economic modelling from 5 OECD nations by RAND found that in UK (up to $50 billion, 1.86 per cent of its GDP) may be lost.

Search for more articles on sleep and health using Pubmed

Moon landing 50 years

on 20th July 1969 the first man landed on the moon
National Geographic magazine has a really good special feature on the pioneers, maps of the moon, impact on popular culture and the future of space travel.
Relieve some early BBC broadcasts of the preparations

How much did the Moon Programme cost?

the official history from NASA states.

The NASA funding level represented 5.3 % of the federal budget in 1965.
Out of the budgets appropriated for NASA each year approximately 50% went directly for human spaceflight, and the vast majority of that went directly toward Apollo. Between 1959 and 1973 NASA spent $23.6 billion on human spaceflight, exclusive of infrastructure and support, of which nearly $20 billion was for Apollo

Histories of the Space Programme

NASA has a wealth of historical materials relating to Apollo 11
including audio files.
Background selected documents from the US government on the history of the space programme
Project Apollo technical drawings and diagrams 
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal- The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal is a record of the lunar surface operations conducted by the six pairs of astronauts who landed on the Moon from 1969 through 1972.  It includes a corrected transcript of all recorded conversations between the lunar surface crews and Houston. 

Apollo Flight journal

Apollo Image Archive. Made available Johnson Space Center and Arizona State University's Space Exploration Resources 

What was the legacy of the Moon missions- were they worth it?

in 1999 NASA history office produced this summary
Physics Teacher has just published an introductory article summarising key achievements which could be emphasised to students
The American Museum of Natural History also has an introductory  blog posting.
The Scientific Legacy of Apollo Ian A. Crawford, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck College, Article published in the December 2012 issue of the Royal Astronomical Society’s
journal Astronomy and Geophysics (Vol. 53, pp. 6.24-6.28). available via Arxiv.org

40 years of the Walkman

It is the 40th anniversary of the Walkman. It was launched in July 1979. Sony has released an official 40th anniversary video showing all the designs from cassette to compact disc and beyond.
the company history lists changes to design and functions. Initially it was felt it might not sell due to a lack of recording function. In 1982 the first in ear headphones were introduced and in 1984 the first cd player in the range.


Sanderson, Susan & Uzumeri, Mustafa, 1995. "Managing product families: The case of the Sony Walkman,"Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 761-782, September.
provides a good overview of the innovation and design process in the company from the launch until the early 1990s.
For a later update on the rise of the iplayer and Apple try this article.
Camelia Cojocaru & Silviu Cojocaru, 2014. "Sony vs. Apple - iPod launching, a case study of leadership and innovation," Manager Journal, Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, vol. 20(1), pages 115-125, December.

It explains how by 2004 the Walkman sales had declined. This is said to be due to a lack of cooperative culture between units in Sony.

 The cultural impact of the Walkman

for a good example of a cultural study of the walkman and its impact - try the classic book Doing Cultural Studies by Paul Du Gay. A good review of its content is on the LSE Review of Books blog

Time magazine lists it as one of the most influential gadgets - it also has some interesting facts that in the UK the original proposed name was stowaway

 There are a number of sites offering products and cultural histories run by enthusiasts. These include 

Walkman Central which has images of all the versions with descriptions

CR Fashion Book has 22 iconic images

 The Walkman Archive is maintained by Hugo Rodriguez, it has an interesting section on film appearances of the walkman

it also has reviews. Fascinating image of the original box complete with roller skaters!

4th July Independence day - find out more about its history and significance by using these resources

Today is the 4th of July

The Document

Read the full text of the Declaration via the Library of Congress website
Find out about its drafting using this online exhibition. It gives insight using primary source documents into the editing and writing It also has a timeline of events. It is helpful to look at the original debates and proceeding relating to the constitution which are also available via the Library of Congress

The history of the celebrations.

The Library of Congress has a good succinct summary of the history of the celebrations with some historic photos.
Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820 to 1910 contains Independence Day memories from citizens if you search by keyword. The good example highlighted by the Library of Congress is .Celebrating The Fourth,” a chapter of Lewis Reimann’s Between the Iron and the Pine: A Biography of A Pioneer Family and A Pioneer Town.

4th of July orations
The Internet archive provides free access to over 500 sermons and addresses given on the 4th July before 1913. they offer insight into isues of nationality and national identity.

For a different viewpoint consider the famous speech The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by slave Frederick Douglass which was delivered on July 5th 1852.

"Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Our favourite resources for Canada day

1st July was Canada Day. The National day of Canada. find out more about its history on the Canadian government website

Here are some of our favourite free resources!

Canadiana from January 2019 free access was made available to a wealth of resources. There are over 60 million digitized pages.

Valuable sub-sections include:
Government publications before 1920
Aboriginal Studies
This collection of 900 titles relating to Canada’s early First Nations Peoples was published from 1558 to 1900 in a variety of countries
Women's History
683 titles consists of the early published writings of Canadian women authors, as well as Canadian publications written about women or "women's issues". published from 1677 to 1900,

The Early Canadian Periodicals collection includes over 1,000 magazines including women’s and children’s popular magazines. This collection even includes the first magazine ever published in Canada, The Nova Scotia Magazine (1789-1792)

An other interesting site rare book site is is the pre-1930 Canadian pamphlet and broadside holdings of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. There are over 2,00 titles covering a range of political, social and economic history topics. For example the earliest reports from 1890 include railway reports.
and the Curse of modern departmental stores!

Library and Archives Canada has a rare photographs website
To locate more consult the CNDHI- Canadian National Heritage Digital Index which focuses upon items digitised by universities, provincial and territorial libraries

For more recent items try :
The Open Government portal which includes: Open datasets