LEARNING, GAMING The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched the Education Arcade initiative, aimed at exploiting the educational benefits of videogames. The project plans to harness the talents of scholars, international game designers, publishers, educators and policy makers to develop videogames that would be fully incorporated into existing curricula. "We want to lead the change in the way the world learns through computer and video games," says MIT professor Henry Jenkins. "Our mission is to demonstrate the social, cultural and educational potential of games by initiating game development projects. We will also be information public conversations about the broader and sometimes unexpected uses of this emerging art form in education." (Herald Sun 10 Dec 2003) From News Scan Daily.
Physicists at Harvard University say they have managed to bring light to a complete standstill for a fraction of a second before sending it on its way. The research builds on work published in 2001 that described "storing" light pulses briefly when individual particles of light, or photons, were taken up by atoms in a gas. The new work actually stops the light pulse for a few hundredths of a second, says Harvard physicist Mikhail D. Lukin: "We have succeeded in holding a light pulse still without taking all the energy away from it." The research could allow scientists to use light particles for storing and processing data, and for highly secure communications transmissions. (AP/Edmonton News 11 Dec 2003) http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-12-11-0067.html