Jul 11, 2017 04:36 AM
'Brain Training' Games May Be No Better than Video Games, Study Finds
https://www.livescience.com/59747-brain-...fects.html
EXCERPT: Brain-training games such as those from Lumosity may not boost people's overall thinking abilities or help them make "smarter" decisions, a new study suggests. [...] The makers of Lumosity products claim that the games may boost people's cognitive functions, such as memory, attention and problem solving; the program adjusts the games' difficulty depending on people's performance. In contrast, the video games aren't intended to improve cognitive performance and don't adjust in difficulty. The study found that the people who played Lumosity games did get better at those specific games. But the people didn't perform any better on standard tests of memory, attention or other cognitive tasks, as compared to those people who played the video games....
MORE: https://www.livescience.com/59747-brain-...fects.html
Why are American runners getting slower?
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/07...ing-slower
EXCERPT: The largest study of its kind — analyzing data from 24,763,389 results between 1996 to 2016 — has found that the average American runner, from 5k runners to marathoners, is getting slower. [...] I exchanged a few emails with Nikolova about this. They believe that the reason is the overall decline in health of Americans, which is reflected in the finishing times of races across the four distances. They looked for correlations using data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in particular, the increase in adult and teenage obesity, diabetes and hypertension, and overall annual medical expenditure. [...] So, although there is a correlation between the finishing times in races and the general deterioration of the health of the American population, the authors are careful to state that this may or not be reflected on the statistical results....
MORE: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/07...ing-slower
https://www.livescience.com/59747-brain-...fects.html
EXCERPT: Brain-training games such as those from Lumosity may not boost people's overall thinking abilities or help them make "smarter" decisions, a new study suggests. [...] The makers of Lumosity products claim that the games may boost people's cognitive functions, such as memory, attention and problem solving; the program adjusts the games' difficulty depending on people's performance. In contrast, the video games aren't intended to improve cognitive performance and don't adjust in difficulty. The study found that the people who played Lumosity games did get better at those specific games. But the people didn't perform any better on standard tests of memory, attention or other cognitive tasks, as compared to those people who played the video games....
MORE: https://www.livescience.com/59747-brain-...fects.html
Why are American runners getting slower?
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/07...ing-slower
EXCERPT: The largest study of its kind — analyzing data from 24,763,389 results between 1996 to 2016 — has found that the average American runner, from 5k runners to marathoners, is getting slower. [...] I exchanged a few emails with Nikolova about this. They believe that the reason is the overall decline in health of Americans, which is reflected in the finishing times of races across the four distances. They looked for correlations using data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in particular, the increase in adult and teenage obesity, diabetes and hypertension, and overall annual medical expenditure. [...] So, although there is a correlation between the finishing times in races and the general deterioration of the health of the American population, the authors are careful to state that this may or not be reflected on the statistical results....
MORE: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/07...ing-slower