Can Video Games Make You Smarter?

Before we get ahead of ourselves it's important to know that too much of anything can be bad. So if you do nothing but playing video games the risk will probably out weight any benefit

The researchers recruited 72 volunteers and measured their 'cognitive flexibility' described as a person's ability to adapt and switch between tasks, and think about multiple ideas at a given time to solve problems.

Two groups of volunteers were trained to play different versions of a real-time strategy game called StarCraft, a fast-paced game where players have to construct and organise armies to battle an enemy. A third of the group played a life simulation video game called The Sims, which does not require much memory or many tactics.

All the volunteers played the video games for 40 hours over six to eight weeks, and were subjected to a variety of psychological tests before and after. All the participants happened to be female as the study was unable to recruit a sufficient number of male volunteers who played video games for less than two hours a week.

The researchers discovered that those who played StarCraft were quicker and more accurate in performing cognitive flexibility tasks, than those who played The Sims.

Dr Brian Glass from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, said: "Previous research has demonstrated that action video games, such as Halo, can speed up decision making but the current work finds that real-time strategy games can promote our ability to think on the fly and learn from past mistakes.".

Alejandro R. Roces

Alejandro R. Roces or Ading Roces was born on July 13, 1924 and He died last May 23 2011. He was married to Irene Yorston Viola and they have a daughter named Elizabeth Roces-Pedrosa.  He is a Filipino author, essayist, dramatist and a National Artist of the Philippines for literature. He served as Secretary of Education from 1961 to 1965, during the term of Diosdado Macapagal our former president.

Alejandro R. Roces attended his elementary and highschool at the Ateneo de Manila Unversity, and then Arizona State University for his tertiary education. He graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts and, not long after, attained hi M.A. form Far Eastern University. He received honorary doctorates from Tokyo University. Baguio's St. Louis University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, and the Ateneo de Manila University.

During his french year in Arizona State University, He won Best Short Story for " We Filipinos are Mild Drinkers". Another of his story, " My Brother's Peculiar Chicken" was listed as Martha Foley's Best American Stories. Alejandro R. Roces published books too such as "Of Cocks and Kite" (1959),
"Fiesta" (1980) and "Something to Crow About" (2005). His book "Of Cocks and Kite"earned hima reputation as the country's best writer of humorous stories.

Through the years, Roces has won numerous awards, including the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, the Diwa ng Lahi Award, the Tanging Parangal of the Gawad CCP para sa Sining, and the Rizal Pro Partia Award. He was finally bestowed the honor as National Artist of Literature on the 25th of June 2003. When he was once asked for a piece of advice on becoming a famous literary figure he said, "You cannot be a great writer, first, you have to be a great person".

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Roces

Parasyte

The 17-year-old Izumi Shinichi lives with his mother and father in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo. One night, worm-like aliens called Parasytes invade Earth, taking over the brains of human hosts by entering through their ears or noses. One Parasyte attempts to crawl into Shinichi's ear while he sleeps, but fails since he is wearing headphones. The creature enters Shinichi's body by burrowing into his arm instead, taking over the boy's right hand. It adopts the name Migi.
Because Shinichi was able to prevent Migi from traveling further up into his brain, both beings retain their separate intellect and personality. As the duo encounter other Parasytes, they capitalize on their strange situation and gradually form a strong bond, working together to survive. This gives them an edge in battling other Parasytes, who frequently attack the pair upon realization that Shinichi's human brain is still intact. Shinichi feels compelled to fight other Parasytes, who devour humans as food, while enlisting Migi's help.

I highly comment the protagonist, Shinichi, for his bravery and sense of duty. He was the only survivor of a parasyte embeddment, making him more unique, wiser, and more punpredictable than the other parasytes. Keeping his own mind and body in tact with a parasyte's coordination, is the perfect tactical advantage in this context. In addition to his physical feats, he is a high schooler and he lives alone since his mother had passed in the hands of a parasyte. He had survived all this time alone (excluding Migi), wandering around wondering of his purpose and objective. At such an early age in such a depressed and shocking situation, he still had it in him to take responsibility of the human race by waging war against the parasyte species.
It is truly an exciting movie to watch. Not only because it doesn't cut bloody scenes but because there was never a dull moment in it! Fast-paced action, mind blowing epiphanies, and unexpected turn of events make the film very dynamic. Among all these, what mesmerized me the most was the awesome detail in the morphing of parasyte to human and human to parasyte. The prostethics and makeup were top notch and the CGI team must've had a lot of skill, patience, and determination to make the visual effects, especially during the fight scenes, such a spectacular sight. 
In spite of this, there were still quite a few things that may have bothered me about the film. First is the random appearance of the parasytes. They can't just show up from nowhere just by falling out of the sky. The film must've shown where they were from and how they got here. Next is the horrible cliffhangers. Though I do realize that this si still the first part of a sequel, the ending could have been a lot better than the decision of the antagonist and protagonist to carry on with eliminating the existence of each other's race. It kind of dropped the climax, and even of its main objective was to pique interest or intrigue its viewers, It felt to me that the momentum of the general flow of the story drop from that point on. I do hope the second part would reveal all the secrets and pick up on the flow/momentum that the first half has left.