StarCraft is the SmartCraft

Coming straight from the video game-loving eggheads from Queen Mary University of London, is a bit of research suggesting that playing strategy games like StarCraft...



...Civilization...



...and even Plants vs Zombies...



...may boost your noggin power.

Here's what went down: researchers wrangled up 72 volunteers to play 40 hours of video games, over a 6-8 week period. Not that bad. However (fun catch here), most of the volunteers were women...



...because they needed participants that played less than two hours a week, and as a result, they found very few males that fit that criteria. Lol, I play like...I play a lot...I play a lot of games.

Way to go, Guys! Imagine being that one guy that didn't play video games much, and walked into the study, only to be surrounded by gaming ladies!!

So, the 72 people were split up. Half played StarCraft, and half played The Sims...



...and after the fact, researchers found that the StarCraft players scored the silly Sim-ers.



Strategy game players' performance and psychological tests increased, and they leveled up their speed and accuracy in cognitive flexibility tests. I like the sound of cognitive flexibility; there's this cute chick, she's so cognitively flexible, she put her medulla oblongata behind the cerebellum.

So, basically what happened is that they (the StarCraft players) became multitasking superstars. Additionally, researchers discovered that the brave souls who journeyed through the game at higher difficulty settings scored higher on the test than those pantzies scrolling through the easy settings; smarter, braver, multitaskier. We're just baby steps away from Ender's Game, People!



Hopefully, these games (as opposed to twitch response first shooters) require a difference kind of thinking, planning, and strategery; as a result, brain agility gets to work out. Hold on, I think my brain's sweating......no, it's just brain fluid.

Researcher, Dr. Brian Glass said:



Also, Dr. Glass goes on to explain that there are some mighty intriguing possibilities connected to these findings. He says...



...and whether these cognitive boosts are...



...once we have that understanding...



I need to play some video games.

Look, we're just bettering the world through hours of gaming. Seriously though, go do your laundry; but before you go, what other ways do you think video games help slowly turn us into super versions of ourselves? Leave your interesting and creative response in the comment section down below. After you're done with that task, click the share button.

Tom Clancy: Real Revolutionists Don't Die

I would want to take a moment to remember Tom Clancy, who died very recently, at the tender age of 66.



Tom Clancy was a renowned author of post-cold war fiction. He also wrote some non-fiction.



His books were constantly #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.



4 of his books would later go on to be movies. Most notably was The Hunt for Red October with Sean Connery.



Also, a lot people from the newest generation (mostly me) thinks that he made video games for a living, but the reality of that, is in 1996, he helped found a video game studio that made some games based on his stories; some originals.



They would later be purchased by Ubisoft, and Ubisoft has continued putting out games under his name.

The Two Real Reasons Why November 22nd Is So Significant

In video game news, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One is coming out November 22nd.



That date being pretty significant for two reasons. The first being that the PS4 will be beating them to the punch, releasing on November 15th.



The other is that it's being released seven days before Black Friday, which is, of course, the day Americans go out to the local Walmarts and electronic establishments, and destroy them with pure lust for electronic goodies and sales (that are, in fact, not sometimes even the best sales, but they look like they're the best sales).



And, it'd be very interesting to see which sells better (obviously in the grand scheme of things). I don't really care, though. Looking forward to enjoying both.

Also, to be possibly pelted with a recharge voucher, link out to this article using the hashtag #JJJ, on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Trigger-Happy Kids and the Media's Misconceptions

In grotesque gun news, an 8-year-old picked up a handgun (in a house), and shot his grandmother in the face, minutes after playing Grand Theft Auto IV.



Unsurprisingly, TV media has been looking for a sexy angle. Here's CNN's take on it:



Also, here's what FOX NEWS had to say:



Nobody's even asking how the 8-year-old child got the hold of a handgun. A lot of headlines to this story are saying "8-year-old Shoots Grandma After Playing a Video Game". Rationally, the headline should say "8-year-old Child Kills Grandma After Somehow Getting Ahold of a Gun". How about we argue that angle. Because, that's the issue here: unsupervised access to firearms for a minor less than 9-years-old.

What gets me, is that every time a kid accidentally shoots someone or even himself, the media is quick to tender thrash that the child was probably playing violent video games. It's all too typical. Nonetheless, I played Grand Theft Auto whenever I had to. Still do. It's one of my favourite games. I killed hookers and cops, but I never translated to the real world.

My main message to CNN and the likes of it, is that they should stick to getting the news wrong about the #BostonBombing because they wanted to be the "first" to broadcast about how Kim Kardashian's baby bump would affect the world. In the meantime, I'd be scouring the entire Internet for all the info I can get concerning GTA V.