Scales: From blood cells to galaxies February 8, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Game, Medicine.add a comment
I’ve come across a flash educational application that lets you get a picture of the scale of the universe from blood cells and atoms to galaxies and planets. Give it a try!
Games for Health: Recap November 9, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Conference, Game, Health 2.0, Innovation, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Virtuality, Web 2.0.3 comments
A few weeks ago, I was a keynote speaker at the Games for Health conference in Amsterdam. I talked about social games, crowdsourcing in medicine and science and also about the importance of including health gaming in medical education. I have to say I had a great time there, saw many promising innovations and as a lover of video games, I tried many projects and gadgets myself.
Projects and ideas I came across there:
Figurerunning: draw figures on the map when running by using their smartphone application.
Use your bike and run or walk around in the virtual world.
Medsim: a birth simulation.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be at Games for Health 2012 as well! See you there!
Games for Health: Keynote Speaker August 29, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Conference, Game, Health.1 comment so far
One of the most promising conferences this fall will definitely be the Games for Health taking place in Amsterdam, between 24 and 25 of October. You know how close health games are to my heart. I was invited to be a keynote speaker for the event which I gladly accepted. I hope to see you there!
Building on the successful editions in Boston (MA, USA) the first edition of ‘Games for Health Europe’ will be held October 24th and 25th 2011 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. More than 500 attendees from Europe, USA and Asia will participate in inspiring presentations, experience state of the art demonstrations and share knowledge in informative workshops. Conference content will be provided by a wide range of researchers, game developers and medical professionals. Also the conference will provide a central stage for discussions on how IT technology with a specific focus on gaming and simulation can contribute to the improvement of health and health care. Games for Health is the leading international professional community with more than 10.000 people in the field of health games & simulation for many years. Bringing together the best minds in game development & simulation and health care to advanced game technologies that improve health and the delivery of health care.
You can follow them on Twitter.
Rockstar Scientists in Lego: Hilarious! May 6, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Game, science, Sciencefun.add a comment
Maia Weinstock thought it would be great to create the Lego forms of the most famous scientists, science bloggers, and science journalists who are also active online. The project is called Scitweeps because the scientists are identified by their Twitter feed. Amazing pictures and as a bonus, a Lego version of a TED talk:
Here is the synthetic biologist and father of the Human Genome Project, Craig Venter:
And the top science blogger, PZ Myers:
Flying to Saturn: Carolyn Porco in LEGO:
Webicina iPhone application is available in iTunes! March 15, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Game, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Mobile, Video, Web 2.0, Webicina.5 comments
Finally, it’s a great pleasure to announce that the free iPhone application of Webicina.com is now available in iTunes. We cannot wait to hear your feedback and suggestions. The Android version is coming soon! Basically we wanted to let you access the curated social media resources we feature on mobile and also provide an interesting and educational game that discusses issues related to quality medical information online and the health 2.0 field. Enjoy and reach the highest score!
Webicina.com curates online medical resources in social media for patients and medical professionals for free in over 15 languages in over 80 medical specialties and conditions. This application makes it easier to access these selected resources on smartphones and also includes a Health 2.0 Quiz which was designed to help empowered patients and medical professionals know more about the world of medicine and social media.
This video describes how Webicina.com works:
Videogames with paramecia players January 26, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Biology, Fun, Game, science, Sciencefun, Video.3 comments
Stanford University bioengineer Ingmar Riedel-Kruse and his colleagues are developing “biotic games” where players control paramecia and other living microorganisms. The PacMan-like video games are the first in which a player’s actions influence the behavior of living microorganisms while the game is being played.
Here we propose the concept of ‘biotic games’, i.e., games that operate on biological processes. Utilizing a variety of biological processes we designed and tested a collection of games: ‘Enlightenment’, ‘Ciliaball’, ‘PAC-mecium’, ‘Microbash’, ‘Biotic Pinball’, ‘POND PONG’, ‘PolymerRace’, and ‘The Prisoner’s Smellemma’. We found that biotic games exhibit unique features compared to existing game modalities, such as utilizing biological noise, providing a real-life experience rather than virtual reality, and integrating the chemical senses into play. Analogous to video games, biotic games could have significant conceptual and cost-reducing effects on biotechnology and eventually healthcare; enable volunteers to participate in crowd-sourcing to support medical research; and educate society at large to support personal medical decisions and the public discourse on bio-related issues.
Phylo – A Human Computing Framework for Comparative Genomics December 25, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Game, genetics, science, Web 2.0.add a comment
Phylo - A Human Computing Framework for Comparative Genomics is an interactive game that lets you contribute to science. I’ve been playing with that for a while.
The Problem:
Genetic sequences are difficult to understand and so to decipher their structure, we need to compare them to detect any similar regions they may have. Similar regions may indicate important elements of our genetic code. We have several genomes to align and we call this the multiple alignment problem.
The Game:
We abstract the multiple alignment problem to a game where the goal will be to align words made by pieces of different color instead of letters representing the genetic code (A,C,G,T).
Prognosis: A clinical case simulation game November 16, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Game, Medical education, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Mobile, Web 2.0.3 comments
Finally, Prognosis, a new iPhone app is released. It is actually a clinical case simulation game for doctors, medical students and nurses. I can’t wait to see it on Androids.
Tired of poring over long, complicated medical case studies? Try Prognosis : your Diagnosis – a fun and free game that lets you investigate, deduce and diagnose real life medical cases within minutes.
Sexual Health Video Game July 1, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Education, Game, Health, Video.26 comments
This is how teenagers could be educated about sexual and reproductive health in a colorful way.
Privates is a platform twin-stick shooter in which you lead a teeny-tiny gang of condom-hatted marines as they delve into peoples’ vaginas and bottoms and blast away at all manner of oozy, shouty monsters. It’s rude, funny, bitingly satirical and technically pretty accurate if you don’t count the tiny people or the germs with teeth.
