Mobile gaming is here to stay, and may even surpass the?popularity?of consoles, as developers increasingly turn their attention to mobile platforms. According to the Game?Developers?Conference 2013 State of the Industry Survey, game developers are developing less for consoles and PC?s than in the past.
The survey, which polled over 2,500 North American game developers who attended GDC 2012, revealed that smartphones and tablets are the most?popular?platforms to develop for. A majority 55% said that they were?working?on games for mobile devices, while 58% said they plan to release their next game on mobile platforms. PC?s and Macs were the second most?popular?development platforms, with 49% of those?surveyed?planning their next game on one of those platforms.
Gaming consoles came in last, with Nintendo being the least popular to develop for. 13% of those surveyed were currently developing games for the Xbox 360, 13% for the Playstation 3, and only 4.6% for Nintendo?s WiiU. Portable handheld devices fared even worse than their console counterparts, with only 2% of respondents?currently?developing for the category.
There is no doubt that developing?games for consoles can be quite more involved, requiring teams of developers and significant?financial?backing. Mobile devices offer a?simpler?design factor for gaming, which may?correlate?to the popularity of mobile game?development. Whatever the reason, the game market seems to be shifting?towards?a more mobile future.
Scientists identify ancient micro-continent under the Indian OceanPublic release date: 1-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Stamper sarah.stamper@liv.ac.uk 01-517-943-044 University of Liverpool
Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool have found evidence of an ancient micro-continent buried beneath the Indian Ocean.
The ancient continent extends more than 1500 km in length from the Seychelles to the island of Mauritius and contains rocks as old as 2,000 million years, much older than the Indian Ocean which has formed only in the last 165 million years.
The research team believe that this micro-continent, which they have named Mauritia, was split off from Madagascar and India between 61 and 83 million years ago as one single land mass rifted apart to form the continents around the Indian Ocean that we know today. Much of it was then smothered by thick lava deposits as a result of volcanic activity and submerged beneath the waves.
Scientists from the University of Liverpool's School of Environmental Sciences used satellite derived data to map crustal thickness under the Indian Ocean. Using geophysical data processing techniques the team were able to identify areas where the crust beneath the sea-floor was up to 30km or more thick, the same thickness as continental crust but much greater than that of oceanic crust which is on average only about 7 km thick.
Collaborating researchers from Oslo University analysed sand grains from beaches in Mauritius, a volcanic island about 900 kilometres east of Madagascar. They found the sand contained tiny crystals of ancient zircon, a mineral normally associated with a continental crust and dated between 660 million and two billion years old, a lot older than the sand grains which were formed from the nine million-year-volcanic activity on Mauritius.
Professor Nick Kusznir, who led the University of Liverpool's processing and analysis of satellite gravitational field anomalies to map the Indian Ocean crustal thickness, said: "Our expertise in mapping crustal thickness beneath the oceans has revealed many large areas where the crust is much thicker than normal. When you put this information together with the analysis of the zircons found on the beaches of Mauritius we can conclude that there are remnants of fragmented continents under the Indian Ocean. We see what may be five or six other micro-continent fragments under the Indian Ocean. More research needs to done to confirm this. We also see similar features in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans."
The crustal thickness mapping techniques using satellite data developed by Liverpool and industry partners are applied to deep-water oil and gas exploration in frontier areas and have also been used for governments making UNCLOS law of sea territorial claims.
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The research is published in Nature Geoscience.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Scientists identify ancient micro-continent under the Indian OceanPublic release date: 1-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Stamper sarah.stamper@liv.ac.uk 01-517-943-044 University of Liverpool
Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool have found evidence of an ancient micro-continent buried beneath the Indian Ocean.
The ancient continent extends more than 1500 km in length from the Seychelles to the island of Mauritius and contains rocks as old as 2,000 million years, much older than the Indian Ocean which has formed only in the last 165 million years.
The research team believe that this micro-continent, which they have named Mauritia, was split off from Madagascar and India between 61 and 83 million years ago as one single land mass rifted apart to form the continents around the Indian Ocean that we know today. Much of it was then smothered by thick lava deposits as a result of volcanic activity and submerged beneath the waves.
Scientists from the University of Liverpool's School of Environmental Sciences used satellite derived data to map crustal thickness under the Indian Ocean. Using geophysical data processing techniques the team were able to identify areas where the crust beneath the sea-floor was up to 30km or more thick, the same thickness as continental crust but much greater than that of oceanic crust which is on average only about 7 km thick.
Collaborating researchers from Oslo University analysed sand grains from beaches in Mauritius, a volcanic island about 900 kilometres east of Madagascar. They found the sand contained tiny crystals of ancient zircon, a mineral normally associated with a continental crust and dated between 660 million and two billion years old, a lot older than the sand grains which were formed from the nine million-year-volcanic activity on Mauritius.
Professor Nick Kusznir, who led the University of Liverpool's processing and analysis of satellite gravitational field anomalies to map the Indian Ocean crustal thickness, said: "Our expertise in mapping crustal thickness beneath the oceans has revealed many large areas where the crust is much thicker than normal. When you put this information together with the analysis of the zircons found on the beaches of Mauritius we can conclude that there are remnants of fragmented continents under the Indian Ocean. We see what may be five or six other micro-continent fragments under the Indian Ocean. More research needs to done to confirm this. We also see similar features in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans."
The crustal thickness mapping techniques using satellite data developed by Liverpool and industry partners are applied to deep-water oil and gas exploration in frontier areas and have also been used for governments making UNCLOS law of sea territorial claims.
###
The research is published in Nature Geoscience.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Google has just provided a veritable boon to Android devs and custom ROM makers. The Mountain View company has recently uploaded the latest Android 4.2.2 binaries to the Nexus device download page for allAOSP-supported Nexus gear: the Nexus 4, the Nexus 7 WiFi, the Nexus 7 3G, the Nexus 10, the global version of the Galaxy Nexus and its Verizon equivalent. This also means that the AOSP binaries finally exist for the Nexus 7 3G and the Nexus 4, which had been missing from previousupdates. If you've been on the hunt for the latest and greatest drivers for your wares, go ahead and download the binary of your choice from the source below and get to updating it before a certain green pie update comes along.
For weeks, stories have been percolating about the problems within the Steelers locker room.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had finally heard enough.
As valuable as any?salary cap space he created, Roethlisberger tried to restore some peace inside his own team.
?For anybody to say there are locker room issues or leadership issues are completely off base,? Roethlisberger told Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. ?I believe that?s the frustration. I believe that it?s frustration of last year, I honestly do.?
What began as anonymous criticizing of linebacker LaMarr Woodley grew until players began talking more and more about the internal strife, with safety Ryan Clark saying there was a ?fracture? in the locker room.
?Obviously, last year was frustrating for all of us, and when you?re frustrated and the season doesn?t go the way you want it to and things don?t go the way you want them to, things are said. I know all too well, after the Dallas game I was frustrated and said some things,? Roethlisberger said. ?The important thing to know is, there are no issues in our locker room. There are no issues with LaMarr. There are no issues on our team.
?The big thing for us is to move forward. Last year was last year, it was 8-8. We?re not happy about it. There are frustrations, but you know what? We?re done with it. We?re moving forward and we?re moving into this year ? with whoever?s here, we?re looking to move forward. And we know Woodley?s going to be here and we know Woodley?s going to be ready to go as we all are going to be.?
Roethlisberger took exception with the idea it was a leadership issue.
?No matter how the season goes, there?s always going to be some kind of issue come up,? he said. ?There?s never perfect harmony in any locker room, never. There?s always going to be some issue at some point in the year, that?s how it works. But the thing is, how do you move on from it? These things should be put in the rear-view mirror and we should be looking forward.
?I?m hoping by doing this to put a stop to it, to say, listen, everybody, as a leader in this locker room, as a guy who has been around here for a long time, I?m hoping that by saying there is no issue and this is fine, that this could be our exclamation point. Let?s move on with this offseason, to training, to getting ready. I don?t think there?s a reason to look back anymore.
?That?s what I?m hoping to just say: Done.?
Of course, saying there are no issues on an 8-8 team with as much chatter as this one has created is one thing. Making it the truth is something entirely different, and will prove to be more of a challenge for Roethlisberger and the Steelers.
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Mar. 1, 2013 ? In an article published as the cover story of the March 2013 issue of Nature Chemical Biology, Lindsey James, PhD, research assistant professor in the lab of Stephen Frye, Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor in the UNC School of Pharmacy and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, announced the discovery of a chemical probe that can be used to investigate the L3MBTL3 methyl-lysine reader domain. The probe, named UNC1215, will provide researchers with a powerful tool to investigate the function of malignant brain tumor (MBT) domain proteins in biology and disease.
"Before this there were no known chemical probes for the more than 200 domains in the human genome that recognize methyl lysine. In that regard, it is a first in class compound. The goal is to use the chemical probe to understand the biology of the proteins that it targets," said Dr. James.
Chromatin regulatory pathways play a fundamental role in gene expression and disease development, especially in the case of cancer. While many chemical probes work through the inhibition of enzyme activity, L3MBTL3 functions as a mediator of protein-to-protein interactions, which have been historically difficult to target with small, drug-like molecules.
"Many people believe that protein-protein interactions are difficult to target. Often they have a large surface area, so it is hard for small molecules to go in and intervene," said Dr. James.
Almost 40 percent of the genes that drive cancer can be mapped to dysfunction within signaling pathways. In the last five years, chemical probe development has allowed researchers to make fundamental observations of the role of these pathways in cancer development, as well as pointing to potential targets for new therapies. Each of the complex interactions within the signaling pathways represents a potential point where a therapy can be applied, and the probes allow researchers to interact with these processes at the molecular level and observe the overall effect of their perturbation on the disease state.
In a 2008 Nature Chemical Biology commentary, Dr. Frye outlined the qualities that make a good chemical probe. To Frye, a good chemical probe must be highly selective to enable specific questions to be asked and it must function as well in a cell as in the test tube, providing clear quantitative data with a well understood mechanism of action in either situation. It also must be available to all academic researchers without restrictions on its use, a criteria that the L3MBTL3 probe fulfills through the Frye lab's commitment to provide researchers with the probe free of charge on request and UNC1215 is already available through commercial vendors as well.
This research was supported by NIH grants (RC1GM090732 and R01GM100919) and the University Cancer Research Fund.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Lindsey I James, Dalia Barsyte-Lovejoy, Nan Zhong, Liubov Krichevsky, Victoria K Korboukh, J Martin Herold, Christopher J MacNevin, Jacqueline L Norris, Cari A Sagum, Wolfram Tempel, Edyta Marcon, Hongbo Guo, Cen Gao, Xi-Ping Huang, Shili Duan, Andrew Emili, Jack F Greenblatt, Dmitri B Kireev, Jian Jin, William P Janzen, Peter J Brown, Mark T Bedford, Cheryl H Arrowsmith, Stephen V Frye. Discovery of a chemical probe for the L3MBTL3 methyllysine reader domain. Nature Chemical Biology, 2013; 9 (3): 184 DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.1157
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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