Rachel Helps

Kickstarter Zombie RPG emulates real shelter conditions

Let’s get realistic about post-apocalypse survival, Jericho and Battlestar Galactica style. We’re going to have to work with our neighbors and compete against other towns to survive by gathering food and maybe shooting zombies. Dead State is a Kickstarter game that considers all these aspects of sur

Gates Foundation think wristbands can measure student boredom in class.

At any institution of higher learning there will be a teacher whose lectures are boring. It’s not hard to tell when students are bored—they’re usually staring off into space, texting, or sleeping. But some teachers may have lost this ability, having become habituated to a lack of eye contact, and Bi

Stressed out about your birthday? It might kill you.

New research on death days shows that we’re 14 percent more likely to die on our birthdays.  The researchers analysed 2.4 million deaths over a 40-year period. Results show there were 13.8 per cent more deaths on birthdays than might be expected compared with any other day of the year. The risk incr

Encrypted mobile communications are here, but will gamers ever get privacy?

If you’re willing to shell out $20 a month, you can encrypt your phone calls and instant messages with a new app called Silent Circle. The app’s creator, Phil Zimmermann, thinks it’s a service worth paying for.  “I’m not going to apologize for the cost,” Zimmermann told CNET, adding that the final p

New game teaches scientific reasoning.

You’ve probably heard of the videogame that treats depression; now there’s a videogame that teaches scientific reasoning. It’s called Operation ARA and the initial research looks promising. Students learn the skills of scientific reasoning by engaging in interactive dialogs with avatars. They are tu