Title: Music Lessons as Child May Keep Aging Minds Sharp
Category: Health News
Created: 4/23/2011 11:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/25/2011 12:00:00 AM

Title: Paralyzed Patient Moves Prosthetic Arm With Her Mind
Category: Health News
Created: 4/30/2013 12:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 5/1/2013 12:00:00 AM

Title: Businesses Should Be Mindful of Zika Danger to Workers, CDC Says
Category: Health News
Created: 4/22/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/25/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: Hearing Aids May Help Keep Seniors' Minds Sharp
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/28/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: Mindfulness Therapy May Help Ease Recurrent Depression
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/28/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: Cuddling Brings Two Minds Together, MRI Study Reveals
Category: Health News
Created: 5/4/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 5/4/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: Mindfulness a Powerful Tool for Aging
Category: Health News
Created: 4/2/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/3/2020 12:00:00 AM

BACKGROUND:

Although autodialer centralized reminder and recall (C-R/R) from state immunization information systems (IISs) has been shown to raise childhood vaccination rates, its impact on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates is unclear.

At the pinnacle of the 17th century scientific revolution, René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, published his monumental Meditations on First Philosophy (1), in which he proposed a division between soul and body—mind and brain—with the former in charge of our thoughts and conscious decisions (res cogitans) and the...

Some years ago, I entered a completely unfamiliar world. This was a landscape that clinicians deal with every day but for the individual suspected of having lung cancer, it can appear hostile and scary, often misrepresented by outdated imagery, information and television portrayal. Lung cancer is not awash with celebrities admitting to having it or grand fundraising campaigns like other conditions. Despite many changes in the treatment landscape, it's still generally much more stigmatised than other cancers.

In a gaming era rife with flashy, bombastic AAA software, there’s definitely still a place for classic button-mashing brawlers. Ditching the cinematic bells and whistles, these are games that get straight to the point, pummelling you with pure gameplay and near-constant action. Developer Emilie Coyo and Blowfish Studios superbly tap into that late-80s gaming feel with their thrilling action romp, Infinite: Beyond the Mind. 

Along with the recent renaissance of Streets of Rage, games like this remind one just how appealing this forgotten genre once was. Comparisons to the old TMNT games, Final Fight, and Double Dragon tend to be dredged up soon after being dropped into the action. At the same time, the game adds a bit of depth with some platforming level design to keep you on your toes. A few imperfections and simplicities hold it back from reaching the lofty heights of those gems, to be sure. Regardless, Infinite mostly succeeds in emulating retro beat ‘em ups at their peak.

As you might expect with a 3 hour, pixelated button-mashing sprint, the story is marginal and cliche at best. You play as one of two women who have discovered the ability to use special powers. This has made them the target of a tyrannical Kingdom and its sorcerer queen, Evangelyn. The queen sends forth her brigades of pesky, heat-packing troops, bots, and artillery, which you must dash and slash your way through. 

These enemies range in terms of behaviors, as well as offensive and defensive prowess. Most, however, take the form of fairly stock military men wielding various weapons running the gamut from pistols to machine guns to grenades. There’s also a boss fight waiting for you after each multi-level biome, which proves exciting without being ridiculously tough.

Playing as either Tanya or Olga, you’ll be given mostly the same palette of moves - and it's a limited one, to be sure. Your basic jump can be extended into a double jump, which you’ll sometimes need in order to hop across some tough-to-reach platforms. Additionally, you can perform a dash move, which drains a meter displayed beneath your health bar. Dashing is fun, satisfying, and also quite useful. You can use it to dodge mid-air projectiles, evade tough spots, leap across vast gaps, and flash through deadly lasers. You’re also able to roll, which is akin to a ground-level version of this dash. 

Your offensive abilities are a bit more limited, as they basically amount to frequent close-range slashing. However, with a full meter, you’ll eventually unlock more powerful, bullet-deflecting slashes while airborne. You can bust out an explosive, screen-wiping special move a couple of times per stage, too. Given the rarity of upgrades, the speed of your character, and lack of offensive moves, Infinite: Beyond the Mind tends to stress speed and survival over sheer firepower. Wailing on tons of foes in a short time will occasionally net you extra lives, and you’re rewarded with higher scores when knocking out a stage quickly.

The majority of baddies can be slain with your close-range slash move in just a couple of hits. Still, you’ll usually want to measure their behaviors, rather than marching in while mindlessly button mashing. These anticipatory moves will help you dodge their projectiles and live to fight another day. Though you’ll stumble upon health and extra life pickups at times, these are scarce - as are the checkpoints, which only kick in at the conclusion of each “area.” 

The game further adheres to this unforgivable NES style by allowing you to save only at the end of each multi-area stage, granting you only a few lives and a short health bar in the process. This grind-it-out showdown is even tougher with the “expert” difficulty setting, as your health bar is even shorter and the ability to save is stripped away. Basically, you’ll want to be sharp, especially on the highest difficulty.

As you power through the 16 stages (each of which contains 2 or 3 bite-sized areas plus a boss), more competent and dangerous foes start showing up. You’ll come upon certain enemies covering in trenches, popping out of trucks, or posted up on high platforms. You’ll even run into tough vehicles and machinery like helicopters and robots. It certainly adds to the difficulty, while keeping feelings of repetition at bay.

One neat little inclusion is the ability to occasionally match this firepower by way of saddling up in a stationary tank. While inside, you can mow down waves of incoming troops all around you for a short time. Similarly, you’ll also be forced into static survival portions sans the tank, which can amp up the intensity quite a bit. There are even a couple of flying and scrolling areas to mix things up.

In general, the game walks that tightrope nicely in terms of difficulty - at least on its default setting. It can seem a bit chaotic at first with the breadth of projectiles from multiple areas, especially since you can only answer with close-range hits. Still, Infinite becomes far simpler once you’ve taken your lumps a couple of times and get a feel for the baddies and the stage layout. It’s easier when you’re prepared to handle that incoming tank or chopper, or can anticipate that electric wall or falling platform. Rarely did I feel like my deaths were anything but my own fault. With that said, the Double Dragon-esque push backs that sometimes knocked me into pits didn’t exactly feel just.

The control method makes a difference in tightening things up and offering a smoother experience. I wouldn’t typically stress opting for a D-pad-laced Joy-con, but in this case the improvement is vast. Seriously, if you’re inclined to make the most out of the game, consider shelling out for the HORI D-Pad left Joy-con. Infinite is still suitable when mashing the standard directional buttons, for the record, but there’s a level of swiftness and precision with the D-pad controller that meshes perfectly with the fast-paced, NES-style experience. Tanya/Olga seem to genuinely move around quicker and more sharply.

Another addition that’s both helpful and enjoyable is simultaneous co-op. In true Final Fight fashion, two players can kick some butt at once, doubling both the fun and efficiency in combat. Playing with separate Joy-cons isn’t always the most comfortable or intuitive, but the added offense makes up for some of that.

Any real blemishes of this game mostly boil down to nitpicks, and major flaws are few and far between. There’s the aforementioned prominence of push-backs while getting hit, but only rarely do these coax catastrophic death plummets. Also, while the environmental detail and layering is nice, it can sometimes be tough to make out just where you can jump and where you can’t. Jumping onto ladders to climb can also be a somewhat spotty, finicky endeavor, though these aren’t abundant at least.

Infinite: Beyond the Mind won’t blow any minds with its (literal) straightforward gameplay and brevity. Nonetheless, it makes for a fun, delightful throwback to the side-scrolling brawlers of decades past. This tight, undiluted action gameplay is complemented by a charming pixel-art-meets-anime style and appealing synthetic tunes. The 16-bit sprites add some retro character, though they’re really put to good use with the multi-layered backgrounds and colorful, vibrant biomes. These range from military bases to industrial furnaces to ice tundras. 

Overall, Infinite is a captivating action sidescroller that early 90s brawler fans, in particular, should get a kick out of. It’s a short and fairly basic experience, but worth checking out at just 10USD. Play with a friend or use a D-pad attachment to really get the most out of this already enjoyable romp.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/443401/infinite-beyond-the-mind-ns/

This week, watch nail-biting drama as researchers escape an underwater lab, discover physical intelligence – humans' most essential ability – and visit Vincent van Gogh

Join Pearse Keane to find out why the NHS is collaborating with AI company DeepMind and how deep learning could transform ophthalmology

Glass has an unusual atomic structure that resembles a liquid frozen in place, making it hard to predict how it will behave. DeepMind has developed an AI capable of doing so, which may also be able to predict traffic jams

As well as announcing reminders to stay away from each other, the robots also estimate how many people are in the park at any given time.

Anna Marie ponders the limits of her love. Kelley rules Ireland. Johnathan usurps Ireland. Then Chris cheats goes off to play Suikoden II.

Join Pearse Keane to find out why the NHS is collaborating with AI company DeepMind and how deep learning could transform ophthalmology

Jordan Goudreau once pushed a plan to protect U.S. schools. Then he moved on to a more daring pursuit, which also didn't end well.

Kevin Carmichael: There is little evidence that Canada’s version of Big Oil is ready for the medicine that was force-fed to GM and Chrysler a decade ago

Iranian football subjects taught to focus on present moment, accept their thoughts and feelings, and commit to goals

'The Mindy Project' star and writer talks to Priya Arora about breaking boundaries with her new Netflix show 'Never Have I Ever', a coming-of-age comedy about a modern-day first-generation Indian American teenage girl, much like younger herself

The app aims to help young children look after their mental health

Around the 19-minute mark, I noticed something odd; it wasn’t that I felt any less out of breath than normal, but I felt detached

Mindfulness is the last thing I want to practise while running. When I’m really up against a wall (which is to say, after four minutes), the only thing that keeps me going is listening to Maniac and imagining I’m that gorilla in a paddling pool. So I approached this with a closed mind, and discarded a lot of podcasts because they were too woo-hoo, or because you had to listen to them before you run (“no headphones” is a typical mindful runner’s instruction), or because the person had an annoying voice. Finally, I settled on The Milestone Pursuit podcast, by a likable blokey Londoner, Steve Hobbs. He didn’t sound at all spiritual; he sounded like a person who would help you with your bike if your chain came off.

He has one mindful episode that I’ve listened to seven or eight times. Total convert. But full disclosure: I’ve never got to the end. It lasts 36 minutes, and I still don’t run for that long. So it’s partly suspense that keeps me going back.

Tinto wants to help mums dealing with post-natal depression and loneliness in Covid-19 and beyond

The sleep-focused app has raised £9.6 million for its mission to bring mindfulness to children

'Practising mindfulness is like going to a gym, you have to exercise the muscle and it works with anxiety'

Arsenal have been forced to follow neighbours Tottenham in reminding their squad of lockdown guidelines after four Gunners players were caught flouting social-distancing measures.

Manchester United will speak to Marcos Rojo after the defender was filmed appearing to flout social distancing guidelines.

Tomori has been studying towards a degree in business management

Louis van Gaal has described Ed Woodward as an "evil genius" – and insists he holds the Manchester United executive vice chairman responsible for his brutal sacking.

Coalition calls on FTC to review how companies are marketing to children and tracking them online.

Man United were the team of the 90s in English football and the Chicago Bulls were the team of the 90s in the NBA and that has been the subject of a Netflix documentary.

China's government is putting on a show of sending aid to countries suffering from COVID-19, but undermining efforts to control the source of further pandemics.

Experts urge AFL and NRL clubs not to underestimate the potential effects of isolation on players, as the rugby league players' union calls for their mental health to be prioritised during the coronavirus shutdown.

Netflix's new documentary, "Becoming," a companion to Michelle Obama's memoir of the same name, is unlikely to change one's view of its subject.

The Justice Department announced today the launch of an educational video reminding employers that Salvadorans with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) may continue working beyond the March 9, 2012, expiration date of their Employment Authorization Documents.

The former chief executive officer of a Virginia-based security contracting firm was sentenced in the Eastern District of Virginia to 72 months in prison for creating a front company to obtain more than $31 million intended for disadvantaged small businesses and for bribing the former regional director for the National Capital Region of the Federal Protective Service (FPS) as part of the scheme.

Muhammad Shahab, the mastermind of an almost $11 million Medicare fraud scheme in Detroit, was sentenced today to 50 months in prison.

Years ago, working in the archives in New Delhi, I came across a brief, handwritten, letter from Jawaharlal Nehru to C. Rajagopalachari. It was dated 30th July 1947, and it read: ‘My dear Rajaji, This is to remind you that you have to approach Shanmukham Chetty—this must be done soon. I have seen Ambedkar and [...]

"We institutionalised WFH guidelines even before the commencement of the lockdown," said Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra, director (HR), Indian Oil.

FAFSA season has just ended -- the final deadline to fill out the 2017-18 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was June 30. This year, as every year, many students who are eligible for aid will have failed to complete the form.1 This means many miss out on financial aid, which can have a…