04 SEP 2014 by ideonexus

 tDCS Works Better Than Caffeine

So, using tDCS, McKinley’s lab kept 30 people up for 30 hours to see how they fared with and without fatigue interventions. Essentially, they compared the effects of 200 mg of caffeine (about equal to 2 cups of coffee) to 30 minutes of tDCS at two milliamps (mA) applied to an area of the brain called the dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, which is very important for the cognitive processes of attention and vigilance. The results suggest that applying electricity to a brain for half an hour is...
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27 DEC 2013 by ideonexus

 Anecdote of Badges Encouraging Tutoring

When it comes to biology, Catherine Lacey is a Level 40 Hero. That's her ranking on OpenStudy, where the University of Western Australia student spends up to 30 hours per week answering homework questions posed by students around the world. The level indicates time spent on the site, and Hero is the hardest-to-attain badge. If you think of helping with homework as a game, she's got the high score. The 20-year-old first stumbled upon the OpenStudy site while surfing the Web. She was hooked af...
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A student is motivated to tutor on a website that awards badges. Two takeaways from this: (1) award badges for mentoring and (2) award badges for content creation. Also, award points that can be spent in moderating like slashdot.