Tag: Xbox

What Is Element Zero?

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 8 Comments

This weekend, BioWare launched a copy of their new video game, Mass Effect 3, into space via weather balloon.  Whoever found it when it landed, wherever it landed, could keep it.  My friend Jim and I spent Saturday chasing this weather balloon, tracking its GPS signal, and were within 10 miles of its landing site when someone else claimed it.

Fun publicity stunts aside, Mass Effect is a good game for those of us who enjoy the science part of science fiction.  Much of the story revolves around the discovery of a new element on the periodic table, an element with an atomic number of zero.  The strange qualities of “element zero” make all kinds of things possible, from artificial gravity to faster than light travel, as well as a few pretty cool guns.

Thing is, scientists once thought to include an element zero in the real periodic table.  They called it neutronium.  As you may remember from high school science, most atoms are made from protons, neutrons, and electrons, with the number of protons determining the atomic number.  A neutronium atom has no protons; it is a single, free-floating neutron.

Scientists today don’t generally consider free-floating neutrons to be atoms in their own right, and so neutronium is not listed in the periodic table.  However, the term has been used in science fiction many times, usually to refer to incredibly strong substances produced in the heart of neutron stars.

Obviously, Mass Effect’s element zero is different than neutronium (unless you want to consider neutronium an element zero isotope).  But if a massless, atomic numberless element really did exist, it would definitely have some strange properties.  Maybe even the properties predicted by the game.

Click here for more on element zero.

Dr. Xbox

~ J.S. Pailly ~ Leave a comment

One day, your psychologist might give you a prescription not for drugs but for a video game.  According to a post on kotaku.com, researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College are developing a game that uses biofeedback to help treat anxiety disorder.  This could become the first of many games designed to improve your mental health.

Biofeedback technology reads signals from your body to control the game.  Think of the Kinect for Xbox, where a camera watches the player’s movements and the character in the game mirrors them.  Another game, this one for PC, uses a webcam to monitor the player’s breathing, turning the player’s lungs into a video game controller.  Using electrodes on the head, a video game system could even be controlled with brainwaves.

The video game designed at Rochester is customizable, meaning a psychologist could program features into the game specifically tailored for their patients.  Patients could then face their fears in a safe, consequence free environment and learn to overcome them.  The biofeedback technology—especially the kind using brainwaves—could also record the patient’s reactions to each virtual situation, giving the psychologist more information to further improve and refine that patient’s treatment.The science fiction novel Ender’s Game included a psychological video game, one in which a computer determined what challenges each player most needed to face.  As a result, each player entered a different virtual labyrinth representing his or her unique psychological issues.  The game was a useful tool not only for psychological health but also for manipulating young boys and girls, turning them into good soldiers (it’s important to remember than any technology can be used for good or evil).

Although the field of psychological gaming is in its infancy, I believe it has tremendous potential to do some good.  With more research and new technology, something similar to the game envisioned in Ender’s Game could become a reality.