Can one online magazine be all things to all people? Of course not. But that’s not going to stop Mag Space from trying! We publish timely, informative articles on a number of important, broad categories including health, medicine, technology, education and entertainment.

Clues Emerge Regarding Aspirin’s Cancer-Fighting Effects

One of the world’s oldest medicines may hold the secret to a very contemporary problem: preventing cancer. Exactly why salicylate shows such potential as an anti-cancer treatment remains unclear, but a new study in mice offers clues.

Salicylate, found in willow bark, has been a key ingredient in medicine cabinets for thousands of years – ancient Egyptian manuscripts describe it as a treatment for inflammation. In a modified form – aspirin – it remains a successful anti-inflammatory and analgesic. Recently, though, research has revealed a puzzling side-effect of taking aspirin: the drug seems to lower a person’s chances of developing some forms of cancer.

Aspirin is rapidly broken down inside the body into salicylate, so to investigate aspirin’s unexpected side-effects Grahame Hardie at the University of Dundee, UK, applied salicylate to cultured human cells derived from the kidney. He found that the drug activated AMPK, an enzyme involved in cell growth and metabolism that has been found to play a role in cancer and diabetes.

“This is an ancient herbal remedy which has probably always been part of the human diet,” says Hardie. “But despite that we’re still finding out how it works.”

Co-author Greg Steinberg of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, then tested high doses of salicylate on various types of mice. He found that those engineered to lack AMPK did not experience the same metabolic effects from salicylate as seen in mice with AMPK.

Salicylate, in a form called salsalate, has also shown promise as a treatment for insulin-resistance and type 2 diabetes. Those effects, however, appear not to be governed by AMPK. When insulin-resistant mice lacking AMPK were given salicylate, they showed the same improvement in blood glucose levels as normal mice.

“That’s what makes aspirin so scientifically and clinically interesting,” says Chris Paraskeva at the University of Bristol, UK, who was not involved in the work. “It potentially works through a number of different pathways.”

The finding potentially separates aspirin’s pain-relieving effects from its cancer protection, paving the way for new anti-cancer drugs that have fewer side-effects than aspirin. The next step will be to test salicylate directly in mouse models of cancer, and to see whether AMPK remains important in mediating an anti-cancer effect.

Playing Effective Basketball Defense

Some people just seem to have the talents and skills necessary for basketball. Some of us though have to toil our way through it and take to heart all the trainings we have to endure. One area that is vital in playing good basketball is good defense. There are several fields in defense that you must focus on when starting to intensify your basketball skills.

One important aspect of a good defense is body weight. The key is to keep your head low. Most players want to stand erect rather than crouching but coaches want otherwise. So how low should you be crouching? A good rule of thumb is to crouch lower than the person you are guarding. This will help you react and move more readily than the other player. Moreover, keeping your body low will help you balance your body weight effectively.

Next, the positioning of your hands matters. There are obviously several hand positions that you must keep in mind. Hands up would undoubtedly deflect a shot or pass. You can also position your hands at your sides. This would be easier for players and could greatly help with defense against dribbling, passing, and faking the ball. Additionally, this will help you retain your balance.

Finally, there’s the bubble There is this thing we call the bubble which basically pertains to the sphere of movement players have. To be able to play good defense, you have to enter into his bubble and make the most out of this space. The efficiency of movement lies in the skill of intimidation. For example, if you can make the other player worry that you would interfere with his next move or you would steal the ball in his next dribble, he would be intimidated and therefore hesitate. Once this occurs, he is likely to decrease actions in the play which will in turn limit his offensive moves. This will then create an effect of lower scores.

Basketball isn’t merely a game of moves and shots, it is also affected by the mental battles that occur between the minds of the individuals playing. Be a constant irritation to your opponent, because this will affect ball handling. You must also be mindful that you don’t always have to be standing next to your opponent. Just be close enough so as to worry him all the time and distract him.

You can’t improve your defensive, or any other, skills on your own. You need to be part of a team and your team needs to participate in organized events. As you skills increase you’ll want to play in more competitive situations. To do that you’ll want to find an organization that sponsors basketball tournaments and events. NY2LASPORTS is just such an organization. The NY2LASPORTS.COM website is a great source of information on top ranked high school age and younger hoops players from around the country. College coaches who follow basketball talent will want to investigate the NY2LAHOOPS.TV website. This site offers hundreds of high school basketball videos that are each full-length NY2LASPORTS event games. College coaches who want to stay current with high school basketball for recruiting purposes will definitely want to consider checking out this website to view the most recent basketball videos.

Going Old School – Board Games Over Video Games

Some people feel that board games and pen-and-paper RPGs are superior to video games, for a number of reasons. For one, technology itself and the entire development process required to put together a major video game can muck it up beyond recognition. Board games, on the other hand, have a very low design threshold. Whereas creating a video game is akin to swimming through shark-infested waters, a board game can be designed and prototyped shark-free.

“When you buy a board game, what you take home and play is the original concept precisely as it was in the designer’s head,” writes Reggie Garland. ”That’s the mecca for video games. For board games, it’s the norm.” Anyone with an idea can create a pen and paper RPG or a boardgame pretty much on their own, Garland argues. Even comparatively simple mobile games still require programming savvy. So Garland has been playing a lot of low-tech games these days in what he calls video game detox.

“This isn’t me clawing at the jaws of a dinosaur as it goes bubbling down into a tar pit, either,” he writes. “Board game sales are actually increasing, year on year, and have been for more than a decade. Board games, would you believe it, seem to be coming back.” This may be in part an economic phenomenon tied closely to the financial collapse.

“One of the main reasons why board games are doing so well has to do with the economy,” Jim Rogers, editor of a game magazine, said back in 2009 when people started noticing that board game sales were on the rise.

“You can buy a great board game for under $20, and every time you play it, it’s a new game,” Rogers noted. “This is a toy that can be played over and over again, so the consumer sees value in this type of purchase.”

Compare that with any major release on the consoles. Gamers play $60 for a vanilla title, and often fork out more for downloadable content or expansion packs.

Garland’s argument is pretty compelling, but I’m not entirely sold. Yes, board and pen-and-paper games do come from a pure spring of ideas, and aren’t bogged down with the limitations of tech or the high expectations of massive profits. But aren’t we actually just comparing apples to oranges?

A good Dungeons and Dragons campaign is hard to beat on its own terms. You have to imagine a great deal. And you have to set aside a pretty substantial chunk of time. Not just your time either. You need to find actual people to play with. Video gamers often play with friends either in the flesh or online, but at least in my experience the time requirements of a good board game or pen-and-paper RPG are vast in comparison.

I don’t think I’m unique at all in being a gamer with lots of time constraints: between kids, spouse, work, and sleep most of my life is already plenty occupied. I fit in gaming where I can, but I also like to hike, read, and so forth. Any hypothetical person I could play a board game with would have all the same (or many of the same) restraints as myself – only, their schedule would probably not align very well with mine.

Gaming is an adult hobby now, and we adults get the short end of the stick compared to our youthful counterparts at least when it comes to managing time. Video games are wonderful, in part, because they can achieve some of the same emotional gratification and entertainment value that board and pen-and-paper games give us. They’re also more visceral.

Whereas board games require us to think, and pen-and-paper RPGs require us to imagine, video games tap more directly into the actual play. We have to actually fight that skeleton knight, not just tell the DM what we’re doing and then role the dice. There’s pros and cons to each form, and while both low and high-tech gaming can be extremely fun and gratifying, I think we’re talking about two very different experiences that can’t really be held up the one against the other.

In the end, the more the merrier. More games, more gamers, more people spending their time playing rather than doing all the other awful things we do. Technology may be a cross video game designers are forced to bear, but it’s also a promise of things to come – a double-edged digital sword.

And as we’ve discussed previously, maybe a lot of the limitations in gaming so far, or at least in role-playing and story-intensive video games, are due to the still-evolving way in which we tell stories in games. Maybe the gaming industry has mirrored too often the film industry, and needs to get back to its cardboard roots.

Key Steps to Thinking Strategically

I’ve been working with a variety of entrepreneurs recently on their companies’ positioning and differentiation in the marketplace. It’s surprising how many young companies overlook the importance of doing some solid research, analysis, and old-fashioned thinking on this topic. Don’t let this happen to you. Here’s how you can define a positioning and differentiation that will work for you.

First of all, what exactly is “strategic thinking?” To think strategically requires founders and key team members to continually assess your business and your industry, and to apply new business insights. The goal is to use these insights to reinforce a company’s differentiation in the marketplace to achieve competitive advantage. You need to think strategically before your team can move on to the long or short-term strategic planning. You need both of these to make smart decisions on a daily basis. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll have a hard time getting there! Here’s how to get started:

Evaluate your company

Do your research. Put on your reporter’s hat and look for alternative, diverse sources of information about your company, your competitors, and your industry

Connect the dots. The goal is to piece together the right information from a variety of sources to generate new insights

Take time to reflect. Startup culture glorifies the iterative fail-fast, move-fast mentality. This is not what strategic thinking is about. Even if you can only steal a few minutes a day, take time to reflect upon what you’ve learned from your work that day.

Devise your strategy for execution

Go with the flow. Don’t think that this is your strategy-for-all-time. Even while you’re planning, stay flexible.

Act quickly. When you see opportunity, be proactive.

Set your roadmap. You may have a chart of the projects you need to get done to stay on task, or a checklist of actions you can take immediately. Either way, you’ll need a cheat-sheet so you can incorporate your new insights into your decision-making.

Communicate your strategy to your team to make sure everyone’s on the same page

Allocate resources

Decide wisely. Use your insights, not just raw information, to make decisions

Prioritize. You can’t say yes to everything or you’ll be spread too thin.

Zero in: Resource allocation also applies to the priorities you set for your team and your other limited resources such as capital. Don’t let team members or staff go off wandering in the wilderness either.

Delegate. Take a page from big-business tech and use resource capacity planning to manage your employees’ time. This will help you keep track of who has a full workload and who has time to work on a project.

Although “strategic thinking” can sound intimidating, or even like too much of a luxury in our ation-oriented world, following these steps can help you incorporate new insights into your existing business and workflow. Startups are supposed to be lean and agile, and with a little strategic thinking, you can make the most of both attributes.