27th Passenger

BoardGame-Review

I thought I hated deduction games. A friend of mine had purchased The Resistance and we played it till kingdom come. Everyone loved it, except me. It was too much a social exercise and too little a game. This is not necessarily bad, it just made the game extremely different with different groups, and it didn’t work with some of them. I assumed that this was true for all deduction games; 27th Passenger proved me wrong. 27th Passenger is about a group of assassins on a train. They all want to kill each other, but not the civilians. Of course, all players have a disguise ranging from a tough gangster to a sweeter schoolgirl.Continue reading

Hips 4 Eternity

cassi-camilleri

All over the world, hip replacement surgeries are on the increase. Provisional data from the hip replacement register at Mater Dei shows that, in Malta during 2014, 145 people needed their hips replaced while another 11 needed revisions to old implants. With costs that run into the thousands, the problem of faulty implants caught the eye of a local research team of engineers and medics. Cassi Camilleri finds out more about their work in solving the dilemma. Photography by Elisa von Brockdorff

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I_compute I_create I_am

Dr Edward DucaCreativity is a quality that we, as humans, think is ours alone. Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis is creating computers that might have already taken this away from us. Computational creativity is here. His games are helping children be more creative, others to overcome dyslexia, and even combat bullying. Words by Dr Edward Duca.

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Placing Cultural Research on the Map

Photo by Elisa von Brockdorff, courtesy of The Valletta 2018 Foundation.

GraziellaVella

The Valletta 2018 Foundation recently started a five-year research study to evaluate and monitor the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) project in Malta. The process combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect data that will be communicated to the general public and interested stakeholders. This research will provide feedback to help fine-tune or correct the Foundation’s operations. The process aims to provide a local model for research in culture and the creative sector in order to encourage more cultural research after 2018.Continue reading