Barca academy to hone new superstars
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While Europe's elite are still figuring out how to stop the Barcelona machine from winning, the Catalans already have a plan in place to stay on top for years to come.
On Thursday, the club unveiled its new academy centre for youngsters - a new production line bent on creating the next Lionel Messi or Andres Iniesta to take the club forward when their current crop of superstars retire.
"It's a world recognised centre and I'm thrilled to be here for the opening," Iniesta told the club's website.
Iniesta came to the Masia in 1996 when he was just 12 years old and is just one of the many players who have come through the academy to go on to do great things for the club in the first team.
"The secret is doing things in the right way from the very start and they try to improve you as a player and as a person too," he said.
He added: "They [the students] have to be aware of what they have - to value going to school and being able to train every day - because the time goes by really quickly."
Source: ESPN STAR Sports
Playing PC games can help you cure Parkinson's disease
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They designed physical games, similar to Wii and Kinect games, in which subjects win points by moving their bodies in certain ways. Each game has multiple difficulty levels so that the clinical team could customize the therapeutic games for each subject's particular abilities.
"Each subject found his or her own gaming 'sweet spot' - the spot where the physical challenge was not too hard, not too easy, just right,'' said Bob Hone, creative director of Red Hill Studios and the lead principal investigator of the study.
"And when subjects mastered one game level, they often moved on to harder levels for more beneficial effect. The subjects improved their games scores while improving their gait and balance.''
Red Hill developed a custom sensor suit with nine tracking sensors to analyze subjects' movements with higher resolution and accuracy than is possible with consumer gaming platforms. The PC-based system sent encrypted data to a secure database allowing the research teams to track the subjects' performance daily.
Source: Times of India