This week?s best games haul is headed by a big content update to Dungeon Defenders: First Second Wave, adding a new head-to-head versus mode in addition to the strong online cooperative multiplayer mode featured in the game. If you liked Dungeon Defenders before, you?ll love it now, but we?ve also got four other great titles that?ll keep your interest as well. Check out all five below.
The first Unreal Engine 3 game ever to grace the App Store has just gotten bigger and better with a big update to Dungeon Defenders: First Wave. Now with a new name (Second Wave), developer Trendy Entertainment has introduced new content including a new campaign level you can play through with up to four friends in the online cooperative multiplayer mode. There?s also the competitive online mode known as Arena that lets players battle each other. Along with a new interface and new touch controls, Trendy has gone ahead and optimized its game for the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S, which helps a great-looking game become even more graphically beautiful.
A 3-D battle on the tennis court, Flick Tennis is exactly what it sounds like: a game in which you flick your iOS device?s screen to fire off serves and volleys in a fast-paced game of tennis. Flick Tennis puts you in the shoes of a young player as he starts college, and you?ll battle through several opponents to become the best player in school. You get a lot of bang for your buck in this one, with head-to-head multiplayer, Game Center support with leaderboards and a hearty single-player campaign. Flick Tennis even packs something like 50 pages of comics to portray its story.
Bike Baron (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
A side-scrolling game that puts players on a dirt bike on tough, loopy courses, Bike Baron scores your performance in a lot of ways, but the biggest one is usually not crashing into stuff. That?s difficult, because Bike Baron has plenty of things that can blow up your bike, smash your skull or send you flying hilariously through the air. You?ll jet through each level in an attempt to finish the course as quickly as possible, perform different stunts to build up your score, and collect coins. The more objectives you complete on each level, the better your score, which will keep you playing for quite a while.
Filled with songs that have turned into Internet memes, Russian Dancing Men is a pretty hilarious rhythm game that gets fairly complicated. You play as the titular dancing me, who have to avoid all kinds of obstacles that can kill their troupe like spikes, pits, walls and loop-de-loops. If you hit the correct button to avoid the danger at the right time, you score big points, but screw it up and you?ll lose a dancer until they?re all gone. Russian Dancing Men includes leaderboards through Game Center, which means you can compete for dancing supremacy against players from all over the planet, not just Russia.
Cosmic Cab (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
There are aliens who desperately need to get to a birthday party, and they?re willing to tip a particularly skilled cabby pretty well. And it just so happens that you have an intergalactic space taxi that can ferry them where they need to go. The only trouble is, you?ll be navigating a tubular space highway best navigated by tilt controls. The faster you get the aliens to their destinations with the fewest mistakes, the higher your score will be. Cosmic Cab is a beautiful, fast-paced interstellar romp, and easily worth a buck for its tube-traversing antics.
Contact: Tracey Peake tracey_peake@ncsu.edu 919-515-6142 North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University researchers have uncovered evidence that evolutionary "breakpoints" on canine chromosomes are also associated with canine cancer. Mapping these "fragile" regions in dogs may also have implications for the discovery and treatment of human cancers.
When new species evolve, they leave genetic evidence behind in the form of "breakpoint regions." These regions are sites on the genome where chromosomes broke during speciation (when new species of dogs developed). Dr. Matthew Breen, professor of genomics at NC State, and graduate student Shannon Becker looked at the breakpoint regions that occurred when the canid (dog) species differentiated during evolution. They compared the genomes of several wild canine species with those of the domestic dog. By overlaying the genomes, they found shared breakpoints among 11 different canid species the so-called evolutionary breakpoints.
"The interesting thing about the breakpoint areas in the canid chromosome is that they are the same regions that we have shown to be associated with chromosome breaks in spontaneously occurring cancers," Breen says. "It is possible that the re-arrangement of chromosomes that occurred when these species diverged from one another created unstable regions on the chromosome, and that is why these regions are associated with cancer."
The researchers' results appear in Chromosome Research.
"As species evolve, genetic information encoded on chromosomes can be restructured resulting in closely related species having differently organized genomes," says Becker. "In some cases, species acquire extra chromosomes, called B chromosomes. We looked at these extra B chromosomes in three canid species and found that they harbor several cancer-associated genes. Our work adds to the growing evidence that there is an association between cancer-associated genomic instability and genomic rearrangement during speciation."
"The presence of clusters of cancer- associated genes on canid B chromosomes suggests that while previously though to be inert, these chromosomes may have played a role in sequestering excess copies of such genes that were generated during speciation," adds Breen. "We now need to determine whether these stored genes are active or inert that information could give us new tools in cancer detection and treatment."
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The research was funded by the Morris Animal Foundation. The Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences is part of NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine.
Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.
"Anchoring the dog to its relatives reveals new evolutionary breakpoints across 11 species of the Canidae and provides new clues for the role of B chromosomes"
Authors: Matthew Breen, Shannon E. Duke Becker, Rachael Thomas, North Carolina State University; and Robert K. Wayne, University of California Los Angeles; Vladimir A. Trifonov and Alexander S. Graphodatsky, Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, SB RAS, Russia
Published: Chromosome Research
Abstract: The emergence of genome-integrated molecular cytogenetic resources allows for comprehensive comparative analysis of gross karyotype architecture across related species. The identification of evolutionarily conserved chromosome segment (ECCS) boundaries provides deeper insight into the process of chromosome evolution associated with speciation. We evaluated the genome-wide distribution and relative orientation of ECCSs in three wild canid species with diverse karyotypes (red fox,Chinese raccoon dog, and gray fox). Chromosomespecific panels of dog genome-integrated bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones spaced at ?10-Mb intervals were used in fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis to construct integrated physical genome maps of these three species. Conserved evolutionary breakpoint regions (EBRs) shared between their karyotypes were refined across these and eight additional wild canid species using targeted BAC panels spaced at ?1-Mb intervals. Our findings suggest that the EBRs associated with speciation in the Canidae are compatible with recent phylogenetic groupings and provide evidence that these breakpoints are also recurrently associated with spontaneous canine cancers. We identified several regions of domestic dog sequence that share homology with canid B chromosomes, including additional cancer-associated genes, suggesting that these supernumerary elements may represent more than inert passengers within the cell. We propose that the complex karyotype rearrangements associated with speciation of the Canidae reflect unstable chromosome regions described by the fragile breakage model.
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Contact: Tracey Peake tracey_peake@ncsu.edu 919-515-6142 North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University researchers have uncovered evidence that evolutionary "breakpoints" on canine chromosomes are also associated with canine cancer. Mapping these "fragile" regions in dogs may also have implications for the discovery and treatment of human cancers.
When new species evolve, they leave genetic evidence behind in the form of "breakpoint regions." These regions are sites on the genome where chromosomes broke during speciation (when new species of dogs developed). Dr. Matthew Breen, professor of genomics at NC State, and graduate student Shannon Becker looked at the breakpoint regions that occurred when the canid (dog) species differentiated during evolution. They compared the genomes of several wild canine species with those of the domestic dog. By overlaying the genomes, they found shared breakpoints among 11 different canid species the so-called evolutionary breakpoints.
"The interesting thing about the breakpoint areas in the canid chromosome is that they are the same regions that we have shown to be associated with chromosome breaks in spontaneously occurring cancers," Breen says. "It is possible that the re-arrangement of chromosomes that occurred when these species diverged from one another created unstable regions on the chromosome, and that is why these regions are associated with cancer."
The researchers' results appear in Chromosome Research.
"As species evolve, genetic information encoded on chromosomes can be restructured resulting in closely related species having differently organized genomes," says Becker. "In some cases, species acquire extra chromosomes, called B chromosomes. We looked at these extra B chromosomes in three canid species and found that they harbor several cancer-associated genes. Our work adds to the growing evidence that there is an association between cancer-associated genomic instability and genomic rearrangement during speciation."
"The presence of clusters of cancer- associated genes on canid B chromosomes suggests that while previously though to be inert, these chromosomes may have played a role in sequestering excess copies of such genes that were generated during speciation," adds Breen. "We now need to determine whether these stored genes are active or inert that information could give us new tools in cancer detection and treatment."
###
The research was funded by the Morris Animal Foundation. The Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences is part of NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine.
Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.
"Anchoring the dog to its relatives reveals new evolutionary breakpoints across 11 species of the Canidae and provides new clues for the role of B chromosomes"
Authors: Matthew Breen, Shannon E. Duke Becker, Rachael Thomas, North Carolina State University; and Robert K. Wayne, University of California Los Angeles; Vladimir A. Trifonov and Alexander S. Graphodatsky, Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, SB RAS, Russia
Published: Chromosome Research
Abstract: The emergence of genome-integrated molecular cytogenetic resources allows for comprehensive comparative analysis of gross karyotype architecture across related species. The identification of evolutionarily conserved chromosome segment (ECCS) boundaries provides deeper insight into the process of chromosome evolution associated with speciation. We evaluated the genome-wide distribution and relative orientation of ECCSs in three wild canid species with diverse karyotypes (red fox,Chinese raccoon dog, and gray fox). Chromosomespecific panels of dog genome-integrated bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones spaced at ?10-Mb intervals were used in fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis to construct integrated physical genome maps of these three species. Conserved evolutionary breakpoint regions (EBRs) shared between their karyotypes were refined across these and eight additional wild canid species using targeted BAC panels spaced at ?1-Mb intervals. Our findings suggest that the EBRs associated with speciation in the Canidae are compatible with recent phylogenetic groupings and provide evidence that these breakpoints are also recurrently associated with spontaneous canine cancers. We identified several regions of domestic dog sequence that share homology with canid B chromosomes, including additional cancer-associated genes, suggesting that these supernumerary elements may represent more than inert passengers within the cell. We propose that the complex karyotype rearrangements associated with speciation of the Canidae reflect unstable chromosome regions described by the fragile breakage model.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
SAN FRANCISCO ? Rdio, an all-you-can-listen music service, is launching in Brazil under the brand Oi Rdio, in partnership with Brazil's largest telecommunications company, Oi.
The service will be available this week to 67 million Oi subscribers and others.
Oi Rdio offers on-demand access to over 12 million songs, mostly from the major recording companies, but also with Brazilian distributors such as Som Livre, DeckDisk and OiMusica. A subscription costs 8.99 reals ($5.09) per month for computer access and 14.90 reals ($8.44) for access on mobile devices.
Rdio, which is also available in the U.S. and Canada, also said Tuesday that it plans to expand into Germany and Australia in 2012.
The company was founded by Janus Friis, one of the creators of Skype, in August 2010 in San Francisco.
HARRISON, N.J. - Mike Magee has played every position for Los Angeles this season, from defender, midfielder, forward, even goalkeeper for one game in June. On Sunday, it was his scoring touch that gave the Galaxy an advantage in their playoff series against New York.
Magee scored the only goal of the match, off a long cross from David Beckham, in the 15th minute, giving the Galaxy a 1-0 win against the Red Bulls in the first leg of the Western Conference semifinals.
Magee's goal enables Los Angeles to head home needing only a tie or a win on Thursday night to advance to the conference finals. The two-game series is based on aggregate goals between the two teams. The Galaxy are unbeaten at home this season at 12-0-5.
Josh Saunders made five saves to earn his ninth shutout in 19 matches this season for the Galaxy, who beat the Red Bulls for the first time in 2011, after a 1-1 tie in May and a 2-1 loss earlier this month in New Jersey.
"We seemed very comfortable playing here," Saunders said. "It's great to get a win right off the bat. We now just have to go out and try to win again."
Magee, who began his career with the Red Bulls franchise, played six seasons with the team as both the MetroStars and Red Bulls and then was traded to the Galaxy in 2009. He got past the defense on a 45-yard pass from Beckham. While most of New York's players stood and watched, thinking the play was offside, Magee pushed it past Red Bulls keeper Frank Rost.
"The ball was a perfect pass," Magee said. "I was 100 percent not offside. Besides, it wasn't called, so then it wasn't. I was just glad to get it."
"Mike is a good player who for the majority of his career has always been good around the penalty area," said Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena, who also coached Magee with the MetroStars and engineered the trade that brought Magee to Los Angeles. "As he's matured as a player, he's been able to handle a variety of roles and did it all for us this year. He's a very diverse player."
Magee came in and played goalkeeper June 25 in a win over San Jose, making six saves in net after the Galaxy's top two netminders went down with injuries. He did not allow a goal in his brief stint.
Red Bulls head coach Hans Backe, pleased for the most part by the way his team performed, was disappointed that the Red Bulls didn't complete the play on Magee's goal.
"We had about seven guys call for the offside and I believe (Robbie) Keane was offside," Backe said. "Magee came in as a late runner and he made the play. You can't give away a goal like that. You have to keep playing and be more confident. It's a tough goal to give away."
The Galaxy almost scored in the 12th minute when Keane fired a shot that clanked off the right post. Magee was in front to head home a rebound, but his attempt sailed over the crossbar.
Red Bulls forward Thierry Henry had a chance in the 22nd minute, when his scissors attempt sailed high toward the goal, but Saunders punched it away at the last second.
New York's best chance to score came in the 49th minute, when Dane Richards swerved through two defenders to put a pass across to Luke Rodgers. But Rodgers' point-blank shot was deflected by Saunders' right hand and the ball sailed over the crossbar before Rodgers could get to it.
"I was just trying to see the play," Saunders said. "It was a quick reaction more than anything, ball to hand. I was lucky to get a hand on it. It came off very quick."
Rost made a brilliant save in the 55th minute, keeping the lead at one goal, when he stopped Landon Donovan on breakaway attempt. Donovan was in alone, but Rost made a fine right-handed save on Donovan's shot.
The Red Bulls had an opportunity to tie the match with under 2 minutes remaining in regulation, but Mendes' header off a corner kick from Rodgers went over the crossbar.
In stoppage time, the Red Bulls came close again, when Rafa Marquez sent a shot from 25 yards out that Saunders made a diving stop on, with the rebound attempt sailing wide right.
It marked the first time the two teams met in the MLS Cup playoffs since the 2001 quarterfinals, a series won by the Galaxy in three games.
The game was marred by a postgame incident involving four players, two from each team. Donovan apparently said something to Marquez, who then took the ball and fired it at Donovan. In the scrum that ensued, Galaxy midfielder Juninho threw a punch at Red Bulls defender Stephen Keel. Referee Alex Prus issued postgame red cards to both Marquez and Juninho, suspending both for the next game on Thursday.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Galaxy get it done vs. Red Bulls
Mike Magee scored off a long cross from David Beckham, giving Los Angeles a 1-0 win against New York?in the first leg of the Western Conference semis.
'Monster'?
Ex-U.S. coach Bob Bradley has the daunting challenge of reviving the hopes of the "monster'' of African football ? Egypt.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip ? An Egyptian official said Tuesday that Israel has agreed to briefly delay expanding its military operations in the Gaza Strip to give Egypt time to try to persuade Palestinian militant factions to halt rocket fire on southern Israel.
Israeli aircraft have targeted rocket squads in Gaza in recent days, but the Egyptian official says Israel has also planned a wider operation. The official says Egypt asked for 24 hours to try to bring all factions into an informal cease-fire and Israel agreed to give Cairo until around midnight Tuesday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Egyptian mediation.
The Israeli defense ministry had no immediate comment.
The military said there have been no Israeli airstrikes since around midnight Monday. Two rockets were fired from Gaza during that time.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned from the podium of the Israeli parliament that Israel would operate "vigorously and resolutely" against those who would threaten its security.
"A security philosophy cannot rely on defense alone," Netanyahu said. "It must also include offensive capabilities, the very foundation of deterrence."
The recent flare in violence has been the worst in the area in months, killing at least 10 militants and an Israeli civilian.
The attacks have disrupted life in southern Israel, forcing schools to close. About 1 million Israelis live within range of rockets from Gaza.
The Islamic Jihad faction had led the rocket attacks that began last week, but on Sunday agreed to stop the violence if Israel also did. Rocket fire that drew retaliatory Israeli airstrikes persisted afterward, but it was claimed by a different militant group, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Gaza's ruling Hamas group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in past violence, has not directly been involved in the attacks. But Israel holds Hamas responsible for all violence from the territory.
Hamas, meanwhile, said Tuesday that the Israeli military had arrested one of its leaders in the West Bank, Hassan Youssef, overnight in his Ramallah home. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the move "a dangerous Israeli escalation against Hamas and against one of the symbols of the elected Palestinian legitimacy."
Youssef was released from an Israeli prison in August after serving six years.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Hamas has controlled Gaza since taking it over in June 2007 during a civil war with its rival Fatah. The West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority, run by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who unlike Hamas favors a negotiated settlement with Israel.
FROM HOLLYWOOD CRUSH: With just four days until our MTV First special on "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1"?complete with never-before-seen clips from the film and interviews with Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner?we're getting antsy in the pantsy for our last-minute exclusive peek at the crushworthy culmination of Edward and Bella's [...]
The first Unreal Engine 3 game ever to grace the App Store has just gotten bigger and better with a big update to Dungeon Defenders: First Wave. Now with a new name (Second Wave), developer Trendy Entertainment has introduced new content including a new campaign level you can play through with up to four friends in the online cooperative multiplayer mode. There?s also the competitive online mode known as Arena that lets players battle each other. Along with a new interface and new touch controls, Trendy has gone ahead and optimized its game for the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S, which helps a great-looking game become even more graphically beautiful.
A 3-D battle on the tennis court, Flick Tennis is exactly what it sounds like: a game in which you flick your iOS device?s screen to fire off serves and volleys in a fast-paced game of tennis. Flick Tennis puts you in the shoes of a young player as he starts college, and you?ll battle through several opponents to become the best player in school. You get a lot of bang for your buck in this one, with head-to-head multiplayer, Game Center support with leaderboards and a hearty single-player campaign. Flick Tennis even packs something like 50 pages of comics to portray its story.
A side-scrolling game that puts players on a dirt bike on tough, loopy courses, Bike Baron scores your performance in a lot of ways, but the biggest one is usually not crashing into stuff. That?s difficult, because Bike Baron has plenty of things that can blow up your bike, smash your skull or send you flying hilariously through the air. You?ll jet through each level in an attempt to finish the course as quickly as possible, perform different stunts to build up your score, and collect coins. The more objectives you complete on each level, the better your score, which will keep you playing for quite a while.
Filled with songs that have turned into Internet memes, Russian Dancing Men is a pretty hilarious rhythm game that gets fairly complicated. You play as the titular dancing me, who have to avoid all kinds of obstacles that can kill their troupe like spikes, pits, walls and loop-de-loops. If you hit the correct button to avoid the danger at the right time, you score big points, but screw it up and you?ll lose a dancer until they?re all gone. Russian Dancing Men includes leaderboards through Game Center, which means you can compete for dancing supremacy against players from all over the planet, not just Russia.
There are aliens who desperately need to get to a birthday party, and they?re willing to tip a particularly skilled cabby pretty well. And it just so happens that you have an intergalactic space taxi that can ferry them where they need to go. The only trouble is, you?ll be navigating a tubular space highway best navigated by tilt controls. The faster you get the aliens to their destinations with the fewest mistakes, the higher your score will be. Cosmic Cab is a beautiful, fast-paced interstellar romp, and easily worth a buck for its tube-traversing antics.
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Public release date: 3-Nov-2011
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