By Jane McGonigal, Special to CNN

(CNN) - “When you’re on your deathbed, will you really wish you’d spent more time playing Angry Birds?”

It’s a question I hear all the time. And understandably so: I’m probably the world’s leading advocate of spending more time, not less, playing computer and video games.

Why am I so passionate about spending more time playing games (ideally, at least 30 minutes every day)? Because heaps of scientific evidence over the past few years – from an extremely diverse group of investigators, such as Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life, the U.S Army’s Mental Health Assessment Team, Michigan State University’s Department of Psychology and Massachusetts General Hospital - have shown that games can increase our mental, emotional and social resilience.

Games can make us more resilient in the face of tough challenges, better able to learn from mistakes, more likely to cooperate with others on difficult problems and more creative in coming up with new solutions. They can alleviate depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. New research from Stanford University just this month even shows, through fMRI imagery of the brain, exactly how games boost our motivation and self-efficacy at the neurological level. Games build up our belief that we can take positive steps to affect the outcome of our lives – and game help us be more motivated to take those steps and not give up. FULL POST

By John D. Sutter, CNN

(CNN) - Think video games are evil? Spend some time with Jane McGonigal.

McGonigal - a designer who's queen of a genre called "Alternate Reality Games," or ARGs - believes games make us better people. They can be used to combat climate change, reduce poverty and, as she knows personally, help victims of conditions like depression, head injuries and cancer recover more quickly.

"Games are an extraordinary way to tap into the best version of yourself, the most determined, the most creative, the most resilient in the face of failure, the most likely to collaborate with other people - sort of heroic qualities," she said in a recent interview with CNN's "The Next List," which will feature McGonigal on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. "And it seems that if we play more games - games that we love - these qualities can actually spill over into our real lives." FULL POST

By Nina Raja, CNN

(CNN) - When boredom struck, Eric Cleckner and David Chenell decided to get creative. They co-founded an online fighting game called graFighters, which lets users bring their own drawings to life.

Endless days of doodling during class led to the inspiration of game. Cleckner and Chenell envisioned a fighting game where they would take the characters they drew in class and plop them into a fighting game.

“So we were two broke college kids," said Cleckner. One was a designer and the other a programmer. “We got as far as we possibly could, which was about 1% done with the game." FULL POST

Jane McGonigal is serious when it comes to playing games. She’s a world-renown game designer who insists playing games for an hour a day can change your life. That’s right. Playing video games can actually change your life. Gaming, Jane says, produces powerful emotions and social relationships that can really change lives, and potentially even change the world. Scientists call it “game transfer” phenomenon: what we think and feel in games starts to spill over into our real lives. Jane further believes that playing games can us help bond with our family and friends, strengthening our real-life and online social networks.

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For linguist David Peterson, inventing a new language is “like creation itself.”

Peterson is the inventor of the Dothraki language, spoken in the HBO hit series, “Game of Thrones.” (Disclosure: HBO shares a parent company with CNN). And just as J.R.R. Tolkien’s languages infused “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogies with an authenticity rarely seen in fantasy fiction, “Game of Thrones” writers and executive producers Dan Weiss and David Benioff say Peterson’s Dothraki brings a depth to their savage warrior culture beyond that found even in George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire.” FULL POST

Editor's Note: David Peterson is the creator of the Dothraki language used in the HBO show 'Game of Thrones.' Peterson not only created the language but also served as translator/dialect coach for select cast in 'Game of Thrones.' He is also a member of the Language Creation Society.  A 30-minute profile of Peterson will air on The Next List on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on CNN.

The full history of language creation is a fascinating and varied one, but for now, I want to focus on the use of created languages in television and film. As a starting point, it's useful to examine the usage of "foreign languages" in television and film. Though it's hard to imagine at this point a Russian character speaking something other than authentic and grammatically appropriate Russian in a feature-length film, that hasn't always been the case.

Consider, for example, the film adaptation of Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Moviegoers are familiar with the racism inherent in casting the "other" in older films. For the film, if an actor looked "Asian" that was good enough. That same attitude extended to the use of language in the film. Even without knowing Chinese, you can watch Thoroughly Modern Millie and tell that the "Chinese" spoken is complete and utter gobbledygook. That, though, was simply a detail: as long as it sounded "Asian", that was good enough. And mind, this was 1967. FULL POST

Editor's Note: David Peterson is the creator of the Dothraki language used in the HBO show 'Game of Thrones.' Peterson also is a member of the Language Creation Society.  A 30-minute profile of Peterson will air on CNN's "The Next List on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

By David Peterson, Special to CNN

The work of a language creator is often regarded with skepticism. "What's the big deal?" many ask. "All you have to do is make up words." And, indeed, one could proceed as follows:

a = blork
abandon = glurg
abate = plurfle
abattoir = gluff

And so on until there was a unique form for every word in an English language dictionary (in fact, with a computer program, one could produce dozens of "languages" like this in a matter of minutes). And while the resultant language would look different from English, functionally and semantically, it would be identical-a mere notational variant. FULL POST

WATCH CNN TODAY AT 2 P.M. ET TODAY TO SEE A FULL 30-MINUTE PROFILE OF DAVID PETERSON, DOTHRAKI LANGAUGE CREATOR. ALSO INTERVIEWS WITH EMILIA CLARKE, DAVID BENIOFF AND D.B. WEISS, AMRITA ACHARIA, AND MORE.

WINTER IS COMING BUT BEFORE IT DOES WATCH CNN AT 2P.

The Next List goes behind the scenes of the hit series "Game of Thrones" with a look at one of the show's most unique crew members, Dothraki language creator David Peterson.

The Mongol-like Dothraki are one of the warring factions in George R.R. Martin's best-selling fantasy series, "A Song of Ice and Fire," the basis for HBO's sprawling production. In the books, the Dothraki of course speak their own language - one that the show's executive producers thought they could re-create on-screen.

But after trying their hand at a made-up language, David Benioff and Dan Weiss admit it sounded "like gobbledygook." FULL POST

Editor's note: Anna Young is a researcher at MIT’s Little Devices group. She works with Jose Gomez-Marquez, Founder of the Little Devices group. CNN’s The Next List profiled Jose and his work hacking toys to make affordable medical devices.

By Anna Young, Special to CNN

"For this trip to Nicaragua, you should measure success not by the number of temperature and pressure data points you guys collect from the device. What really matters is the number of design modifications from Nicaraguans that you can bring back to Boston.”

This was Jose Gomez-Marquez’s advice as our team packed and planned for a two-week trip to Ocotal, Nicaragua, to test our medical-instrument sterilization device for use in rural clinics. This solar-powered technology will ensure that even the most remote clinics have access to clean, sterile instruments to perform simple surgical procedures. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Jose Gomez-Marquez is the Program Director for Innovations in International Health at MIT and heads up the Little Devices group, where he uses toy parts to create inexpensive medical devices for developing countries. Watch The Next List’s full profile on Jose Gomez-Marquez, Sunday April 1 at 2 p.m. ET on CNN.

By Jose Gomez-Marquez, Special to CNN

Have you gotten caught up in the endless healthcare debate that can lead to comparing our healthcare system with France, the UK, or even Cuba? Our work in medical device research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed to healthcare lessons in unexpected places: Nicaragua, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and even suburban hacker spaces in America. What they have in common is their development of do-it-yourself (DIY) medical technology.

We are and have always been a nation of makers. Along the way, someone told us that healthcare technology was off the table. But we have the technology, the hardware, and the prototyping resources to change that and bring down healthcare costs. Now, we have to recruit everyday inventors that are not part of the conventional “medical industrial complex” - the types of inventors we find all over the developing world, saving lives every day. FULL POST