Video game Professor Layton and the Curious Village gets more curious

Nearly everything in and about Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a puzzle. Ask a villager for directions, and you'll get a response akin to "Sure, I can help ya. Say, that reminds me of a puzzle. Maybe you can help me figure it out?" Pet a cat, and someone likely will be reminded of a puzzle about mice.

Look at a picture, and chances are you'll discover a hidden puzzle.

With all of these puzzles popping out at you from every direction, it's difficult to stay on track and solve the bigger mysteries of St. Mystere, the "curious village" of the game's title.

Professor Layton is a series that grew out Akihiro Hino's love of brain teasers. The president of game development house Level 5, Akihiro Hino enjoys the work of Akira Tago, professor emeritus of Chiba University and author of the "Head Gymnastics" series of puzzle books.

Rascal Flatts Join the Rubik's Revolution(TM)

NEW YORK, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Techno Source, the leader in electronic toys and games, announces today a partnership with Rascal Flatts granting the group the exclusive right to host the Rubik's Revolution(TM) Light Speed(TM) online game on their Fan site www.rascalflatts.com. Rascal Flatts fans also have the chance to win one of 100 award-winning Rubik's Revolution cubes by April 30, 2008 and one lucky winner will win a pair of tickets and passes to meet Rascal Flatts at a concert of his/her choice.

"Since the Rubik's Revolution came out last summer, we have watched it become a pop-culture phenomenon," says Jay DeMarcus, Rascal Flatts. "We're excited that we can share the Light Speed online game with our fans on our Web site and give them the chance to win a Rubik's Revolution cube of their own."

Toy industry analyst Gerrick L.

Benjamin Franklin Plays Sudoku

Only in the last five years has sudoku been capturing people's recreational time. But 250 years ago, Benjamin Franklin was developing fascinating puzzles with principles quite similar to sudoku, keeping himself occupied while taking a break from his electrical investigations. Now, a mathematician has discovered two Franklin puzzles even more fantastic than those previously known and written a book describing all of Franklin's mathematical endeavors.

In Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey (Princeton University Press, 2007), Paul C. Pasles of Villanova University in Pennsylvania argues that Franklin's mathematical achievements have long been overlooked. Franklin applied common-sense quantitative reasoning in many areas where it had never been used—for example, calculating the economic costs of war and slavery, and making population forecasts before the field of population demographics had been developed.

Growing younger

ATWATER -- For centuries people have been searching for the "Fountain of Youth" but the elusive prolonger of life is nowhere to be found and may not exist at all. Still an Atwater man believes it's possible to halt the advance of time even in later years.

Sam Dolber teaches a noncredit Merced College class in Atwater called "Growing Younger." His philosophy is the mind is like a muscle and if we don't use it, we'll lose it. Various games, puzzles and mental exercises are just the ticket to grow younger, he believes.

"We cannot avoid growing older in years but we can always choose to stay young in spirit," Dolber said. "We do not stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing."

In the 1500s Spanish explorer Juan Ponce De Leon sailed the seas looking for the magical live-forever water source that the Puerto Ricans were talking about.