Fallout 4 Ruins People"s Lives, Bethesda Gets Sued - http://clapway.com/2015/12/22/fallout-4-ruins-peoples-lives-bethesda-gets-sued-123/

It looks like Bethesda will have to stick a label onto new issues of Fallout 4 that warns players about game addiction and emotional distress. A Russian from the city of Krasnoyarsk is suing Bethesda for causing him a Fallout 4 addiction that lost him his job and his wife. The 28-year-old man played the game for three weeks straight and is blaming Bethesda for the consequences.

Man Plays Fallout 4 for Three Weeks, Loses Job and Wife

Fallout 4 was first released this past November to great sales on all platforms it supported. It was especially great to this Russian victim, who skipped out of work to play so often that he was fired from his job. His addiction was at such levels that he stopped speaking to friends and family until his wife left him. The man inevitably also fell ill from not sleeping or eating right.

Curiosity Gone Wrong

His initial intention was to download the game and play only a few nights per week. This took a big downward spiral, as he could not stop playing for three weeks. On his addiction, the unnamed man has said that he should’ve known the game was this addictive. He’s suing Bethesda under these grounds because people might by discouraged from buying it if they are aware that it is addictive. The man is only looking to save some jobs and marriages.

Can Bethesda Be Held Responsible?

According to him, Bethesda is 100% responsible for the tragedies that have struck his life since he started playing Fallout 4. The game developer, apparently, should be held unaccountable for him being unable to turn off his computer to take breaks.

The man, whose name is being held for security, is suing Bethesda and the Russian localization firm 500,000 Russian roubles, which is roughly $7,000, for emotional distress. This is the first lawsuit of its kind in Russia, and they’re willing to entertain it and see how far it can get.

What Could this Lawsuit Bring for Bethesda?

One of two things can happen thanks to this development. Bethesda can choose to ignore it completely. Since after all it was perfectly within the man’s capability to pause the game or split it into sessions if he actually cared about his job and family, the developer cannot be held accountable. If the man has an addictive personality, he can either exercise caution or get help. On the other hand, Bethesda can take this opportunity and introduce a ‘break’ sequence on the next game update.

Russian Man Could Kickstart A New Gaming Trend

This may not turn out to be so bad for the game, and could get widespread so that ‘highly addictive’ games feature it. A simple reminder for gamers to take a drink of water or break for a meal or for sleep. This could actually be very helpful for gamers who get lost in the action. This shouldn’t be too specific, either. A simple message at the end of an exciting segment would actually be beneficial to many gamers, and it would put families and friends at ease. This would be helpful even for online sessions if groups are encouraged to take collective breaks if only to rest their hands and talk amongst each other.

Bethesda Has Not Given an Official Response to this Lawsuit

Bethesda hasn’t issued an official response to this lawsuit, but we can expect one of those two outcomes to play out. This Russian man is confirming what others only talk about, and some health and safety tips inserted throughout the game couldn’t do much harm. Whether or not gamers like to be taken out of the action, it’d be nice to have reminders for water, food or sleep. Some of these messages can be sprinkled onto character dialogue, or show up after a certain amount of hours of gameplay on a given day.

Read: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Vs. Fallout 4 Vs. Star Wars Battlefront – Who Reigns Supreme?

Read: Fallout 4: Bethesda Update Made PS4 and Xbox Fans Happy Again

Fallout 4 Ruins People"s Lives, Bethesda Gets Sued

%Microbes in our intestines can trigger #autoimmune uveitis, and a new study found microbes produce #proteins allowing harmful #immunecells to enter our eyes.% - http://clapway.com/2015/08/19/autoimmune-blindness-gut-microbes-101

Autoimmune uveitis is among the leading causes of blindness. There exist microbes that dwell naturally in our intestines that can be trigger to this disease, and a new study has found that some such microbes produce proteins that candor to harmfully maladjusted immune cells’ entering our eyes.

AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE ATTACKS EYES

This notion of intestinal microbes promoting autoimmune uveitis “has been there in the back of our minds,” comments ocular immunologist Andrew Taylor of the Boston University School of Medicine, a scientific bystander. “This is the first time that it’s been shown that gut flora seems to be part of the process.”

In fact, roughly 400,000 people presently in the States have autoimmune uveitis, a disease that sets the body’s means of controlling the immune system, T cells, on a mission to invade the eye and damage its middle layer. T cells are triggered by a special molecule called antigens, and when eye proteins are misidentified as antigens, T cells go haywire and attack. This isn’t an exceptional condition; healthy people possess the same T cells, it’s just that they don’t usually attack the eyes en masse. In order for T cells to attack at all they must first be activated by their corresponding antigen. It’s rare for antigens associated with autoimmune uveitis to leave the eye, so the question at hand is how on Earth are the wrong T cells stimulated the wrong way?

GUT MICROBES TO BLAME

The new study’s immunologist Rachel Caspi of the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, along with her colleagues, performed some genetic engineering on mice to trigger their T cells in the wrong way described above. The critters developed symptoms just as they were weaned. However, the study found that giving the mice four antibiotics capable of killing most of their gut microbes actually delayed the onset and reduced the severity of the disease. This effect was also noticed in germ-free mice, referred to as such because of their lack of gut bacteria.

EXTENSIVE T CELL TESTING

In order to know if gut microbes were actually stimulating the wrong T cells, Caspi and crew mixed intestinal contents of diseased mice to T cell cultures. This lovely cocktail activated the T cells, which means they had become the wrong kind, ready to infect. Caspi’s team suspected a specific protein intestinal microbes release of triggering T cells, so they injected a protein-destroying enzyme to the intestinal cocktail. Afterwards the T cell had a sluggish response to stimuli, which lends weight to the notion of them responding to a protein. Separately, scientists injected T cells from genetically altered mice into control mice not susceptible to autoimmune uveitis, the hypothesis being that T cells unexposed to intestinal material cannot cause uveitis. However, 86% of the mice developed the disease unless they had not received the major dose of T cells formerly exposed to diseased intestinal contents, reported researchers in Immunity, yesterday.

This means that a specific group of bacteria natural to the intestines produces proteins akin to those found in the eye, activating T cells present in the intestines. “We can prove that activation is occurring in the gut,” Caspi announced. Post-activation, these renegade T cells are then presumed to journey up to the eyes, where they force their way in and wreak a blinding havoc.

“It’s a very rigorous approach, and it really adds to our knowledge” regarding how autoimmune uveitis gets its start, remarked ocular immunologist Russell Read of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, another scientific spectator.

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS & NEW QUESTIONS

So far this is solid scientific progress, but the next question to answer, according to immunologist James Rosenbaum of the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, is why only some (and not all) of us develop autoimmune reactions in our retinas. He goes on to suggest that perhaps only some humans have the bacteria necessary to stimulate T cells, or that a genetic predisposition may be involved.

Caspi and crew don’t want to raise false hopes of popping some antibiotic to cure autoimmune uveitis, but by cataloging gut mimesis of ocular proteins in conjunction with trigger-happy bacteria, researchers may one day procure new methods to treat or prevent this mysterious disease.

–story originally covered by Mitch Leslie of Science Magazine

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Autoimmune Disease Behind Blindness Caused By Gut Microbes