Youth I 2007 Feature Releases

Business Wire, June 7, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO -- The following release focuses on the topic Youth I:

ALL TIME-OFFS ARE IN EASTERN TIME

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.--Reclaim Your "Game Face" (06/07/2007 - 02:21 PM, SOURCE: OXY)

AVAILABLE EXPERTS

The following knowledgeable industry leaders and scholars from Business Wire's ExpertSource database are available to discuss topics relating to Youth I:

-- Dr. James M. Bower is Founder, CEO and Chief Visionary Officer of Numedeon Inc., the creators of Whyville.com, the only learning-based virtual world for today's digital kids 8 to 15 years old. Redefining the Internet with the application of virtual worlds that teach real-life situations virtually, Bower and several other consultants founded Whyville in 1999 while working as a professor at the California Institute of Technology. Whyville, which applies over 17 years of research in education and cooperative learning, offers a seriously fun extension to an 8- to 15-year-old kid's real life, giving them ownership of and participation in creating their own experiences. Named for the founding principle that asking why is the true basis of learning, Whyville citizens safely chat, earn currency, design avatars, play games, create projects, eat, govern and much more. Parents and teachers approve of Whyville because of its multiple levels of safety protection including proprietary technology and staff monitoring. For sponsors, Whyville integrates popular brands and institutions -- such as Toyota Scion, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, NASA -- by following its learning-based principles of encouraging Whyville citizens to engage in experiential interactions relevant to today's digital kids. As of 2007, Whyville has more than 2 million registered users worldwide.

Bower received his Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, Bower became a professor at the Caltech and was there for 17 years. In 2002, he moved to a joint position as professor of computational biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and the University of Texas San Antonio. As one of the nation's leading experts in computational neuroscience, one of Bower's passions has been science education at all levels, especially for children. While at Caltech, he founded and co-directed CAPSI (the Caltech Precollege Science Initiative), which raised approximately $20 million in support of high-quality science instruction. From the start, a significant component of CAPSI research involved the educational use by children of computers and computer networks. Bower was also a consultant in establishing the educational software company Knowledge Adventure, known for its "Jump Start" series. He has also served as an educational consultant to Apple, Disney, and Microsoft. He was a founding member of the Internet incubator Idealab, where he worked with its CEO Bill Gross on several educational initiatives. Whyville.net is powered by the Numedeon Interaction Community Engine (NICE). Numedeon's proprietary software requires no software downloads or installations. All a user needs is a standard web browser on a computer connected to the Internet with no more than a 56K modem. Aside from Whyville, NICE also powers a virtual campus for the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio (UTHSCSA). UTHSCSA-Virtual supports scientists and medical professionals in their collaborations both locally and at a distance. PR Contact: Melissa Barto, 310-552-4145, mbarto@rogerspr.com

-- Healthy Kids' Catalog Founder, CEO and child health advocate Merilee A. Kern is also the author of the healthy living-themed fictional children's book entitled "Making Healthy Choices - A Story to Inspire Fit, Weight-Wise Kids" - a story that won iParenting Media's 2006 "Excellent Products" award. She is also Editor-in-Chief of "WEIGHT-WISE KIDS," a free quarterly electronic newsletter that "serves up" news and information that fosters healthy children. Ms. Kern has worked in the $48-billion plus weight loss industry for over half a decade, including a multi-year tenure as a marketing and public relations executive for eDiets.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:DIET) - a leading online nutrition, fitness and healthy living destination. She also currently pens family health-related articles that have been published in media outlets nationwide. In January 2007 Ms. Kern was named a Finalist in the 3rd annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, an international competition recognizing the accomplishments of outstanding women executives, business owners, and the companies they run, which are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards and hailed by the New York Post as 'the business world's own Oscars' Ms. Kern is a life-long fitness enthusiast and a former bodybuilding champion twice over, having previously won the titles of "Miss South Florida" and "Miss Palm Coast." She has participated in sports throughout her youth, and has spent all of her adult years devoted to good nutrition, fitness and healthy living - a lifestyle that she, together with her husband whom she met at the gym, now impart on their two young children. 858-577-0206, merilee@healthykidscatalog.com