For the past six months advertising professor Adam Wagler has worked to develop entertaining, interactive and educational iPad applications. Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Health, the "World of Viruses" will feature five comics that will tell a story about viruses, including HPV, HIV and Ocean Viruses. Two iPad apps are currently available for free from the app store in iTunes—Ocean Viruses and Influenza. A third comic iPad app about HIV is due to be released in May 2011.
The project is a collaboration between the CoJMC, University of Nebraska State Museum, the Nebraska Center for Virology and a computer science group called Red Brain, Inc. A total of five iPad applications have been or are being developed that are targeted towards teenagers to increase their interest in science issues. Research is also being conducted to explore how interactive comics on iPads can possibly support this goal. For more information visit, http://www.worldofviruses.unl.edu.
Screen shot from the iPad app