Tired of staring at exhibits of the evolution of man in your local museum? Try this: the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's Economic Adventure Gallery is hosting a new exhibit on the history of video games at the Guildhall of Southern Methodist University (SMU), a leading education center for digital-game development. Entitled "Video Games Evolve: A Brief History from Spacewar! to MMORPGS", the exhibit traces the evolution of video games from 1962 to the present day.

While the SMU exhibit does examine the roots of the video game industry with the birth of Spacewar! in 1962 (a playable demo of which is available at the exhibit), it also features the classic arcade games of the 1980s (Pac-Man, Space Invaders, etc.), educational games like the Federation of American Scientists' Immune Attack, and even modern MMORPGs such as Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies and Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

The aptly-named Dr. Peter Raad, Executive Director of the Guildhall at SMU, commented that:

This is a wonderful exhibit not only for video game lovers, but for anyone who wants to know how science, technology, and art come together to form an industry.

The exhibit will run until January 2008. And by the way, the playable demos are all free.

One thing you have to love about scientists: even for a seemingly boring subject, they're in touch enough with what teens will respond to, and they will work on that. That's the beauty of a prototype game developed by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) to introduce gamers to a complex subject such as immunology.

In Immune Attack, you are a teenager with a special sort of immunodeficiency system. In order to save yourself, you have to propel a nanomachine robot inside your body and, with the help of your professor (your in-game guide, so to speak), teach your immune system how to properly function.

That being said, the game currently looks like a space-shooting sim, except the whole setting happens to be within the human body. Definitely an innovative twist on your standard shooter fare.

The latest prototype of the game will be presented at "The Body is a Game," part of the Games for Health conference which will happen at the University of Maryland School of Medicine on September 29. A playable demo of the game will also be sent out, and you can find out how to sign up by visiting one of the links on our sourced article.

Sign up and grab a copy for yourself. You might just learn something. If you're lucky, maybe one of the console giants will even make this available for download on an online service like Xbox Live for free if you can drum up support, and nothing beats the price of free gaming for a cause.