Now we're sure that if you've tuned into the History Channel once or twice in a month, you might have caught sight of the particular documentary of the young would-be-Emperor and his triumphant conquest of the Phoenician coast. Tyre, a two-part fortress in the days Alexander the Great conquered the Phoenician peninsula, fell drastically to his army's might.

Being that Megas Alexandros (Alexander the Great) was a student of Aristotle himself, there was no surprise that Alexander was first to develop the early "city destroyers" - or siege engines. Throughout history, it was made known that the unified forces of the Persian Empire and the Macedonian army made use of siege towers and ballistae to breach the most impregnable of fortresses.

But using these weapons was futile for the fortress-city of Tyre, where half of it lay one kilometer out into the sea. When half of the city fell to Alexander's might, the remaining forces of Tyre - which included its elite navy - kept the invading forces at bay within the island-fortress walls, aided by the natural barrier of the sea.

Historians figured that Alexander the Great (or his engineers, whoever the real credit goes to) just had to make use of his weapons to reduce the fortress's walls to rubble, and claimed that the Macedonian and Persian forces built a nearly kilometer long land-bridge to transport men and material to the island.

But what geoarchaeologist Nick Marriner discovered included the fact that instead of the popular speculation that the bridge was artificially erected purely by stone and timber, they actually used a natural sand formation - called a tombolo - to provide the needed stability and foundation for the bridge.

Marriner speculates that in those days, the sea levels were much higher than usual, keeping a part of the supposed peninsula - the part between the raised island and the mainland - underwater. But because waves were ineffectively hitting the mainland due to the shallow water, sand continued to accumulate in that particular area.

"It meant that the causeway foundations could be laid down in relatively shallow water," said Marriner. Nick Marriner is from the European Center for Research and Teaching on the Geosciences of the Environment, located in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The philosopher Aristotle said in his teachings that too much of anything was unhealthy, and that for man to flourish, a degree of balance had to be maintained.

Enter Professor Mark Griffiths, Director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, U.K., who in a recently concluded survey of 7000 gamers, found that 12% of them were suffering from the classic signs of addiction found in smokers, and druggies.

Proff..... Griffiths said that the survey, done with help from German colleagues Sabine Grüsser and Ralf Thalemann, was conducted as means of studying the addictive potential of online games. The study was conducted on a sample population of 7069 online gamers, 94% of whom were males in the 21-year age group.

The participants were then asked to fill out two questionnaires. The questionnaire results showed that 840 people withing the group were showing at least three classic symptoms of addiction as stated by the World Health Organization, which included craving, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, loss of control, neglect of other activities, and other negative consequences.

Professor Griffiths then compared the behavior of this group experiencing at least three addiction symptoms with that of the other gamers, and found that the former group suffered from noticeably longer play time, and were more likely to report symptoms of withdrawal and cravings. As the good doctor says regarding the  results:

Although these gamers show some signs of addiction normally found in other more traditional addictions, our results do not conclusively show that the gamers are genuinely addicted. Many gamers play excessively and display few negative consequences. However, the 24-hour a day never-ending online games may provide a potentially addictive medium for those with a predisposition for excessive game playing.

If it's any good news, Proff. Griffiths also adds that while this may seem to be all negative, this survey only shows the more apparent signs of addiction, and that aside from gaming, the addiction will need to be put in clearer perspective as compared to the gamer's overall lifestyle, and that outside factors may have brought out these symptoms.

The study will be published in the U.S. journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour, and is part of a series of British Science Museum's 'Game On' lecture series, at which Prof. Griffith will be present to discuss his findings, which includes not only this study, but some of the more positive benefits from gaming - it's not all bad.