Why musical genius comes easier to early starters

Good news for pushy parents. If you want your child to excel musically, you now have better justification for starting their lessons early. New evidence comes from brain scans of 36 highly skilled musicians, split equally between those who started lessons before and after the age of 7, but who had done a similar amount of training and practice.

MRI scans revealed that the white matter in the corpus callosum – the brain region that links the two hemispheres – had more extensive wiring and connectivity in the early starters. The wiring of the late starters was not much different from that of non-musician control participants. This makes sense as the corpus callosum aids speed and synchronisation in tasks involving both hands, such as playing musical instruments.

"I think we've provided real evidence for something that musicians and teachers have suspected for a long time, that early training can produce long-lasting effects on performance and the brain," says Christopher Steele of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and head of the team.

Sweet spot

Steele says that younger-trained musicians may have an advantage because their training coincides with a key period of brain development . At age 7 or 8, the corpus callosum is more receptive than ever to the alterations in connectivity necessary to meet the demands of learning an instrument.

However, he stresses that these connectivity adaptations are no guarantee of musical genius. "What we're showing is that early starters have some specific skills and accompanying differences in the brain, but these things don't necessarily make them better musicians," he says. "Musical performance is about skill, but it is also about communication, enthusiasm, style and many other things we don't measure. So while starting early may help you express your genius, it won't make you a genius," he says.

Nor should older aspiring musicians despair. "They should absolutely not give up. It is never too late to learn a skill," says Steele.

Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3578-12.2013

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SDA's Desmond Lim brands himself as dedicated & determined

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Democratic Alliance's (SDA) Desmond Lim has described himself as a dedicated local and determined leader.

Mr Lim is no stranger to the Punggol East ward, having contested there during the 2011 General Election.

It was a setback that Mr Lim said would have made others run away from politics.

The SDA's secretary-general forfeited his S$16,000 election deposit when he garnered around four per cent of votes in the 2011 General Election.

He said his loss in the Punggol East ward only emboldened him to make a comeback. "In life, we have a lot of hurdles. We have a lot of experiences that (have) no smooth rides. But that doesn't mean that we stop from there. Are we going to tell our children 'oh, you fail your examination, that's it, finish. It's the end of the world. Don't study further.' No, we'll encourage them. Never mind, try again."

Mr Lim's brush with elections began in 2001, when he contested in the then Jalan Besar Group Representation Constituency and was defeated.

He lost again in the 2006 General Election, when he contested in the Pasir Ris-Punggol Group Representation Constituency.

With three elections and 20 years in politics under his belt, Mr Lim thinks he has the necessary qualities to represent Punggol East.

"The Parliament must have a diversified voice. We must have more than one, two parties to counter-check and balance of each other."

Since the 2011 loss, Mr Lim said he has built up a grassroots movement comprising over 10 Punggol residents.

"The residents (themselves) should take up the ownership to advocating for what they really need, such as hawker centre, and because of that, safety - road safety, buses, increase the number of buses service."

Mr Lim plans to set aside a third of his allowance as a Member of Parliament to start a residents' insurance scheme, if elected.

- CNA/ck

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Google doodle lets hockey fans drive the Zamboni

Google's Zamboni doodle honoring the inventor of the famous ice resurfacer.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)

Google is helping the National Hockey League begin its abbreviated season.

The NHL's 48-game season will begin Saturday after a 113-day lockout, but the Web giant apparently recognizes that the ice will need some TLC before players can skate to their opening face off. So Google is rolling out a Zamboni doodle to clean things up.

The interactive doodle begins by launching a skater that scratches up the ice. A Zamboni ice resurfacer then appears that Web users can, using their mouse, manipulate through a series of tests to clean the ice.

The Zamboni pilot gets points for cleaning markings from the ice, but he or she must complete the challenge before the Zamboni runs out of fuel. The Zamboni can refuel by picking up gas cans, as well as earn bonus points by picking up ice cream cones.

The icy doodle, which just went live in Australia, is reminiscent of the events-themed interactive doodles Google launched during the 2012 Olympic Games.

While fans are happy to see the season finally start, the primary purpose of the doodle appears to be to honor Frank Zamboni Jr., inventor of the ice resurfacer, who was born 112 years ago Wednesday. Zamboni developed the first ice resufacer in Los Angeles in 1949, turning a task that took three people 90 minutes to complete into a job one person could dispense with in 10 minutes.

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project Manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now-desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).  Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp.  Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

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NY Passes Nation's Toughest Gun Law

Today New York became the first state to pass a gun control law -- the toughest in the nation -- since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre last month.

Acting one month and a day since the rampage killing that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law shortly after 5 p.m.

Called the New York Safe Act, the law includes a tougher assault weapons ban that broadens the definition of what constitutes an assault weapon, and limits the capacity of magazines to seven bullets, down from 10. The law also requires background checks of ammunition and gun buyers, even in private sales, imposes tougher penalties for illegal gun use, a one-state check on all firearms purchases, and programs to cut gun violence in high-crime neighborhoods.

As he signed the bill into law, Cuomo said it was not only "the first bill" but the "best bill."

"I'm proud to be a New Yorker, because New York is doing something, because we are fighting back, because, yes, we've had tragedies, and yes, we've had too many innocent people lose their lives, and yes, it's unfortunate that it took those tragedies to get us to this point, but let's at least learn from what's happened, let's at least be able to say to people, yes, we went through terrible situations, but we saw, we learned, we responded, and we acted, and we are doing something about it," Cuomo said. "We are not victims.

'The View' on NRA Shooting App: Think It Out Watch Video

"You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with commonsense," Cuomo continued, "and you can make this state a safer state."

New York's law also aims to keep guns out of the hands of those will mental illness. The law gives judges the power to require those who pose a threat to themselves or others get outpatient care. The law also requires that when a mental health professional determines a gun owner is likely to do harm, the risk must be reported and the gun removed by law enforcement.

The legislation also includes what is called a "Webster provision," named for the two firefighters ambushed on Christmas Eve in Webster, N.Y. The measure would mandate a life sentence with no chance of parole for anyone who kills a first responder.

The National Rifle Association issued a statement after the bill's signing, saying it was "outraged at the draconian gun control bill that was rushed through ... late Monday evening."

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature orchestrated a secretive end-run around the legislative and democratic process and passed sweeping anti-gun measures with no committee hearings and no public input," the statement read. "These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime. Sadly, the New York Legislature gave no consideration to that reality. While lawmakers could have taken a step toward strengthening mental health reporting and focusing on criminals, they opted for trampling the rights of law-abiding gun owners in New York, and they did it under a veil of secrecy in the dark of night. The legislature caved to the political demands of a governor and helped fuel his personal political aspirations."

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Today on New Scientist: 14 January 2013

Activist's death sparks open-access tribute on Twitter

Hundreds of researchers have been offering free access to their work in tribute to internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on Friday

Exploding microchip could make arms dumps safer

Shrapnel and bullets can set off huge explosions if they hit weapons stores. But microchip-based detonators could help keep them safe

The hologenome: A new view of evolution

Far from being passive hangers-on, symbiotic microbes may shape the evolution of the plants and animals that play host to them

White House uses Death Star request to plug science

The White House has politely declined to build a version of the planet-destroying space station from Star Wars but took the opportunity to promote science

Wolves bite back in the human world

Grey wolves are an evolutionary success story, giving rise to the domestic dog 10,000 years ago and now rebounding from centuries of persecution

Mariko Mori: From stone circles to stardust

The artist's new exhibition tethers human history to the life of the entire cosmos

Why we called off hunt for ancient Antarctic life

Geoscientist Martin Siegert says that drilling through 3 kilometres of ice to reveal the secrets of an entombed lake was never going to be easy

Give video games a sporting chance

Traditional fans will turn their noses up at e-sports, but they risk missing some compelling action

Benefits of emissions cuts kick in only next century

Even rapid action now to curb emissions will bring only modest results this century, but the earlier we act, the greater the eventual rewards

Video games take off as a spectator sport

Professional gaming has been huge in Asia for years, and improved technology means it is now going global

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Islamists guerrillas flee French air strikes in Mali

BAMAKO: French air strikes forced Islamist guerrillas to flee towns in northern Mali and Paris secured new international support for military action as the militants struck back, seizing a small western town.

The Islamists said they had made a "tactical retreat" from Timbuktu and other key towns where they have imposed a brutal version of Islamic law for nearly 10 months.

But they struck back in western Mali where they took the small town of Diabaly from the country's weakened army, highlighting the daunting campaign ahead to restore order in the West African nation.

French jets on Monday hit Douentza, 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Bamako, which the Islamists have held since September. But residents said the fighters had left before the warplanes arrived.

In Timbuktu, where inhabitants have been executed or had limbs cut off in some of the worst abuses, the Islamists reportedly fled in anticipation of an attack.

"The mujahideen have left. They are really scared," said one resident in the historic city, where the militants have destroyed centuries-old Muslim monuments.

In Gao, another northern city held by the Islamists, the jihadists were nowhere to be seen after bombing by Rafale warplanes on Sunday, residents there said.

At least 60 insurgents were killed in Sunday's assault, according to residents and a security source.

Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said in Paris that he believed more than 100 Islamists had been killed in the four days since France launched operations to stem a guerrilla advance towards Bamako.

A spokesman for the Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) group, Senda Ould Boumama, said the withdrawal was a "tactical retreat" to reduce civilian casualties, in comments published on Mauritanian news website Alakhbar.

On top of the use of Rafale fighters and helicopter attacks, about 650 French troops are in Mali to halt the Islamist advance, according to the French defence ministry.

While jolted by France's arrival, the insurgents remained on the offensive in areas where French troops were not yet operating. The militants seized Diabaly, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Bamako.

"We knew there would be a counter-offensive towards the west," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM Television.

"They have taken Diabaly, which is a small town, after heavy fighting and resistance from the Malian army, which was insufficiently equipped at that exact point."

Le Drian acknowledged that French forces were facing a "difficult" situation in the west, where he said the rebels are well armed.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hailed the "quasi-unanimous" international backing for the offensive, strongly supported by Mali.

"We cannot simply push them back, we have to chase them away," Coulibaly told French television after meeting Fabius, "We simply now cannot allow a timeout for these forces to reorganise."

A meeting of the 15-nation UN Security Council on Mali also expressed unanimous "understanding and support" for the military intervention, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters.

France and other council countries want to speed up the deployment of a UN-mandated 3,300-strong West African intervention force in Mali.

Nigeria, which will lead the force, plans to have 600 troops on the ground "before next week," President Goodluck Jonathan said. Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo have also pledged troops.

Britain and Canada have offered military transporters to the French military and the United States said it will share intelligence and provide logistical support.

"I commend France for taking the steps that it has," US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

Algeria said it had closed its 2,000 km (1,250 mile) desert border with northern Mali to stop Islamists crossing into the country.

The Islamists seized upon the chaos of a military coup in Bamako in March to seize northern Mali, sparking widespread international fears that they could set up a terrorist safe haven.

The UN Security Council had given approval for a military offensive that UN officials had said could not be launched until September.

But the Islamist offensive and France's military intervention has led to predictions by diplomats that the plans will be reviewed.

-AFP/fl

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Can't stop eating? Pump will suck your stomach contents

Meet the "apparatus for treating obesity by extracting food." That's what Dean Kamen's stomach pump is called in a recently granted U.S. patent, and it looks a lot less fun than Kamen's most famous invention, the Segway.

The good part is you can eat anything you like. The bad part is you have to get a tube put into your stomach and then suck the food out with a gadget called the AspireAssist.

Kamen and a team of physicians developed the pump as an obesity treatment that's reversible and, as they describe it, "minimally invasive."

During a 20-minute procedure, users are fitted with a removable stomach valve and a tube that leads from the top of the stomach to the valve's outside port.

About 20 minutes after eating a meal, users go to the bathroom and attach the AspireAssist to the port. About a third of the meal is drained out through the gadget and into the toilet. Check out an animation here.

So far, the device is available in parts of Europe, but hasn't been approved for sale in the U.S. It's undergoing clinical trials.

"In our U.S. clinical trial, patients lost, on average, over 20 kg (45 pounds) in the first year (or 49 percent excess weight loss)," Aspire Bariatrics says on its Web site. "The most successful patients -- those who aspirate regularly and begin to make healthier choices -- lost 100 percent of their excess weight and have maintained that weight loss. Because the procedure and device are relatively simple, the AspireAssist may be affordable for patients who cannot afford bariatric surgery."

(Via PopSci)

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog On the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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Arias Denied Guilt Despite Sex Photos, DNA

A defiant Jodi Arias insisted she was innocent of killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander even after a detective told her that he had nude photos of them together on the day he died.

"Are you sure it's me? Because I was not there," Arias is heard saying in the police interrogation tape played for the Arizona jury today.

When Detective Esteban Flores tells Arias she is seen in pigtails in the photos, she asks with a tone of incredulity, "Pigtails?"

As Flores laid out more incriminating evidence, including that investigators found DNA of their blood mixed together, her hair stuck with blood and her palm print in blood, Arias was insistent.

"I would not hurt Travis. I would not hurt Travis. I would not do that to him," she told Flores.

At another point Arias said, "If I hurt Travis I would beg for the death penalty."

"Jodi, this is over. … you have to tell me the truth," Flores says. The detective suggests a motive for the killing to be jealousy, and cites the opinion of Alexander's friends.

"They don't just say you were jealous. You were absolutely obsessed… a fatal attraction," Flores in heard on the tape.

Arias, now 32, has since admitted to killing Alexanderfollowing their tryst in 2008, but has claimed it was self-defense. She is accused of stabbing Alexander 27 times in the chest, back, and head, slashing his throat from ear to ear, and shooting him the head with a .25 caliber handgun.

Arias is charged with murdering her ex-boyfriend in a "heinous and depraved" way and could face the death penalty if convicted.

The interrogation tape was played after the jury was shown sexually graphic photos that police recovered from Alexander's digital camera. Among the pictures were shots of Arias and Alexander posing naked on Alexander's bed, as well as pictures of Alexander in the shower.

Those photos were the last pictures of Alexander while he was alive.

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

The final photos in the series show a body partly covered in blood on the bathroom floor.

See Full Coverage of Jodi Arias Trial

Watch the Jodi Arias Trial Live

See Jodi Arias Trial Videos

Arias looked away from the screen in the courtroom where the sexual photos were shown, as her mother watched from the gallery. Alexander's sisters, also seated in the gallery, looked away from the photos of their brother.

Computer analysts for the city of Mesa, Ariz., where Alexander lived, went over the photos in detail during the sixth day of testimony in the trial. The photos were time stamped June 4, 2008, beginning around 1:45 p.m.

Prosecutors have said that Arias drove from her California home to Alexander's house, arriving early in the morning on June 4. The pair had sex in the afternoon, took photos of one another, and then Arias killed Alexander, age 30, around 5:30 p.m., they said.

The photos on the bed occurred around 1:45 p.m., according to the data on the camera. The shower photos and the pictures of a bloody body part occurred around 5:30 p.m.

In earlier testimony today, the jury watched video taped interrogations of Arias as she repeatedly denied to police stealing and using the handgun that killed Alexander.

Arias told police that she had never seen a .25 caliber handgun and had no idea her grandparents owned one until they reported it stolen a week before Alexander's killing, according to the police interrogation tapes played in court today.

Police from Yreka, Calif., where Arias lived with her grandparents, described the scene of the home when Arias's grandparents reported a break-in. The door was pushed in, breaking the door jamb, and many drawers were opened in Arias' bedroom and her grandparents' room.

The only things reported taken were the handgun, a DVD player, and $30, while other valuable items, including a large pile of quarters and three other guns, were left untouched. Arias told police that her laptop computer was not taken because she had hidden it in a laundry basket covered with clothes.

Officer Kevin Friedman of the Yreka police department told the court today that burglary struck him as odd.

"I believed it was unusual that small items worth money or money, for instance, that the change was not taken," said Officer Kevin Friedman, of the Yreka police department, who investigated the alleged robbery. "I also thought it was strange that only one of the firearms was stolen from the cabinet."

In the police videos, Arias is seen calmly denying stealing the gun from her grandparents' home and using it when she killed Alexander in June 2008, a week after the burglary.

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