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...

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Tennis: Li Na battles into Australian Open third round

MELBOURNE: China's top player Li Na battled into the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday but she was put through her paces by Olga Govortsova before clinching a straight-sets victory.The former French Open winner, who is among the leading contenders at Melbourne Park, rallied past the Belarusian 6-2, 7-5 in 82 minutes and next plays either Czech Kristyna Pliskova or Romania's...

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Microsoft Surface Pro expected to arrive in 'weeks'

Microsoft's Surface Pro makes no compromises on Windows 8. It runs everything a mainstream laptop can.(Credit:Microsoft)The Surface Pro's arrival is only a matter of weeks away, according to a tweet today from Microsoft. "On my way to the factory to check out #Surface Pro coming off the line...arriving in the coming weeks," tweeted Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft's Surface products. This...

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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...

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP PhotoAs the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.In 35-second video posted online Tuesday...

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Poison pill: Not all mercury is toxic

A global treaty on mercury pollution will do more harm than good if it bans the vaccine preservative thiomersal NEXT week, governments from around the world will gather in Geneva to finalise a long-overdue treaty on mercury. The aim of the negotiations is laudable: to ban those mercury-laden products and pollutants...

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China to survey islands disputed with Japan

BEIJING: China is to carry out a geographical survey of islands in the East China Sea at the centre of a bitter dispute with Japan, the official Xinhua news agency said.The survey of the Diaoyu islands was part of a programme to map China's "territorial islands and reefs", Xinhua said, citing a state geographical agency. They are known as the Senkaku in Japan, which controls them.The survey...

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Feds: MegaUpload was not entrapped

Kim DotCom (at right) and his company managers shortly after being arrested in January 2012 for alleged copyright violations and fraud.(Credit:Screenshot by CNET)Entrapment is one of MegaUpload's claims in its legal battle against the U.S. government. The feds are now saying this claim is "baseless." "Megaupload's allegations are baseless, as even a cursory review of Megaupload's pleading and the...

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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)...

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Armstrong Admits Doping in Tour, Sources Say

Lance Armstrong today admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France, sources told ABC News.A goverment source tells ABC News that Armstrong is now talking with authorities about paying back some of the US Postal Service money from sponsoring his team. He is also talking to authorities about confessing and naming names, giving up...

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