HOW do people acquire high levels of skill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been a topic of intense debate in psychology.
Research in recent decades has shown that a big part of the answer is simply practice — and a lot of it. In a pioneering study, the Florida State University psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues asked violin students at a music academy to estimate the amount of time they had devoted to practice since they started playing. By age 20, the students whom the faculty nominated as the “best” players had accumulated an average of over 10,000 hours, compared with just under 8,000 hours for the “good” players and not even 5,000 hours for the least skilled...Read More

BEIRUT: Turkey and Jordan, backed by Western and Arab powers, are preparing to set up two "safe zones" for civilians inside Syria, diplomats said Friday.

The Western and Arab diplomats told The Daily Star that Syria's two neighbors would press ahead with preparations to establish the two havens if President Bashar Assad did not sign on to an Arab plan aimed at ending a bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters by Saturday.

The diplomats said an international meeting in Paris would discuss later Friday the details of the plans to set up the zones in southern and northern Syria.

On Wednesday, the Arab League gave Assad three days to agree in writing to allowing hundreds of observers into Syria to oversee the implementation of the Arab plan to end eight months of violence against protesters that has killed more than 3,000 people.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2011/Nov-18/154477-turkey-jordan-to-set-up-safe-zones-in-syria-diplomats.ashx#ixzz1eSvJJKOs
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb) ...Read More