吉林治疗包皮手术费用是多少(吉林看早泄哪比较好) (今日更新中)

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Those childhood music lessons could pay off decades later -- even for those who no longer play an instrument -- by keeping the mind sharper as people age, according to a preliminary study published by the American Psychological Association (APA).The study recruited 70 healthy adults age 60 to 83 who were divided into groups based on their levels of musical experience. The musicians performed better on several cognitive tests than individuals who had never studied an instrument or learned how to read music, according to the research findings published Wednesday online in the APA journal Neuropsychology."Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging," said lead researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. "Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older."The three groups of study participants included individuals with no musical training; with one to nine years of musical study; or with at least 10 years of musical training. All of the participants had similar levels of education and fitness and didn' t show any evidence of Alzheimer's disease.All of the musicians were amateurs who began playing an instrument at about 10 years of age. More than half played the piano while approximately a quarter had studied woodwind instruments such as the flute or clarinet. Smaller numbers performed with stringed instruments, percussion or brass instruments.The high-level musicians who had studied the longest performed the best on the cognitive tests, followed by the low-level musicians and non-musicians, revealing a trend relating to years of musical practice. The high-level musicians had statistically significant higher scores than the non-musicians on cognitive tests relating to visuospatial memory, naming objects and cognitive flexibility, or the brain's ability to adapt to new information.The brain functions measured by the tests typically decline as the body ages and more dramatically deteriorate in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. The results "suggest a strong predictive effect of high musical activity throughout the lifespan on preserved cognitive functioning in advanced age," the study stated.Half of the high-level musicians still played an instrument at the time of the study, but they didn't perform better on the cognitive tests than the other advanced musicians who had stopped playing years earlier. This suggests that the duration of musical study was more important than whether musicians continued playing at an advanced age, Hanna-Pladdy says."Based on previous research and our study results, we believe that both the years of musical participation and the age of acquisition are critical," Hanna-Pladdy says. "There are crucial periods in brain plasticity that enhance learning, which may make it easier to learn a musical instrument before a certain age and thus may have a larger impact on brain development."The preliminary study was correlational, meaning that the higher cognitive performance of the musicians couldn't be conclusively linked to their years of musical study. More research is needed to explore that possible link.

BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Renowned Chinese liquor producer Kweichow Moutai Co., Ltd. announced Monday its annual net profit in 2010 rose 17.13 percent year on year on strong market demand.Its net profit hit 5.05 billion yuan (769.17 million U.S. dollars), the Guizhou-based firm said in its 2010 annual report filed to Shanghai Stock Exchange.The company's annual business revenue increased 20.3 percent from one year earlier to 11.63 billion yuan while earnings per share stood at 5.35 yuan.The economic rebound accelerated the development of liquor industry despite rising raw material prices, said the report.The A-share price of the upmarket distiller opened down 0.70 percent from the previous close to 189.8 yuan Monday.

JOHANNESBURG, March 8 (Xinhua) -- In order to combat piracy and to improve maritime safety, South African authorities have begun using a sophisticated navigation satellite system, it was announced on Tuesday.Piracy, especially by Somalis, has been increasing along Africa east coast in recent years. The South African Press Association (SAPA) reported on Tuesday that Karl Otto, head of the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) announced the surveillance tool at a conference in Durban.Called Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT), the system monitors and tracks vessels in waters south of the equator.Otto said the introduction of the LRIT followed concerns over the safety of seafarers, the safety standards of ships within South African waters.Otto said there were high levels of cargo at risk, such as fuels and oils.He said reasons for installing the system included the number of shipwrecks along the South African coast, and the threat of pollution of the marine environment by ships."It also serves as a mechanism to prevent piracy."Otto said the satellite system has the capacity to identify and track vessels up to 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 km) from the South African coastline as well as South African-flagged vessels anywhere in the world."This is a revolutionary development in the security of our seas," he said.SAMSA was determined to protect South Africa's seafarers, its coastline and the marine environment, Otto said.

BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhuanet) -- NASA scientists are testing its next-generation Mars rover, which will land on Mars next year, under extreme conditions at space-simulation chamber in California, media reports said Tuesday.Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., say they've installed the Curiosity rover in a space-simulation chamber that can mimic the environment the probe will encounter on Mars.  After the chamber's large door was sealed last week, air was pumped out to near-vacuum pressure, liquid nitrogen in the walls dropped the temperature to minus 130 degrees Celsius, and a bank of powerful lamps simulated the intensity of sunshine on Mars.After the test period, the rover along with other portions of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft including the cruise stage, descent stage and backshell -- part of protective covering -- will be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center for final preparation for the launch window from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011. Curiosity will study whether a selected area of Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether Martian life has existed.

BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The discovery of a sharp-toothed dinosaur fossil in New Mexico, the United States, may bridge a gap in the evolution of the species, researchers said in Wednesday's journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution unearthed the dinosaur skull and neck vertebrae in Abiquiu, New Mexico, where it had remained buried for around 230 million years. The short snout and slanting front teeth of the find — Daemonosaurus chauliodus — had never before been seen in a Triassic era dinosaur, said Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum, said the discovery helps fill the evolutionary gap between the dinosaurs that lived in what is now Argentina and Brazil about 230 million years ago and the later theropods like the famous Tyrannosaurus rex."Various features of the skull and neck in Daemonosaurus indicate that it was intermediate between the earliest known predatory dinosaurs from South America and more advanced theropod dinosaurs," said Sues."One such feature is the presence of cavities on some of the neck vertebrae related to the structure of the respiratory system," he added.The discovery suggests that there is still much to be learned about the early evolution of dinosaurs."The continued exploration of even well-studied regions like the American Southwest will still yield remarkable new fossil finds," Sues said.

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