Word: shaping
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Risk-taking seniors making daring mental leaps? That's not the stereotype. Indeed, until quite recently most researchers believed the human brain followed a fairly predictable developmental arc. It started out protean, gained shape and intellectual muscle as it matured, and reached its peak of power and nimbleness by age 40. After that, the brain began a slow decline, clouding up little by little until, by age 60 or 70, it had lost much of its ability to retain new information and was fumbling with what it had. But that was all right because late-life crankiness had by then...
...necessarily the case. About a third of the nuns whose brains at autopsy showed clear signs of the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer's disease had exhibited normal memory and cognitive function until the day they died. The difference: the blood vessels in their brains were in great shape...
...first plane off the ground. Why did these bicycle mechanics succeed when a famous scientist failed? Because Langley hired other people to execute his concept. Studying the Wrights' diaries, you see that insight and execution are inextricably woven together. Over years, as they solved problems like wing shape and wing warping, each adjustment involved a small spark of insight that led to others...
...unspoken assumption behind most of those products is that stimulation is good and that more stimulation is even better. But that's not necessarily so, says Meredith Small, an anthropologist at Cornell University and author of Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent. In fact, she says, "there's a growing thought that maybe Americans are overstimulating their babies, or stimulating them in the wrong ways...
...individual accomplishment. During mandatory national-team training, such as the session in Jiangmen last month, China's tennis stars must sweat through seven hours of practice a day. Coaches, most of whom never played competitively on an international level themselves, rely on monotonous drills to keep the women in shape. Roommates are assigned and mealtimes set. Letting loose at a nightclub, as Anna Kournikova or Jennifer Capriati might, is forbidden. "Foreign coaches just teach you on the court," says Zheng. "Our Chinese coaches are involved in all aspects of our life." Indeed, 23-year-old Li Na, who was ranked...