Black Friday in Canada will never achieve the gun-toting, pepper-spraying, early morning deal-hunting of its U.S. counterpart, but it’s inching closer in 2013.

Forty-seven percent of Canadians plan to take part in the deals — a 41% rise over last year, according to a Bank of Montreal survey. They’ll spend an average of $292, the bank says.

But the majority of those shoppers will stay north of the border. A poll from UPS Canada found that 14% of Canadians plan to go to the U.S. for Black Friday — up 6% from 2011, but still far from the bulk of shoppers.

“It’s a cultural leakage from one side to the other,” said Kelly Askew, managing director of retail management consulting for Accenture Canada. “If Canadian retailers ignore it, it will be to their detriment if they don’t stop consumers from going across the border.”

One of the country’s largest shopping mall operators, Cadillac Fairview, has responded to retailer requests by opening 21 properties early on Friday so it can lure customers who might be tempted to go south for deep discounts. Cadillac Fairview’s Eaton Centre in Toronto — the busiest mall in Canada — opened at 6 a.m. Friday, while other properties across the country will welcome customers through the doors at either 7 a.m. or 8 a.m.

The Eaton Centre is promising to publish all its sales here at 9:30 p.m. ET.

In Vancouver, both the Pacific Centre and Richmond Centre posted promotions online ahead of their planned 7 a.m. openings.

Suppliers are giving “way more deals for the Black Friday time frame than they ever have before,” Theo Horsdal, computers buyer for London Drugs, told the Vancouver Sun.

With that in mind, here’s a look at some of the deals you can find on both sides of the border:

Target’s first Black Friday in Canada will debut at 7 a.m. at all 124 of its stores, slashing prices on TV and digital cameras, clothing, toys and kitchen appliances as well as offering door-crasher specials to the first customers in line. Deals on offer include a 39″ Magnavox HDTV on sale for $199.99 from $379.99; an XBOX 360 (4GB) for $129.99, regular $199.99, plus a $50 Target gift card, and up to 70% off apparel and accessories. Target Canada president Tony Fisher said last week that the retailer wanted to make a lasting impression in its first holiday season and help turn around the consumer perception that it is pricier than Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is countering with a large push in its stores and taking advantage of its Canadian shopping website, which Target has yet to set up. This year Wal-Mart relaunched its website and created a flyer enabled with Layar technology, which allows customers to purchase Walmart.ca offers off of the flyer using their mobile devices.

Cards Against Humanitylaunched a “once-in-a-lifetime sale” Friday by marking all of its games up by $5. The game’s landing page now features a button that just reads “Consume!”

Apple, usually gleefully ignorant to competitors’ prices, promised a “one-day shopping event” Thursday. In a uniquely Apple style, its flyer listed absolutely no prices and linked out to the regular store. Friday they solved the mystery: “Buy an iPad and get an Apple Store Gift Card worth up to $75.”

London Drugs, the ubiquitous Western Canada just-about-everything store, announced 7 a.m openings at its Lougheed Town Centre store in Burnaby, B.C., and its Guildford Town Centre store in Surrey. In the electronics department, London Drugs has cut $50 off the price to sell the XBox 360 (4GB console) for $129.99. It’s also selling the Surface RT 32GB Bundle for $249.99 — $150 off the regular price. If you’re an Apple user, you can pick up a $100 iTunes card for $79.99.

Always a Black Friday favourite, Best Buy is selling the 32GB Microsoft Surface tablets for $199.99 — $150 off the regular price. If you get there early, the electronics retailer is selling a 50″ LG LED TV as a door crasher at $599.99 — $200 off the regular price. Best Buy is also selling the XBox 360 (4GB console) for $50 off at $129.99.

On the same front (and part of the same corporation) as Best Buy, Futureshop is selling a 55″ LG LED TV as a door crasher at $250 off $749.99. Meanwhile, if you’re in the market for major appliances, you can get a GE Profile 22.1 cubic foot French Door fridge for $1,999.99 — $900 off the regular price.

Indigo is offering an in-store buy three books and get the fourth free deal. Online, it’s cutting prices 75% for some of its fiction titles. Epic Ink Productions’ Star Wars: The Blueprints, for example, will go down to $79.95 from $525.00.

Amazon.ca is in the midst of a “Black Friday Deals Week,” which on Thursday featured 40% off for a Canon EOS Rebel T3. Including a lens, the DSLR is selling for $299.00 — $200.99 off its normal price.

Roots, purveyors of cozy sweats and classically styled leather goods, promises 25 per cent off all its wares on Friday, both online and in-store.

Old Navy store are opening at 7 a.m. Friday and they’re cutting 50% on prices across “the entire store” and “everything online.” They’re also giving someone $1-million. The first 500 people at every store when they open can enter into the draw. They’ll pick the winner randomly at 7 p.m. PT (10 p.m. ET).

Online computer retailer Newegg.ca, is offering an “ultimate Black Friday sale that lasts exactly 24 hours and including savings anywhere from 25% to 75%. These deals include a high-end Netgear router for $49.99.

Sport Chek is offering a Black Friday week sale (which started Nov. 26 and runs until December 2), offering savings up to 60% off on a wide variety of items including winter coats.

Rogers is offering steep discounts on its Android phones with several that used to sell for more than a hundred dollars going for free (with a contract).

ToysЯus has a 1/2 price event where a large number of items, surprise, surprise, are half off. The toy company is also price-matching any other retailers advertised deals, plus an additional 10% off.

Airmiles offers increased miles at many retailers on Black Friday, including the Apple Store, Sears and Dell.

November 29 to December 1

Holiday season events light up the night sky this weekend with the Cavalcade of Lights at Nathan Phillips Square, theToronto Christmas Market in the Distillery and Yorkville’s Holiday Magic. We are working our way through the city, gathering photos of the best holiday lights in Toronto – check out the galleries for Yonge-Dundas and Yorkville (more neighbourhoods coming soon).

Don’t miss: Pink, Aladdin, the One of a Kind Christmas Show and Buffalo Bills in Toronto.

Last chance: David Bowie Is exhibit closes Friday.

Check out: this week we previewed AGO’s newest exhibit The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection. Browse the photo gallery for a sneak peek of the curated works by Picasso, Chagall, Mondrian and more.

Just when you thought it was safe to venture back into the decorating waters, here I am again. This time I am going to amplify and hopefully clarify why I encourage you to take rules very lightly. By their very nature, rules tend to tie us in knots — to restrict us, to box in our creative juices. My husband would say they're much more likely to constipate than to educate. But that does not mean we are cast adrift on the open sea with no oar and no canteen. There are some very helpful tools that we can turn to for guidance as we create personal, welcoming rooms. Not all the tools will work in every instance, and not all will apply to every person. But availing ourselves of these tools will help us avoid the hodgepodge that was a concern for many of you. 

First, let's go back to the primary precept that we build our rooms around things we love. Be very deliberate about the concept that if you love it, it will work. Trendy or not is completely beside the point. After all, do you really want your room to look like it was decorated in the last half of 2009? 

Take this room and its timeless, classic look. I like to think that the painting over the sofa was the loved piece that dictated the design. But make no mistake, other tools have been skillfully employed here, like the repetition of the soft green color of the painting in the curtains and the chair cushions. First tool: repetition.

Among other things, repetition gives balance to a room. Look at this living area. A lot of mixing is going on: mixed metals, mixed patterns and mixed textures. Don't you love the juxtaposition of the various stripes with the geometrics? But the repetition of the matching chairs — with their matching pillows — gives the room equilibrium, balance.

Repetition can be a unifying factor in your decor. Take the use of the pumpkin color in this room. It first occurs in the pair of chairs, appears again in the artwork and then reappears in the accessories on the coffee table. Then there is the repetition of the black and white geometrics: first in the rug, then in the throw pillows. See how the black is repeated in the picture frame over the sofa. 

This room, with all of its interest and personality, hangs together beautifully because its repeated elements give it cohesion and consistency.

Don't you love this kitchen? It's clean, sleek, contemporary and extraordinary! The pops of color provided by the deep yellow island and bright red stools make the room sing, while their repetition makes potentially disparate elements work happily together. The island's color is repeated in the hutch's wood top, providing another unifying factor. The overall design is greatly enhanced by the use of stainless steel throughout.

Repetition is created naturally if you have collections. Take the dogs that march across this mantelpiece: They add such whimsy and interest. Notice though, that they are not all over the room. There has been remarkable restraint in the repetition, which is not always easy for those of us who love to collect. Note, too, the way the topiaries are used. They bring a wonderfully organic balance to a room that's brimming with personality.

Second tool: Find and accentuate your room's focal point. The oversize fireplace in this room is without a doubt its focal point, and the rest of the room is built around it. Repetition and equilibrium abound here as well: The Euro-style tufted bench balances the pair of black chairs opposite, and the bright yellow of the pillows shows up in the coffee table accessories and the stripe in the wall art.

Have you ever walked into a room that made you twitch? A room where you felt nervous and uncomfortable? That response is often caused by the lack of a place for the eye to rest. Every room benefits from a quiet place — a place without motion or pattern, a place where your eye can take a break. The ceiling, walls and carpet in this room provide exactly those places and are the reason this room works so well. Look around your rooms. Do they make you twitchy? If so, consider creating a place where your eye can rest.

Scale is one of the most exciting ingredients in our design toolbox. No, I am not talking about the rule that says we mustn't put a big piece in a small room. Usually that rule is simply wrong. I am talking about our fourth tool: varying scale. See how this very large and lovely armoire, the single piece in this small area, is beautifully balanced by the petite picture propped beside it and by the repeating texture of the baskets resting on top of it? Scale is our very good friend when we learn to vary it.

Consider the widely varying scale of the pieces in this room: the heavy, dark sofa and the light, almost airy child's rocker. The large, dark stained coffee table and the smaller end table made of white wood and glass. The imposing floor lamp and the quieter table lamp. And the fabulous giant clamshell filled with diminutive yellow lemons. If you could magically wave a wand over this room and change everything to the same scale, what would happen? The room would be totally drained of its life and its dynamism.

If you prefer neutrals to color, no worries. Just remember the fifth — and to me, the most important — tool: Mix, mix, mix! This lovely, calming dining room gets its allure from its mix. The rustic ladder, the formal dining chairs, the somewhat woebegone metal chandelier, the fibrous frame on the mirror and the glass table with its sculptural base all work together to create great interest and personality — with not so much as a touch of color. Mixing is (dare I say it) practically a rule.

Has this been an exhaustive treatise on rules and tools? Clearly not. Many other designers have lots to say on the issue. And I've not even touched on the importance of laughing a little — of not taking the process too seriously! (Another ideabook, perhaps.) 

Let me leave you with this striking room, with its use of all five tools. We have balance and equilibrium provided by the repetition of pairs of chairs and lamps. The wonderfully "other" chandelier sets the stage for the mix of styles, colors and periods. Varying scale is accomplished by the placement of the low-backed chairs and sofa in such a high-ceilinged space. And the undressed windows provide that oh-so-critical place where the eye can rest. The fireplace, with its statement mirror, shines as the focal point, putting a decisive bow on this great example of how to utilize basic tools to create personal, warm and inviting rooms.

A consumer show aimed at dudes, a block party in Leslieville and three more things to do in Toronto this weekend.

Gentlemen’s Expo
The inaugural expo celebrates the modern man’s interests (which organizers define as style, food, booze, sports, cars, tech and pop culture). The festivities include poker tournaments, complimentary straight shaves, cigar appreciation lessons, whiskey talks and even candid sex tips. Nov. 22–Nov. 24. $30 for a day pass, $60 for a weekend pass. Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 255 Front St. W., gentlemensexpo.com

A Room of One’s Own
Buy a glass of wine, nibble on 1920s-era hors d’oeuvres and enjoy the period decor at Campbell House before listening to Virginia Woolf (played by Naomi Wright) deliver the speech that inspired her feminist essay A Room of One’s Own. Wright’s thespian credits include starring roles in Vancouver performances ofOthello, Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest. Nov. 13–Nov. 24. $20. Campbell House Museum, 160 Queen St. W., aroomofonesown.ca

Leslieville Wanderlust (FREE!)
A slew of popular Leslieville shops and restaurants are hosting a weekend-long event that includes a raucous block party tonight, a street hockey tournament on Saturday and a gnome-themed brunch on Sunday. Participating restaurants will feature special Wanderlust menus. Nov. 21–Nov. 24. Free. Queen St. E. from Logan Ave. to Greenwood Ave., Facebook

Veggielicious
The two-week-long vegetarian food fest features gourmet prix-fixe meals and other deals at eateries across Toronto. The 40-plus bakeries, cafés and restaurants taking part include Glas Wine Bar (four courses for $38), Grasslands (two courses with a wine pairing for $30) and Tabülè (three courses for $25). 
Nov. 15–30. Various Locations, veggielicious.ca

Swedish Christmas Festival (FREE!)
An annual yuletide fair boasting traditional Swedish arts and crafts, folk dancing and tons of food. Live performances include children’s carolling and a magic show. Nov. 23–Nov. 24. Free admission.Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay W., harbourfrontcentre.com

We like to think that men and women are fundamentally the same, excepting their reproductive organs. We all want the same rights and opportunities, and for some things, such as women's suffrage, it was a long, hard fight to achieve equal footing. As a result, we're often appalled at stereotypical suggestions that the sexes might be different. Witness the reaction to the Barbie doll who said "Math class is tough!" in 1992. In 2005, there was controversy surrounding Harvard president Lawrence Summers when he suggested there were innate reasons for why women did not perform as well as men on tests of math and science. Men, on the other hand, have staged massive protests over any silver screen depiction that paints them as merely beer-swilling, football-watching couch potatoes with the vocabulary of cavemen.

OK, so we invented that last example, but just because we can't track down a concrete example of such a protest doesn't mean that men aren't the tiniest bit irked. Still, we do seem to realize that as much as we'd like everything to be equal between men and women, there are differences in how we go about things. The sales of glossy magazines that promise to teach you how to work with someone of the opposite gender as well as self-help books along the lines of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" are proof that we need a little help understanding what's going on inside the heads of men and women.

As it turns out, it may be better to turn to neuroscience rather than to Cosmopolitan magazine to figure out what's going on inside that guy's brain. Research indicates that men and women do in fact have different structures and wiring in the brain, and men and women may also use their brains differently. In some cases, this may explain some of the stereotypes that we may not like to acknowledge about the genders. For example, men do score better at tasks that involve orienting objects in space, while women do better at language tests. From there, it's but a quick jump to the conclusions that men are better at reading maps and women talk too much.

It's these kinds of stereotypes that make some people nervous about the findings on the male and female brain -- what kinds of implications would this have for our world? Would women immediately be banned from math classes and would men be forced to become engineers? Before we start jumping to conclusions, go to the next page and we'll take a look at just what sorts of brain differences we're dealing with.

Differences in Male and Female Brain Structure

Scientists have known for a while now that men and women have slightly different brains, but they thought the changes were limited to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls sex drive and food intake. A few scientists may have admitted that men's brains were indeed bigger, but they would have tried to qualify this finding by telling you that it was because men were bigger. Because brain size has been linked with intelligence, it's very tricky to go around saying that men have bigger brains. Yet men do seem to have women beat here; even when accounting for height and weight differences, men have slightly bigger brains. Does this mean they're smarter? Let's keep going.

In 2001, researchers from Harvard found that certain parts of the brain were differently sized in males and females, which may help balance out the overall size difference. The study found that parts of the frontal lobe, responsible for problem-solving and decision-making, and the limbic cortex, responsible for regulating emotions, were larger in women. In men, the parietal cortex, which is involved in space perception, and the amygdala, which regulates sexual and social behavior, were larger.

Men also have approximately 6.5 times more gray matter in the brain than women, but before the heads of all the men out there start to swell, listen to this: Women have about 10 times more white matter than men do. This difference may account for differences in how men and women think. Men seem to think with their gray matter, which is full of active neurons. Women think with the white matter, which consists more of connections between the neurons. In this way, a woman's brain is a bit more complicated in setup, but those connections may allow a woman's brain to work faster than a man's.

If you're a lady still concerned about the size issues brought up in the first paragraph, let's address that now. In women's brains, the neurons are packed in tightly, so that they're closer together. This proximity, in conjunction with speedy connections facilitated by the white matter, is another reason why women's brains work faster. Some women even have as many as 12 percent more neurons than men do [source: Hotz]. In studying women's brains, psychologist Sandra Witelson found that those neurons were most densely crowded on certain layers of the cortex, namely the ones responsible for signals coming in and out of the brain. This, Witelson believed, may be one reason why women tend to score higher on tests that involve language and communication, and she came to believe that these differences were present from birth.

But the density of women's neurons, much like the size of a guy's brain, isn't any sort of magic bullet for predicting intelligence. Scientists know this because they've conducted imaging studies on how men and women think. As we've said, men use gray matter, and women use white, but they're also accessing different sections of the brain for the same task. In one study, men and women were asked to sound out different words. Men relied on just one small area on the left side of the brain to complete the task, while the majority of women used areas in both sides of the brain. However, both men and women sounded out the words equally well, indicating that there is more than one way for the brain to arrive at the same result. For example, while women get stuck with a bad reputation for reading maps, it may just be that they orient to landmarks differently. And as for intelligence, average IQ scores are the same for both men and women.

Brain Structure vs. Environment

There may be subtle differences in how even the most equality-minded among us treat baby girls versus baby boys. Girls may be dressed in pink and given dolls, while boys wear blue jumpers and push around trucks. To some people, these environmental factors are impossible to ignore when considering the human brain. If there are differences in people's brains, it might be due to how society has shaped a person, with neurons and synapses pruned away as the brain deemed them unnecessary.

Sandra Witelson, the psychologist mentioned on the previous page, disagrees with that environmental assessment, and she uses an unlikely source to support her belief that our brains are structured at birth: Albert Einstein. Witelson had the opportunity to study pieces of Einstein's brain, and she found its unique structure to be a sort of confirmation that some brain differences simply can't be explained away with social or environmental reasons. She didn't look at Einstein's intelligence or accomplishments, but she simply observed that he had a unique brain structure that was likely already formed at birth.

This may help to explain why we don't have many Einsteins running around. And when it comes to the stereotype of women underperforming at Einstein's favored subjects of physics and math, that may just come down to slight differences in the brain as well. It may be that girls' and boys' brains develop at different rates. Our educational system, however, doesn't take that into account. When a child encounters a subject that his or her brain is not ready to tackle yet, the child may become frustrated and give up too quickly.

To tease this out a bit further, girls may start to discern that boys do better in math classes, and that girls in their peer groups are electing not to take more advanced versions of the subjects. This can cause further drops in female enrollment in math and physics courses: One study showed that female students with math, science and engineering majors were uninterested in attending a summer math and sciences conference after they were shown videos in which the gender ratio was unbalanced, with three males for every one female.

However, another study demonstrated that this sort of insecurity is all in our heads. In that study, girls' math scores improved when they were told that the exam was gender-neutral, while white men's scores on the same test dropped when they were told the scores would be evaluated against Asian men's scores. This seems to suggest that we can easily overcome any biological differences, or we can just as easily doom ourselves to fulfilling these prophecies.

But at this point, instead of wondering whether we need to revamp the educational system or worry about whether a different brain could become grounds for not hiring someone, it may be more important to focus on how knowing about these differences could help us. Most research for new medications is conducted on male volunteers and male animals exclusively, because it was believed that the female brain would show wildly erratic results during various phases of the menstrual cycle. Knowing about the differences in male and female brains could open up tremendous opportunity in diagnosing and treating brain disorders.

For example, depression and chronic anxiety are diagnosed far more often in women; this may have to do with differences in the chemical composition of the brain, as one study has shown that women produce only about half as much serotonin (a neurotransmitter linked to depression) as men and have fewer transporters to recycle it. Or, it may have to do with how the various sides of the female brain respond to emotions and pain. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to be diagnosed with autism, Tourette's syndrome, dyslexia and schizophrenia, to name a few. Additionally, disorders like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease can show up differently in men and women. Based on the location of neurons, brain injuries may affect men and women differently.

This sort of knowledge could affect drug treatments, or at least explain why some drugs work differently in men and women. It extends beyond just drugs, though. One study has found that men and women's brains fire differently when they do plan a visually guided action, like reaching for an object. This may necessitate changes in physical therapy after a brain disorder that affects one side of the brain, like a stroke.

THE ESSENTIALS 

• Adjustable wrench
• Cordless drill (15 amps)
• Fastener assortment (screws, nails, bolts, drywall anchors)
• Hammer
• Level
• Pliers set
• Screwdriver set (flathead and Phillips)
• Tape (electrical, duct, masking, and painter’s tape)
• Tape measure
• Utility knife

FOR PLUMBING FIXES 

• Pipe wrench
• Plumber's putty
• Teflon tape
• Tile saw
• Your plumber’s phone number (hello!)

FOR HANGING, PATCHING, AND LIGHTING 

• Handsaw
• Nails
• Pencil
• Putty knife
• Sandpaper (for smoothing the patched wall)
• Spackle or putty (best in white; you can always paint over it to match the wall)
• Stud finder
• Voltage tester

FOR PAINTING 

• Blue painter’s tape
• Brushes (various sizes)
• Drop cloth
• Ladder
• Rollers
• Sandpaper
• Trays
• Wooden stirrer

EXTRAS FOR YOUR CLOSET 

• Extension cords
• Flashlight
• Gloves
• Safety glasses (there are no cute options, sorry!)

Dates: November 16, 2013 - 

December 01, 2013

Toronto.com’s Top Picks for This Weekend:

November 15 to November 17

The holiday season kicks off in Toronto this weekend, withWinter Magic, Illuminite and the arrival of jolly old St. Nick for Sunday’s Santa Claus Parade. We rounded up more events and activities in our Holiday Guide, including the Sherway Gardens Santa Experienceand Christmas at Black Creek.

Looking for Santa? Check out Where to find Santa in Toronto for mall hours and events.

Foodies can tipple and taste their way through the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo, orexplore the culinary wizardry of the establishments on Ossington.

Don’t miss toronto.com’s inside look at David Cronenberg Evolution and our behind-the-scenes tour of the Santa Claus Parade.

SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.

Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.

In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.

The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.

Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.

The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.

The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).

In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.

Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.

Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?

Rental apartments and retail developments seen as attractive choices for investors

TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2013 /CNW/ - The Canadian real estate market will maintain its strength next year, according to the Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, released by PwC and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) today.

The report notes that while the outlook for development of all property types is good, continuing urbanization and reverse migration trends are expected to be especially important considerations for developers and investors. In particular, live/work/play development offerings along or near mass transit lines will be essential.

With challenging infrastructure in all major Canadian centres coupled with the urbanization trend, there will be a continued demand for retail, office and residential space in our urban centres where there is easy access to mass transit," Lori-Ann Beausoleil, Partner and National Real Estate Leader at PwC. "Competition for these sites and uses will continue to place pressure on developers to reformat their product offerings to optimize space as these locations become scarce."

Rental market not derailed by condos

The report also states that condominium developments in major urban centres have not hindered the market for rental apartments—in fact, rental apartments are considered a very attractive investment in Canada's largest cities, particularly as condominiums are often purchased and then rented out at premium rates. Tighter mortgage rules - which have made buying a home more difficult - together with continued immigration and lifestyle-choice renters, could significantly improve the economic landscape for purpose-built rental apartments in Canada's major centres.

"Condo development is still a popular real estate investment, as it serves a different segment of the market than most existing rental apartments, and as such the two can work in tandem," says Mark Noskiewicz, ULI Toronto Chair. "As home prices in the major cities stay high, renting is a reality for many Canadians and real estate investors are happy to capitalize on this need. However, the report confirms that common to any accommodation segment is the importance of integrated land use development and planning, and that higher valuation is supported by desirable livability indices such as connectivity, amenity and mobility."

Strong economy part of real estate success

Canada's economic strength has played a significant role in keeping real estate prospects strong, according to the report. Canada's resilient performance in the wake of the 2008 recession has made it an appealing place for investors to develop and in turn, Canadian investors are also able to be active in the US and overseas markets. Perhaps most telling is the fact that Canadians are now the United States' largest non-domestic real estate investors, with $10.7 billion invested into US properties over the past 12 months.

And, building on Canada's prosperity, American and European retailers - including Nordstrom, Zara Home, Marshall's, Tanger Outlets, Bloomingdale's and J Crew-- recognize the strength of the Canadian consumer as the trend to find Canadian locations for their stores continues.

"The forecasts show that Canadian real estate players are able to both invest and attract investors. With the US economy on the upswing, we are likely to see even more activity between the two countries, says Beausoleil. "Over the last several years, Canada has been the interesting real estate story while the US markets were in distress, but now, we expect that the continuing US recovery will be the real story. Still, Canada's strong market and the spending power of our consumers will continue to position us well in the international community as we head into 2014."