Category: logos
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Dying languages…
Over 6,000 languages are currently spoken worldwide, but a substantial minority — well over 5% — are in danger of dying out. It is perhaps surprising that this fraction is no higher, as most models have so far predicted that a minority language will be doomed to extinction once contacts with speakers of the majority…
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Copying sounds. Speaking?
Bats can learn to mimic specific sounds, which puts them into an elite group of animals capable of this. Studying how bats can copy noises could help us learn more about humans’ unique capacity for speech and language. (1) Listen. Speak. Oh child. How did you learn to speak? If not by listening to people…
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Old mummy… Silent voices…
The sound of a vocal tract from a 3,000-year-old mummy has been recreated using CT scans, a 3D-printer, and a voice synthesizer. Details of this achievement—such as it is—were published in Scientific Reports. (1) Old voices. Lost voices. Meaning nothing now. Frightening isn’t it? Why don’t we understand those voices? Why do we need to?…
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Understanding language. Word by word…
The capacity for language is distinctly human. It allows us to communicate, learn things, create culture, and think better. Because of its complexity, scientists have long struggled to understand the neurobiology of language. In the classical view, there are two major language areas in the left half of our brain. Broca’s area (in the frontal…
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Jupiter’s new moons. Silent foundations…
The public many times is called to name some newly discovered planets, as happened in the case of Jupiter a few years ago. (1) We believe we can escape the past, but we cannot. Jupiter’s moons will always have names based on Greek mythology. Because they used to. Everything we do, speak and write, are…
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