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What enables human language? A biocultural framework Science

Science

Case study 1 considers vocal production learning, an organism's capacity to enlarge and modify its repertoire of vocalizations based on auditory experience. This ability is crucial for learning spoken language and limited in nonhuman primates but has emerged in other branches of the evolutionary tree, including subsets of birds, bats, elephants, cetaceans, and pinnipeds. Bringing together data from molecular investigations of speech and language disorders, genetic manipulations in animal models, and studies of ancient DNA, this case study demonstrates how ancient genetic and neural infrastructures may have been modified and recombined to enable distinctive human capacities. Case study 2 examines the emergence of linguistic structure, a defining property of human language, using data from real-world cases of emergence (e.g., homesign and emerging sign languages); experiments recreating cultural evolution in the lab; and comparative studies of nonhuman animals, including songbirds and primates. This case study highlights the importance of transmission and interaction, suggesting that emergence of structure involves a combination of biological, cognitive, and cultural conditions: Although some (or all) traits are shared with other species, their combination may be specific to humans.


This ECOVACS robovac helps clean while I'm too busy writing Black Friday deals, and it's 500 off

Popular Science

Gear Home Smart Home This ECOVACS robovac helps clean while I'm too busy writing Black Friday deals, and it's $500 off If you need a robovac with suction that doesn't suck, the ECOVACS DEEBOT X11 OmniCyclone is 33% off for Black Friday. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Back in September, we went to the IFA consumer electronics expo in Berlin . Among the big-booth exhibitors, ECOVACS (and partner company TINECO) was a highlight for any smart home big on dust and short on time. The technology brands deliver intelligent, automated cleaning that hits the sweet spot for performance and features.


Are induction stoves better? These chefs think so.

Popular Science

Induction stoves use electromagnetism to heat food more efficiently than any other kind of stovetop. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Ask someone in the United States about "electric cooking" and they'll probably describe one of those awful coil stoves, the ones that take forever to heat up and then burn your dinner to a crisp the moment you take your eyes off it. This unfortunate association is perhaps one reason why induction cooking hasn't quite taken off in the U.S. the way it has elsewhere in the world--in Europe, for example, where induction stoves are commonplace. How do induction stoves differ from electric stoves?


Objective and efficient inference for couplings in neuronal networks

Neural Information Processing Systems

Inferring directional couplings from the spike data of networks is desired in various scientific fields such as neuroscience. Here, we apply a recently proposed objective procedure to the spike data obtained from the Hodgkin-Huxley type models and in vitro neuronal networks cultured in a circular structure. As a result, we succeed in reconstructing synaptic connections accurately from the evoked activity as well as the spontaneous one. To obtain the results, we invent an analytic formula approximately implementing a method of screening relevant couplings. This significantly reduces the computational cost of the screening method employed in the proposed objective procedure, making it possible to treat large-size systems as in this study.