Are birds’ tweets grammatical? [Scientific American] But are the rules of grammar unique to human language? Perhaps not, according to a recent study, which showed that songbirds may also communicate using a sophisticated grammar—a feature absent in even our closest relatives, the nonhuman primates. Kentaro Abe and Dai Watanabe of Kyoto University
performed a series of experiments to determine whether Bengalese finches expect the notes of their tunes to follow a certain order.
posted by Fizz
on Nov 3, 2011 -
31 comments
The United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 —
Authorized and funded by the U.S. government,
six ships sailed with 346 men (including
officers,
crew,
scientists, and
artists) on a four-year scientific and surveying mission, logging
87,000 miles around the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Two ships and 28 men were lost, and the Expedition's
contentious commander
Charles Wilkes was court-martialled for his erratic behavior, and was
sued by former officers and crew members. During the Civil War in 1861, he
boarded a British ship, seized two Confederate agents, and nearly provoked military retaliation by England (he was court-martialled once again in
1864 for insubordination.) Wilkes' 1845
Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition and the Ex. Ex.'s journals were
published by Congress, and some 40 tons of Expedition specimens and
artifacts became the
foundation of the
Smithsonian Institution's collections.
[Nathaniel Philbrick (video lecture) chronicles this almost-forgotten voyage in his 2003 book Sea of Glory (NYT review).]
posted by cenoxo
on Oct 25, 2008 -
21 comments
Darwin's God. "A scientific exploration of how we have come to believe in God."
This article tracks the possibility that belief in a higher power is the product of evolution.
posted by inconsequentialist
on Mar 3, 2007 -
50 comments
We are because of others. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on others to feed, clothe us, and to teach us to think of ourselves as selves. The key is language -- grammatical speech and human culture build upon the brain's biological capacities to create a mind that is something different again than that with which we are born. We are conscious because we can speak to others and ourselves, because we can speak of ourselves to others and ourselves. Language gives us as individuals, memory, and as groups, culture, the social memory. Or so
thought Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, among others. Welcome to the
the neuronaut's guide to the science of consciousness.
posted by y2karl
on Jul 11, 2003 -
36 comments
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