by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 16, 2007 | Accents, Infants, Languages
The tendency to favor your own social group over others emerges before you’ve learned anything about current disputes or historical conflict, before you’ve even learned how to talk. Children show strong early preferences for people speaking their native...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 14, 2007 | Material culture, Prehistoric humans, Sculpture
Late last month, German archeologists announced the discovery of intricate figurines that were made around 35,000 years ago. Made from mammoth ivory, the beautiful carvings include a mammoth and a lion. Recall from June 27’s post–the oldest human...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 13, 2007 | Infants, Languages
In the last five years a lot of evidence has emerged about the abilities of babies, and indeed the abilities of monkeys, to make subtle judgments about language. For example, human babies and tamarin monkeys can tell one language from another based upon its rhythm....
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 12, 2007 | Biosphere, Earth
The talking species dominates about 25% of the planet’s production capacity. Half of this land use comes from harvesting crops, 7% comes from human-started fires. No other animal makes such intensive use of, or has such a profound effect on, the earth’s...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 11, 2007 | Ancient genomics, Mammoth, Preserved animals, Squid
An almost perfectly preserved baby mammoth has been found in Siberia, and scientists are hailing the discovery as invaluable. Virtually everything about the little beast is intact, even it’s eyes remain. I’m not sure how rare it is to unearth prehistoric...
