In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But why wasn’t there a Native American explorer sailing in the opposite direction? Researchers have been trying to explain such cultural differences between groups for decades, but have they been barking up the wrong tree?
Language is one of our most unique and important attributes, but how old is it?
Human language is unique, so what did it evolve from? Some researchers believe it might have its roots in laughter.
Studies of 7,000 year old endocasts have revealed that whilst our brain as a whole has been shrinking our frontal lobe – the bit of the brain linked to language – has actually been increasing in size
Neanderthals were our closest relatives. They were smart and strong, with brains bigger than ours! But did they have language?
New research provides evidence that language may have evolved to help reinforce social relationships through gossip.
Language is important to us modern humans so asking why it evolved seems like a silly question. After all, surely we can think of numerous benefits of language that drove its evolution in our ancestors. However, idle speculation is not good enough for science. We need data! Which of the many benefits to language we…
This weeks top rated post is “humans have giant chimp brains” with a grand total of 3 up-votes, making it the 3rd most popular post of all time. As such this weeks Supplementary Sunday seeks to expand on this well-liked topic by identifying yet another similarity between the human and chimp brain: Wernicke’s area. This…
Humans engage in this funny behaviour known as “language.” To be able to talk and write, humans need to have a few key abilities such as hearing, for example. Another pretty key ability is vocal learning. Rather than just listening to another and copying them, vocal learning involves altering the sounds an individual produces in…
I could write an introduction the explains how fundamentally important language is but I have a feeling I’d be telling you nothing new. Our spoken language forms the basis of co-operation and is one of the most obvious differences between us and chimps (along with bipedality and a lack of fur). The obvious importance of…
EvoAnth 