Language Lessons: You Are What You Speak
“LANGUAGES are wonderfully idiosyncratic. English puts its subject before its verb. Finnish has lots of cases. Mandarin is highly tonal.
Yet despite these differences, one of the most influential ideas in the study of language is that of universal grammar. Put forward by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s, it is widely interpreted as meaning that all languages are basically the same and that the human brain is born language-ready, with an in-built program that is able to decipher the common rules underpinning any mother tongue. For five decades this idea has dominated work in linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. To understand language, it implied, you must sweep aside the dazzling diversity of languages and find the common human core.
But what if the very diversity of languages is the key to understanding human communication? This is the idea being put forward by linguists Nicholas Evans of the Australian National University in Canberra and Stephen Levinson of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
They believe that languages do not share a common set of rules. Instead, they say, their sheer variety is a defining feature of human communication – something not seen in other animals. And that’s not all. Language diversity is the ‘crucial fact for understanding the place of language in human cognition’, Levinson and Evans argue.”
Read more at New Scientist
Blue light smells of bananas
Blue light smells like bananas — if you’re a genetically modified fruit fly.
Scientists in Germany figured out how to modify fruit fly larvae so they can “smell” light, encouraging them to move toward it, rather than away from it like they normally would. Before you get excited about actually smelling Skittles when you see a rainbow, however, bear in mind that the fruit fly larvae are much easier to manipulate than humans.
The work involves activating single receptor neurons out of 28 olfactory neurons. All the olfactory neurons were capable of producing a protein that is activated by light. The researchers had to choose which one to make light-sensitive.
They found they could either activate cells which would normally register repulsive odors and make the flies go away, or they could activate cells that respond to attractive odors like banana, marzipan or glue. Those odors are all present in rotting fruit, which attracts fruit flies.
PopSci (Thanks Chris)
Do you have a fear of deep water?
Then dont watch this…..!
Office Of Fair Trading ‘Just Tick It’ Campaign
“The Just Tick It campaign aims to increase awareness of fake ticket websites and provide ticket buyers with helpful and practical advice on how to avoid being scammed.
Scammers make their sites look genuine, so it’s really easy to get taken in unless you know what you’re looking for.
There are loads of fake ticket sites out there and most of them are really tough to spot. In fact, scam sites catch out 1 in 12 people who buy tickets online.”
Read more at Just Tick It Campaign
Join on Facebook
Follow the Campaign on Twitter
Parrots the Universe and Everything – Douglas Adams
As you all know (or should do) Derren is a patron of The National Parrot Sanctuary of the Parrot Zoo and we’re always looking for a shameless reason to plug the wonderful work they do. We found this talk by Douglas Adams and it’s a brilliant example of what a great story teller he is. So have a watch then head over to the Parrot Sanctuary website and tell them we said “Hiiii”.
Last chance to purchase tickets for Enigma Scotland
We’ve had quite a few emails from fans having various troubles obtaining tickets for the Edinburgh show 7-9th June. As this is the last chance to see the show in Scotland we understand your worry. Our advice is to buy directly from the venue by clicking here – Venue Box Office and we’ve been assured this is the easiest and hassle free way to secure a ticket.
Last year tickets sold out very quickly so we understand your frustration but there is still a good supply left. If you have any more issues please email us and we’ll do our best to help on phillisdorris@derrenbrownart.com
Finnish Police Probe Theft Of Virtual Furniture
“A virtual thieving spree could have real life consequences for culprits in Finland, where police are investigating the theft of virtual furniture on a social networking site popular with teenagers.
‘Significant amounts of virtual property’ were stolen from around 400 users of the Habbo Hotel virtual hotel, where visitors can create a character for themselves to hang out with friends, take care of virtual pets and furnish their own rooms for a fee, Finnish police said Tuesday.
The cyber thieves used hoax web pages to steal user names and passwords, which they then used to sign in to Habbo profiles and shift property away from its rightful owners, the police said in a statement.
As part of the investigation, the police have searched homes in five Finnish cities, confiscated computers and interrogated several people, they said, adding that while the value of damages could not yet be defined, for some users the cost could be ‘significant’.”
Read more at Yahoo News (thanks, GadgetFreakk)
Creative Minds ‘Mimic Schizophrenia’
“Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works. Brain scans reveal striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia. Both groups lack important receptors used to filter and direct thought. It could be this uninhibited processing that allows creative people to “think outside the box”, say experts from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. In some people, it leads to mental illness. But rather than a clear division, experts suspect a continuum, with some people having psychotic traits but few negative symptoms.
Some of the world’s leading artists, writers and theorists have also had mental illnesses – the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and American mathematician John Nash (portrayed by Russell Crowe in the film A Beautiful Mind) to name just two. Creativity is known to be associated with an increased risk of depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Similarly, people who have mental illness in their family have a higher chance of being creative. Associate Professor Fredrik Ullen believes his findings could help explain why.”
Read more at BBC News
Bat is a Hybrid Fusion of Three Species
“Interspecies sex doesn’t always result in offspring that are infertile, like a mule. A fruit bat found in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, Artibeus schwartzi, is a hybrid that has descended from three different species.
Peter Larsen from Texas Tech University confirmed the bat’s unique ancestry by sequencing DNA from 237 individuals belonging to the seven fruit bat species of the Lesser Antilles. He found that A.schwartzi’s main genome is a cross between those of two other fruit bats, A. jamaicensis and A. planirostris, with a tiny minority of sequences that don’t match either genome.
Complicating matters, animal cells also have a separate smaller genome, housed in energy-providing structures called mitochondria. But A.schwartzi’s mitochondrial genome doesn’t resemble that of either of the two species that gave rise to it. These accessory genes must have come from yet another source – a third species of fruit bat that has either since gone extinct or that hasn’t been discovered yet.
Hybrid species that came from a mashup of two other species are rare enough, but three is very rare indeed.”
Read more at Neatorama
Math formula proves giraffes can swim
“Mathematics has proven that giraffes can swim – even though they wouldn’t be very good at it and nobody has ever seen them do it. Whereas most large animal are extremely good swimmers, it has often been said that giraffes are unable to swim or wade. The authors of the new study hoped to test this oft-quoted theory by using a digital giraffe rather than a real one.
Dr Donald Henderson, of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Canada, and Dr Darren Naish, of the University of Portsmouth, decided to investigate whether or not giraffes could swim after Dr Naish took part in an online debate on the subject. In previous work, Dr Henderson had created a digital model of a giraffe, and had also tested the buoyancy of various computer generated models of animals.
The new study, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, examines what happened when scientists placed a ‘digital giraffe’ in ‘digital water’.
Dr Naish said: “Many previous studies have claimed that giraffes cannot swim and that they avoid water like the plague, even in an emergency, but we wanted to put the theory to the test in proper controlled experiments.”"
Read more at The Telegraph
"
