How public awareness campaigns can affect our thoughts

"The war against climate change." The expression is so ingrained in our language that we forget it contains a metaphor, but it does: it makes a connection between climate change and war, a war we must win. The expression ...

Metaphors for human fertilization are evolving, study shows

In a common metaphor used to describe human fertilization, sperm cells are competitors racing to penetrate a passive egg. But as critics have noted, the description is also a "fairy tale," rooted in cultural beliefs about ...

Are organisms basically living machines?

Scientists are increasingly interested in the prospect of solving a range of fundamental problems facing our civilisation by designing and reconstructing organisms.

Why it's so offensive when we call people animals

Comparing humans to animals is vexed but irresistible. We are animals, but animals who like to believe we are not merely animals. When we do liken people to other creatures – when sports fans use racial slurs or Donald ...

Metaphoring the police: It's all about the right choice of word

A well-chosen metaphor does wonders to explain concepts, to persuade and to ensure buy-in into any given matter. So says Paul Thibodeau of Oberlin College in the US, lead author of an article in Springer's journal Psychonomic ...

Metaphors bias perceptions of scientific discovery

Whether ideas are "like a light bulb" or come forth as "nurtured seeds," how we describe discovery shapes people's perceptions of both inventions and inventors. Notably, Kristen Elmore (Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational ...

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