When an Icelander arrives at an office building and sees "Solarfri" posted, they need no further explanation for the empty premises: The word means "when staff get an unexpected afternoon off to enjoy good weather."
Social Sciences
Apr 22, 2017
8
2084
Numbers do not exist in all cultures. There are numberless hunter-gatherers embedded deep in Amazonia, living along branches of the world's largest river tree. Instead of using words for precise quantities, these people rely ...
Social Sciences
Apr 26, 2017
14
3165
Generally thought of as fierce horse warriors, the Scythians were a multitude of Iron Age cultures who ruled the Eurasian steppe, playing a major role in Eurasian history. A new study published in Science Advances analyzes ...
Archaeology
Mar 26, 2021
5
8980
Researchers have created an artificial intelligence tool that uses sequences of life events—such as health history, education, job and income—to predict everything from a person's personality to their mortality.
Social Sciences
Dec 23, 2023
5
319
Human laughter is common, but it's a somewhat mysterious part of our evolution. It's clear to evolutionary scholars that we laugh as a part of play, signaling our cooperation or friendliness. But how did laughter evolve? ...
Plants & Animals
May 7, 2021
1
5918
Languages are a key factor in human societies. They connect people, serve as a vehicle to pass on knowledge and ideas, but they also distinguish between different groups of people. Languages can therefore tell us a lot about ...
Social Sciences
Dec 5, 2023
11
765
What do we mean by the word beautiful? It depends not only on whom you ask, but in what language you ask them. According to a machine learning analysis of dozens of languages conducted at Princeton University, the meaning ...
Social Sciences
Aug 17, 2020
1
1051
A new paper proposes that Homo sapiens may have been responsible for the extinction of Neanderthals not by violence, but through sex instead.
Evolution
Oct 31, 2022
2
626
Many people instinctively use baby-talk when talking to their pets, often characterized by a high-pitched voice and exaggerated intonations. The same is true for many riders with their horses. But are horses sensitive to ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 22, 2021
1
6068
Remember when Australians paid in shillings and pence? New research suggests the words for these coins and other culturally important items and concepts are the result of close contact between the early Germanic people and ...
Archaeology
Jul 6, 2020
13
2154
