I’ve been thinking about the abstract comment: While research on the acoustics of speech production indicates that a vocal tract with this shape is insufficient for producing quantal speech sounds resistant to articulatory error and perceptual confusion, other modeling studies suggest that Neanderthals could have possessed fully-articulate speech capabilities. I’m thinking that since we’ve never […]
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davinci
Today, I came across a report in New Scientist called “Neanderthals Speak Out After 30,000 years“. Based on a talk called “Voices out of the past: synthesizing Neanderthal speech” given by Robert McCarthy on research done by himself and F. Yates, P. Lieberman at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting this year. As I […]
A new study found that pollution in the air changes the scent of flowers, either masking it or shortening the distance over which bees (and others) can smell them. I came across the report and all of a sudden realized that this means big trouble for all of us. “The scent molecules produced by flowers […]
I was lucky enough to attend the book event at Borders in the Annapolis Maryland mall and hear Stephanie Pearl-McPhee speak about life, knitting, and some of the things she’s learned. It was an entertaining talk. I’d bought the book at the event and brought it home to read. The book is small (about 6.3 […]
Today is our second day of temperatures in the mid-80’s. Earlier in the week, I’d managed to rake up a lot of the garden area and today we raked the piles onto a tarp and dumped them toward the back of our property. Hopefully, the leaves will compost into soil and by the time we […]
Several years ago (more than I want to admit to), I decided to give Jane Austen a try since so many people had recommended her writing to me. My first try was Pride and Prejudice. It was okay, and then I watched the A&E movie version staring Colin Firth. Once I saw the movie, I […]
I read the Yarn Harlot blog, which is written by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She also writes books on knitting humor and I’ve enjoyed her writing since, I don’t know when — I guess since she was on the Knitlist and posted short items there. She’s always seemed to be to be a person who thinks a […]
Charlton Heston died. I got to thinking about him as the obituaries were rolling out in the news. I think have to thank him for spurring me to read. I remember seeing The Ten Commandments at the drive in. My mother and her friend and all us kids would go. We get in our pjs […]