Culture & Religion — September 12, 2010

When Languages Die

“The loss of linguistic diversity means permanently shutting the door on a vast wealth of potential scientific knowledge.” Obit’s Axel Rose on the downside of English as lingua franca.

bigthinkeditor

“It is no doubt true that English (or at least the culture English represents) offers a host of benefits to many far-flung communities—access to international trade, exposure to vaccines and antibiotics, plus the comforts and conveniences of modern technology—yet it almost necessarily comes at the expense of local traditions. As a result, 40 percent of the world’s 6,000-odd languages are currently endangered. … The linguist Noam Chomsky put it best when he wrote, ‘by studying the properties of natural languages, their structure, organization, and use, we may hope to learn something about human nature; something significant, if it is true that human cognitive capacity is the truly distinctive and most remarkable characteristic of the species.'”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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