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Metaphors and other figurative language are deeply woven into the fabric of human communication, as this very sentence actually demonstrates. But how do our brains translate these metaphors into something they can understand? More »
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Dogs make great companions – they're affectionate, adorable, and excellent listeners. But do they really know when we're talking to them? A Hungarian study tracked dogs' eye movements in order to monitor their focus of attention, concluding that the animals pay more attention to humans after being addressed directly. More »
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Most species will raise the alarm instinctively if they see a deadly threat. Chimpanzees, however, are way too sophisticated for all that. They actually figure out if the other chimps are aware of the threat, before bothering to say anything. More »
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Navigating the uncertain terrain of the dating world can be tough for just about anyone, but it is often especially challenging for people with autism spectrum disorders, who typically suffer from impaired social skills that can make establishing strong interpersonal connections difficult. More »
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Before most of us could talk, we were communicating with gestures — holding, pointing and reaching at objects, for example, to communicate our wants and needs to others. More »
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If koalas have any reputation at all, it's as quiet, cute marsupials that spend all their time eating eucalyptus. But male koalas unleash loud, deep yells that sound like the mating call of some massive beast. That's exactly the point. More »
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It's not always easy to distinguish between human social interactions and the complex chemical interactions that underpin them. Just hearing a calming, familiar voice can alter a person's hormones in a beneficial way...and technology just gets in the way. More »
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It seems too cruel to believe we're the only technologically advanced species in the cosmos. We couldn't possibly be the only ones, with so many stars and so many habitable planets out there. More »
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Do people regularly interrupt you in conversation? Does your online chatter require too many smileys? Is your pen pal letting you down? Maybe you want to try someone off-planet. Here's how to make the attempt. More »
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Click to viewIf we received a message from an extraterrestrial civilization, would we necessarily realize it? SETI has long scanned the skies for evidence of alien transmissions, while others have proposed a hunt for physical artifacts sent by our distant neighbors. But neutrino physicists at the University of Hawaii have proposed yet another possibility: that humans have already received an extraterrestrial communication, and that we might find the message in our existing observations of the stars. More »
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Chances are when alien visitors show up, they won't speak any language we can recognize. We'll be lucky if they have recognizable music, like the aliens in Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. They may not have eyes or ears, as we understand them. So how can we prove to our first contacts that we're smart enough to talk to — let alone actually talk to them? Vote for your preferred method of dialogue! More »
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