By re-examining contemporary human language, MIT researchers believe they can uncover how human communication could have evolved from the systems underlying the older communication modes of birds and primates. “How did human language arise?” asks linguist Shigeru Miyagawa, a Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at MIT. “The best we can do is come up […]
A new study reveals that humans and other primates burn 50 percent fewer calories each day than other mammals. Interestingly, the study also reports that primates in zoos expend as much energy as those in the wild, suggesting that physical activity may have less of an impact on daily energy expenditure than previously thought. The […]
A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesappears to confirm a theory that the evolution of sharp vision in our ancestors was in part driven by the threat of snakes. Lynne Isbell, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, originally put forward the theory in her […]
The ability to reflect on one’s knowledge was thought of as an exclusively human ability, but it seems that other primates can engage in meta-cognition as well, say researchers from Columbia’s Primate Cognition Laboratory. The work, detailed in Psychological Science, was designed to show that a monkey could express its confidence in its answers to […]
