What makes the human brain distinctive? A new study published in Cell identifies two genes linked to human brain features and provides a road map to discover many more. The research could lead to ...

Humans are the only species known to use fully symbolic language: a system capable of expressing abstract ideas, imaginary worlds and endless combinations of meaning. But how did we get there? The ...

Language is one of the few faculties that still seems to be uniquely human. Other animals, like chimpanzees and songbirds, have developed elaborate communication systems, but none appears to convey ...

Wild chimpanzees alter the meaning of single calls when embedding them into diverse call combinations, mirroring linguistic operations in human language. Human language, however, allows an infinite ...

The arcuate fascicle (AF) is the main fibre tract in the brain for human language. It connects frontal and temporal language areas in the superior and middle temporal gyrus (MTG). The AF’s connection ...

Human languages are known to have grown and changed considerably over the course of history, often reflecting technological, cultural, and societal shifts. Studying the evolution of languages can thus ...

My son is a wizard. He walks into the kitchen, looks at me and utters the magic words: “Can I have a cheese and tomato sandwich, please?” A few minutes later, just such a snack appears in front of him ...

Compared to other primates, humans have evolved dramatic changes to cognitive and social behaviors. However, little is known about the molecular, cellular and circuit-level modifications in the human ...

South Africa has one of the world’s richest fossil records of hominins (humans and their fossil ancestors). But many misconceptions still exist regarding human evolution, and school textbooks contain ...