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How Brain Waves Surf Sound Waves to Process Speech

John Rennie Quanta Magazine
By paying more attention to behaviors, and not just to the activity of neurons, two researchers critical of most neuroscience learned how brains make sense of spoken language.

books

It's Only Words

Narendar Pani The Hindu
In Banking on Words, Arjun Appadurai argues that the 2008 financial crisis was, in essence, a failure of language. Narendar Pani finds that argument somewhat overstated, while at the same time acknowledging this book's "path-breaking" analysis of the role language has come to play in the way markets behave and are managed.

The Rise of Computer-Aided Explanation

Michael Nielsen Quanta Magazine
Computers can translate French and prove mathematical theorems. But can they make deep conceptual insights into the way the world works?

food

Word by Word: A Linguist Reads the Menu

Kent Black The Boston Globe
Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.

food

Word by Word: A Linguist Reads the Menu

Kent Black The Boston Globe
Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.
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