I’ve been talking about “chunking” in children’s speech lately. By chunking, I mean when a child misparses a sentence such that multiple word that occur together frequently (i.e., collocations) become sort of glued together. Just like in collocations in adults (like throw up, a lot, went out), the group of words together take on a meaning that is beyond just the sum of the individual components. For example, white wine means something different than wine that is white.

When I’m explaining children’s use of chunks to someone for the first time, I’m always prompted to provide an example, and for weeks, I’ve been blanking. But today, when I flipped open the Erika Hoff Language Development textbook being used in BCS 259, I happened to open to the dedication page… a page I hadn’t read before. And there, on the page, was the following transcribed interaction between the author and her daughter:

At the dinner table–

Kirsten (aged 7 years): Are we having for dessert ice cream?

Author: Kirsten, Are we having for dessert ice cream? What kind of a sentence is that?

(A reflective pause)

Kirsten: You should write it down for your book.

A perfect example of a chunk! Having for dessert! Thank you Erika Hoff, and thank you Kirsten! I’ll blank no more.

Gravitons came up at a party last night. I’d never heard of gravitons. How did I miss this?

A graviton is a theoretical massless particle that mediates the force of gravity in the Quantum Field Theory framework, Gabriel & Greg kindly explained. It’s an alternative to the concept of gravity as curved spacetime, as in a general relativity framework. And it models gravitational interaction just as well, recovering the behaviors explained by Isaac Newton’s theory of universal gravitation!

Very neat.

Book that discusses gravitons recommended by Gabriel: Feynman Lectures on Gravitation.

European researchers are in the process of developing a new generation of robots that will be able to adapt their communication systems to their physical environments and communicate with one another without direct human intervention.

The project, dubbed ECAgents, is sponsored by the Future and Emerging Technologies program of the European Commission’s Community Research. It’s being conducted by researchers at the Intituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione in Rome.

The aim is ambitious: researcher say they seek to utilize existing technologies (like mobile phones, Wi-Fi devices, and existing robots) to eventually develop new technologies. Right now, they’re programming Sony AIBOs.

The project website mentions that their communication system is adaptive, meaning it adapts and changes in response to environmental input changes. The linked-to article from The Engineer Online also mentions that the “words” used by the AIBO dogs are built “from scratch.”

From The Enginner Online article:

“Whereas we humans use the word ‘ball’ to refer to a ball, the AIBO dogs start from scratch to develop common agreement on a word to use to refer the ball. They also develop the language structures to express, for instance, that the ball is rolling to the left. The researchers achieved this through instilling their robots with a sense of ‘curiosity.’

. . .

Also like children, the AIBOs initially started babbling aimlessly until two or more settled on a sound to describe an object or aspect of their environment, gradually building a lexicon and grammatical rules through which to communicate.”

I’d like to see more on these robots. I’m always skeptical about sensational stories like these—I’ve seen too many that originate with an overzealous publicist committing a factual faux pas when writing the press release on a technological breakthrough she didn’t research—but if the robots were actually creating a grammar, what a breakthrough that’d be!

Link

Caffeine consumption caused female rats to seek more frequent sex, according to the results of a new study at Southwestern University.

Researchers gave 108 female rats moderate doses of caffeine and found that it shortened the amount of time it took the lady rats to return to the gentleman rats after a first frolic in the woodchips. The shortened time between romps indicates the lady rats were hornier than normal.

Unfortunately, the same effect is not expected to improve human ladies’ sex drives in most cases, researchers say.

“These rats had never had caffeine before,” study leader Fay Guarraci, an assistant professor of psychology at Southwestern University, told Live Science. “In humans, it might enhance the sexual experience only among people who are not habitual users.”

That means not you, Little Miss Triple Espresso.

The research is detailed in an already-released issue of Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

Link (via Live Science)

If it burns when you pee (and you happen to be a monkey), the American Urological Association has some good news for you!

A potent synthetic version of a chemical found in THC, the principal active ingredient of marijuana, has been found to suppresses pain in hypersensitive bladder disorders, according to results presented today at the association’s annual meeting.

The chemical has only been tested in animal models so far, so if you happen to be a human, the discovery won’t alleviate your burning sensations for quite some time.

Hopefully they’ll put a rush order on this one so you can throw out those little pink pills from the drugstore that you keep tucked in the back of the bathroom cabinet. You know, the ones that turn your urine redish orange?

Link (via Medical News Today)

From the same multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation that brought you bovine growth hormone, it’s patented pork!

Monsanto, the world’s leading producer of genetically engineered seed, applied for a patent through the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva on a method of breeding pigs—and on the actual pigs used for breeding and their resulting offspring, according to a report by Greenpeace.

In short, they’re attempting to patent actual pigs.

The Greenpeace story credits the discovery to Christoph Then, a Greenpeace researcher who moniters patents. The article quotes Then with the following:

“If these patents are granted, Monsanto can legally prevent breeders and farmers from breeding pigs whose characteristics are described in the patent claims, or force them to pay royalties,” says Then. “It’s a first step toward the same kind of corporate control of an animal line that Monsanto is aggressively pursuing with various grain and vegetable lines.”

Will it go through? We’ll see! Updates to come as they happen.

Link (via Greenpeace)

Caffeine therapy helps protect the lungs of premature infants from damage, according to a new study conducted by a group of international researchers.

The lungs of prematurely born infants are often underdeveloped and the central nervous system, which normally directs the body to breathe, is often immature and not yet functioning properly.

The caffeine is believed to be beneficial to the respiratory system because of its properties as a stimulant, but scientists say they don’t fully understand the mechanics of why.

The study, which will look at caffeine’s effects on 2,000 preemies over the two-year period, is just beginning, but researchers released some early findings when it became clear the treatment could reduce the rate of a common type of lung damage called bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BDP).

“That’s great news for us!” a Starbucks spokesman said. “Start ‘em young!”

Only joking about the Starbucks spokesman. He didn’t say that outloud.

Link (via Forbes)

Researchers are working to develop dipsticks to measure the caffeine content of coffee and soda—using antibodies extracted from llamas and camels.

New research shows that when camelids, such as llamas and camels, were injected with proteins linked to caffeine, the animals produced antibodies as an immune response. Reseachers found they could then use those antibodies to accurately measure the amount of caffeine in beverages.

The researchers haven’t yet modified their method so it could be used outside of the lab, but they plan to, in the form of portable caffeine dipsticks.

“We believe our test would be the first consumer test for caffeine and would be beneficial for anyone wishing to avoid caffeine for health or personal reasons,” lead researcher Jack Ladenson of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis told a LiveScience.com.

Of course, it’d also be beneficial for anyone wishing to maximize their caffeine intake for term papers or studying reasons!

The research will be detailed in the forethcoming June 1 issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal Analytical Chemistry.

Link (via LiveScience)

The Speech Production and Articulation kNowledge Group is a group of engineers, programmers and linguists who work together using MRI technology to document and study vocal tract shaping during speech sound production.They’ve recently launched an amazing website that contains minature videos of the human vocal tract making a variety of sounds in English, and more videos are on the way.

From the website:

“The SPAN Group bridges multiple interdisciplinary departments, labs and projects at USC. It brings together faculty and students from the Viterbi School of Electrical Engineering, the College’s Department of Linguistics, and the Department of Computer Science . . . The SPAN Group is interested in using cutting-edge imaging and signal processing technologies to understand language production from its cognitive conception to its biomechanical execution to its signal properties. Our group uses articulator movement tracking, real-time imaging of the vocal tract, and state-of-art movement, image, and acoustic analysis techniques, including those found in automatic speech recognition paradigms.”

Link

The Carver One, designed by Dutch entrepeneur Anton van den Brink, is part race car, part street bike powered by a 660 cc turbocharged engine. Can you imagine driving this thing? Its capable of taking turns at a 45 degree tilt angle.

From the Carver website:

“Steer it like a car and it banks like a motorcycle. It sounds deceivingly simple. And it truly is. At the heart of the Carver One lies the Dynamic Vehicle Control (DVC™) system which automatically adjusts the tilt angle of the cockpit to the speed and acceleration of the vehicle enabling a plane-like ’tilting before cornering’.”

Link

Want a tattoo but afraid of upsetting your mummy? Blacklight-reactive tattoo ink might be the answer!

The tattoos appear to be complete invisible under normal light, at least as far as I can tell from the photos, but they glow under blacklight. I know a lot of ravers that would love one of these tattoos. The brand of ink shown here, Chameleon Blacklight Tattoo Ink, is even FDA approved.

Link

NPR has an amazing audio story that details the experiences of Howard Dully, a former patient of lobotomist Walter Freeman, whose had to live with the consequences of his parents’ poor decision making and Freeman’s misguided treatment.

“On Jan. 17, 1946, a psychiatrist named Walter Freeman launched a radical new era in the treatment of mental illness in this country. On that day, he performed the first-ever transorbital or “ice-pick” lobotomy in his Washington, D.C., office. Freeman believed that mental illness was related to overactive emotions, and that by cutting the brain he cut away these feelings.”

Link

South Korean researchers have developed an android that can speak, blink, express emotion and understand a limited number of phrases and words.

The android, named EveR-1, is only the second developed in the world. Her name is a blend of “Eve” and “robot.” The first-ever android, ACTROID, was developed in Japan.

EveR-1 can understand 400 words and make eye contact. When she talks, her lips are synchronized with the words to create the illusion of authentic speech. She can move her head, arms and hands, but her bottom half is stationary.

Fifteen motors embedded into her silicon face enable her to make a total of four expressions: joy, anger, sorrow and happiness. So what’s the difference between joy and happiness? I’m really not sure. If anyone has a video of EveR-1 in action, send it on over!

Link