Archive for August 21st, 2007
The Influence of Pronouns in Brain Function
A neat little study from the University of South Carolina touches on both linguistic anthropology and neuroscience, 
specifically the importance of pronouns in keeping the brain from becoming overloaded.
From Science Daily,
“The brain responds to proper names by creating a representation of the person in the mind, drawing from various parts of the brain to construct complex visual, sound and other information associated with that person. Every time the name is repeated, the brain responds by activating a process that creates a new representation of the person.
The brain initially holds each created representation in memory. The integration of these multiple representations requires effort that can disrupt the brain’s ongoing processing of what it hears during spoken conversation.
Pronouns, while faulty for their potential ambiguity, don’t cause the same disruptions in the brain that proper names do when used in the right context. In fact, they allow the brain to move easily from one thought or sentence to another. This seamless transition allows a person to digest more fully the meaning or intent of the thought being conveyed without the neural circuitry interference that proper names cause, said Almor.”
The paper published, in NeuroReport, is “What is in a name? Spatial brain circuits are used to track discourse references.”
A Three Million Year Old Hominid Footprint Found in Siwa, Egypt
Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, is announcing the discovery of a very old hominid footprint found in the Western Desert of Egypt, near Siwa.
BBC News broke this news to me, but Yahoo News is also covering it.
“This could go back about two million years,” antiquities council chief Zahi Hawass was quoted by Reuters as saying. However Khaled Saad, director of pre-history at the council, said it could be older still…
Scientists are now conducting carbon dating tests on plants in the mud where the footprint is in order to pinpoint its precise age.
Unfortunately, I can’t confirm if the photos of a footprint circulating around on some blogs are the actual footprints discovered. Rather than misinform y’all, I’ll have to sit tight until official photographs of them come from Hawass.
And also, unlike Hawass, I’m not jumping up for joy saying this, “could be the most important discovery in Egypt.” The significance of these footprints, if they really are older than two million years ago, is pretty outstanding. These footprints, along with the ones found at Laetoli, could be further evidence of early hominids walked upright before large brains had evolved…
But, I can’t help but wonder if the carbon dating will even work? The current maximum radiocarbon age limit lies in the range between 58,000 and 62,000 years (approximately 10 half-lives). This limit is encountered when the radioactivity of the residual 14C in a sample is too low to be distinguished from the background radiation. Maybe another dating technique would be more useful?
