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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
A while back, a philosopher friend of mine was fretting about the adjective “existential.” She was irked by people using it to refer to situations which threaten the existence of something, as when someone refers to climate change as an “existential crisis,” or more commonly, as “an existential threat.”
The open science movement has fundamentally changed how we do and evaluate research. In theory, almost everyone agrees that open research is a good thing. In reality, most researchers struggle to put theory into practice.
Since Bette Midler first entered a recording studio, she’s tackled just about every genre of music. This tour through her recorded output reveals not just the familiar best-selling hits but five decades of deep cuts and delightful discoveries.
First of all, many thanks to our two readers who sent me letters on sw-words and the linguistic environment of the adjective tiny.
While 76% of researchers say they have used some form of AI tool in their research, our survey uncovered unexpected generational differences and polarised opinions on the impact of AI.
At the beginning of another summer that will likely prove to be the hottest in the planet’s recorded history, it is easy to feel like we are living through a moment without precedent in human history. But it’s a mistake to assume that our histories have nothing to teach us about living under climate change.
Now that we know how untrivial the origin of small, little ~ leetle, and wee is (see the post for June 20, 2024), we are fully prepared to examine the puzzling history of tiny. Little pitchers have long ears, and inconspicuous words may have a nearly impenetrable etymology. It is hard to believe how much trouble the adjective tiny has given researchers.
We are celebrating the remarkable individuals who have shaped British history, from groundbreaking scientists to social reformers.
The study of the Middle Ages is expanding. With new locales and cross-cultural interconnections being explored, the study of the medieval world has never been more open. Set upon the backdrop of Martellus’ c.1490 world map, venture across the medieval world discovering Latvian Mead, trans-Mediterranean trade, and Ibn Battuta’s travels. Explore the Middle Ages like never before and sample medieval research from across our books, research encyclopedias, and open access journal articles.
Quite recently, the Polish linguist Kamil Stachowski has published a paper “On the Spread and Evolution of pudding” (the source is the journal Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 141, 2024, 117-137).
One of the quirkier features of the English syntax has to do with the simple word all. All is a quantity word, or quantifier in the terminology of grammarians and logicians. It indicates an entirety of something.
Imagine what your life would be like if you did not know where you are or who you are with, and a young man told you, “We’re home and I’m your son.” Those who do not need to imagine are the 55 million people living with Alzheimer’s and the 10 million living with Parkinson’s, respectively, as they experience similar challenges every day.
Brain-imaging technique reveals chatting between TV episodes increases mind match up, even when the topic isn’t TV-related.
Amidst the tapestry of history, there exist threads often overlooked, woven by the hands of remarkable women who defied the constraints of their time. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, amidst the burgeoning intellectual and cultural movements of Europe, the fascinating phenomenon of female mediumship emerged as one such thread in the history of Western psychology.
Before I come to the point, a short remark is due. Some of our readers may have noticed that two weeks ago, they did not receive Wednesday’s post. This happened because of a technical problem, but the post “Some Gleanings and the Shortest History of Bummers,” is available.
Over the years since writing about tapevoice I have lost most of my hearing and rely on various interfaces—captions, American Sign Language, lip-reading, conversation slips, and body language—that distribute the voice through multiple modalities. What I call “distributed voice” refers to the multiple forms through which the voice is produced and reproduced. But the idea of a voice dissevered from its source in the body and distributed through other media touches on larger communicational ethics in an era of digital information, social media, “fake news,” and broadband connections.