Understanding language evolution in terms of cultural transmission across generations of language users raises the possibility that some of the processes that have shaped language evolution can also be observed in historical language change. In this paper, we explore how constraints on production may affect the cultural evolution of language by analyzing the emergence of the Romance languages f...

The function of the frontal lobes and the related frontal lobe syndrome have not been described in detail until relatively late in history. Slowly, the combination of knowledge from animal models, the detailed examination of symptoms after traumatic frontal lobe injuries, and the rise and fall of psychosurgery has led to increasing insight into frontal lobe function. The frontosubcortical circu...

The world is changing, and so must the data that describes its history. Not surprisingly, considerable research effort has been spent in Databases along this direction, covering topics such as temporal models and schema evolution. A topic that has not received much attention, however, is that of concept evolution. For example, Germany (instance-level concept) has evolved several times in the la...

The origin of human ultrasociality—the ability to cooperate in huge groups of genetically unrelated individuals—has long interested evolutionary and social theorists, but there has been little systematic empirical research on the topic. The Historical Database of Sociocultural Evolution, which we introduce in this article, brings the available historical and archaeological data together in a wa...

The history of treatment for cryptorchidism dates back more than 200 years. This review is intended to highlight some historical aspect that led us to our current surgical treatment of this condition. The medical and historical surgical literatures pertaining to cryptorchidism were reviewed. Data sources were PubMed, Embase, conference proceedings, and bibliographies. No language, date, or publ...

Recent analyses indicated that genes with larger effect of knockout or mutation and with larger probability to revert to single copy after whole genome duplication are expressed earlier in development. Here, we further investigate whether tissue specificity of gene expression is constrained by the age of origin of the corresponding genes. We use 38 metazoan genomes and a comparative genomic app...