Do you enjoy reading books? Reading is one of the unique activities that only humans do, and we have not been doing it for that long! People have been practicing spoken communication using a language system with grammatical rules for at least 100,000 years. We have been building tools for even longer, with the first stone tools dating back about 2.5 million years [1]. But we have been reading a...

it is generally recognised that ‘zero’ as we understand the concept today originated in two geographically separated cultures: the maya and indian. however, if zero merely signified a magnitude or a direction separator (i.e. separating those above the zero level from those below the zero level), the egyptian zero, nfr, dating back at least four thousand years, amply served these purposes. if ze...

The origin of contemporary Europeans remains contentious. We obtained a genome sequence from Kostenki 14 in European Russia dating from 38,700 to 36,200 years ago, one of the oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans from Europe. We find that Kostenki 14 shares a close ancestry with the 24,000-year-old Mal'ta boy from central Siberia, European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, some contemporary w...

Evidence of human birth defects dating back over three thousand years is reported in archeological literature. Excavated ruins of ancient Babylon revealed detailed reports of infant defects.1 Achondroplastic dwarfs (failure to develop healthy cartilage at the ends of the long bones, resulting in a form of congenital dwarfism) have been unearthed in ancient Egyptian tombs. Pictures drawn on anci...

long one, dating back to ancient Egypt. Five thousand years of recorded history reveal the chronicles of those who labored to care for victims of this catastrophic injury. In this chapter, advances in the care of spinal cord injury are related in chronological order, from ancient times to the present. In addition, special attention is paid to subjects such as surgery, rehabilitation, education,...

The available historical records of supernovae occurring in our own Galaxy over the past two thousand years are reviewed. These accounts include the well-recorded supernovae of AD 1604 (Kepler’s SN), 1572 (Tycho’s SN), 1181, 1054 (which produced the Crab Nebula) and 1006, together with less certain events dating back to AD 185. In the case of the supernovae of AD 1604 and 1572 it is European re...

Pacifiers, also known as soothers, dummies and artificial teats are as rooted in history as they are in controversy. Pacifiers made of clay, silver, pearl or coral, and sugar teats have been described, some dating back to over thousands of years [1][2]. Pacifier use is still widespread in today’s culture, and a recent Canadian trial reports up to 84% of infants use one at least some of the time...

10.1 The forbidden experiment Language and culture separate humans from all other species. No human group lacks either, which must mean that both are deeply seated in human nature. What are the essential ingredients of these two most human of attributes? Our central task as linguists is to try to answer this question for language. One strategy for tackling this problem is to trace all existing ...