

Read Purely For Fun and Grow Your Language Skills
You may not be surprised to find out that reading novels has been found to increase your language skills. However, when you think of those novels, do you picture only high literature having those effects? Think again. In a new study published by Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor of education in the Faculty of Arts and Science at Concordia University, and PhD student Stephanie Kozak, that beneficial boost was found in anyone who read for fun, even in little-respected pulpy genr


Altruism During the Pandemic Linked to Common Root
Quick, how likely would you be to: Follow the World Health Organization guidelines on social distancing and hygiene? Donate your own masks to a hospital in need? Drive someone showing clear symptoms of COVID-19 to the hospital? Go to a grocery store to buy food for your neighbors? Call an ambulance for a sick person and wait with them for it to arrive? This was part of an online survey given to 2500 people across 80 countries for a study by the University of Washington. This


Study Finds Neanderthals Had Capacity for Speech
Neanderthals, the closest species to humans, have only been extinct for something like 40,000 years. Which is to say, they shared the planet with humans for thousands of years. Unfortunately, the overlap occurred well before the invention of written language, and much of what we believe about these mysterious people comes down to guessing. What was their culture like? Why did they die out? And perhaps of the most interest to us, what were their interactions like with early hu