Who Invented the Alphabet?

New scholarship points to a paradox of historic scope: Our writing system was devised by people who couldn’t read.

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How the Rhymes of Dr. Seuss Helped Teach Us Language

Kaptain Kristian’s latest explainer video is a fun one: he explains how the anapestic tetrameter rhyming style of Dr. Seuss helped us better understand language as kids, all while rhyming in the video himself. It’s stupid catchy (obviously, because it’s done in the style of Dr. Seuss) and so easy to listen to, which is the point because that catchiness and fun is basically a trick Dr. Seuss books used to make us all want to read on our own.

New Brain Map Shows Where Words Are Stored Inside Your Head

Researchers have created a new map of the human brain which shows where we organize words depending on their meaning—and it could help us read minds more accurately than ever.

7 Places You Can Learn to Speak Another Language for Free

Learning a new language is no easy task. Thankfully, there are an endless number of resources and technologies to help you quickly and effectively learn a different language. And while that’s really awesome, it also presents a new challenge. Which platform works best for you?

An Online Dictionary Plans to Catalog a Million Emerging English Words

With viral memes and hashtags sweeping the internet on the daily, language is evolving faster than conventional dictionaries can keep up. You may have been “procrastatweeting” about the “popepocalypse” last week, but the stalwart publishers of the Oxford English won’t give your neologisms official recognition for years to come, if ever. Heck, they didn’t even put hoverboard down until 2015!

Sperm Whale Clans Speak Different Dialects

We humans pride ourselves on our cultural diversity, but we’re not the only creatures that form unique societies. Turns out, two clans of sperm whales living near the Galápagos Islands speak different dialects — offering yet more evidence that animals have culture, too.

Super clever animation is filled with idioms brought to life

This short animation by Amanda Koh and Mollie Helms is fun to watch because it bring idioms and other common sayings to life. Featuring the elephant in the room and the skeleton in the closet, sayings like a clean slate and shooting fish in a barrel and others are shown off literally (and sillily).

Lupe Fiasco – AUTOBOTO

Benny The Butcher – Bust A Brick Nick

Tory Lanez – Mucky James

Lupe Fiasco – 100 Chicagos

Sauce Walka – “Mirror Effect”

21 Savage – “No Debate” / “Big Smoke”

Flamingo at the Cincinnati Zoo

Mt. Gang Rinpoche (Tibet)

Smithsonian.com

Morning Hour

The first one

POLAR BEAR ON ICEBERG

Ibis Fight