Sometimes, a family company splits in two, each part getting its own specialisation.
That’s what happened to ‘owe’ and ‘ought’, once the present and past tense of one and the same verb. Its original meaning was “to possess”.
They’re also related to ‘own’.
Zoom in on my graphic to learn more:
I don't know who needs to hear this, but Iceland now has a female President, Prime Minister, Bishop, Rectors of all major universities, Head of Police, Director of Health, Speaker of Parliament, and Mayor of Reykjavík. You do not mess with Icelandic women.
www.inspiredbyiceland.com/society/gend...
Our new paper is now in BioRxiv ☺️
See how the auditory cortex encodes vocalizations before the bat produces them 📣🦇🧠
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
with @talking-bat.bsky.social and Dennis Röhrig!
Photograph of researchers at their benches in the custom-built molecular biology labs of the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen, with green trees of the forest outside visible through large windows in the background.
Come join us for a 4-year PhD on effects of rare gene disruptions involved in speech disorder, investigated in human neuronal models (via gene-editing, tissue culture, brain organoids, high-res microscopy, transcriptomics, epigenomics).
More info: www.mpi.nl/imprs-phd-fe...
#AcademicJobs #PhDJobs
🧬🧪
Unique opportunity to direct your own innovative long-term research programme on the psychology of language at @mpi-nl.bsky.social, a leading interdisciplinary Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Nominate yourself or a colleague by 19 December 2025. Please help us spread the word. 👇🧪
Recalling sequences from memory can explain the distribution of recursive structures in natural languages. New paper by Fenna H. Poletiek, Peter Hagoort & Bruno R. Bocanegra
doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106244
paper: tinyurl.com/mvy4jkb5
So native speakers of English are basically Icelandic at heart...#ð
If you're in Barcelona, check out this open MusicGens event happening tomorrow! A roundtable about the musical genome with @musiccognition.bsky.social and more inspiring speakers! 🎵 🎹
The Manhattanplot of every GWAS is evolving. the top cluster/horizontal band is proteins, the second protein ratio's the third all kinds of microbiome GWAS (which have smaller N and less power, hence the almost empty third horizondal band). I might make this into an interactive shiny website...
We know GLP-1 drugs reduce brain inflammation. But I didn't anticipate bipolar disorder as a possible indication in the future
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Fascinating experimental validation of the human-specific substitution we identified in the voice pitch study🤓🙌
Breaking News: In a win for Harvard University, a judge said that the government broke the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funds.
Interested in doing a PhD with me and lacns.github.io? Or with any of the incredible fellows in the IMPRS School of Cognition www.maxplanckschools.org/cognition-en - apply before Dec 1st at cognition.maxplanckschools.org/en/application
Nice piece by @mathiesoniain.bsky.social on polygenic prediction of human complex traits using ancient DNA (h/t @evobioclio.bsky.social ) 🧪🧬
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Important reading as you prepare for your semester
Different results than those found in preserved samples www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The full story on "stem-cell-based, tissue engineered trachea replacements" by @pmurray65.bsky.social and Peter Wilmshurst. Whistelblowers met with a wall of silence from the establishment drpeterwilmshurst.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/s...
Latest processing of UK Biobank brain imaging data - now with 82,000 usable first-scan datasets. Correlating brain IDPs with 13,000 non-imaging variables gives a rich manhattan-stye plot. 324,000 Bonferroni-significant associations.
👌
Developmental stuttering involves speech disfluencies (blocks, prolongations, repetitions). We sequenced all protein-coding genes of 85 parent-child trios in which the child stuttered, & found (likely) pathogenic DNA variants in 4 genes also implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders. New paper:👇🗣️🧬🧪
Delighted to see work led by Hayley Mountford @hayleymountford.bsky.social published today. rdcu.be/eA8G0 We used MTAG to increase gene discovery for dyslexia: 36 new regions; ~30 new genes from gene-based tests; several sig biological pathways @profsimonfisher.bsky.social @schoolofppls.bsky.social
This isn’t an impoverished regional school – this is the University of Chicago. Devastating.
Hello it is possible to have a background in both the humanities and STEM (👋) and I'd argue that being interdisciplinary leads to a more broad-ranging set of ideas. The STEM/Hums boundaries are imposed top-down and we need all of us to advance human knowledge.
Third: forum piece on the genetics of human communication, by @rosagisladottir.bsky.social
Some August highlights from Trends on music, communication, and genetics.
First up: the review on music reward sensitivity as a model for understanding reward processing, by Mas-Herrero, Zatorre & Marco-Pallarés.
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
This looks like a good read with lots of potential for Paper 2 discussion.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...
“GPT-5 is the first time that it feels like talking to an expert in any topic — a Ph.D.-level expert,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.
And for those who want to dig deeper into #genetics of speech and language, check out this great thread by @profsimonfisher.bsky.social 💥
Some context for this month's @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social cover article:
