Recent Additions: New and Updated Entries in the Past 60 Days
Displaying entries 46 through 53 of 53 found.

Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

, . Girard-Buttoz, Cedric, et al. Versatile use of chimpanzee call combinations promotes meaning expansion. Science Advances. 11/19, 2025.. Science Advances. 11/19, 2025. Leibniz Primate Research and MPI Human Cognitive Sciences paleopsychologists including Angela Friederici can now parse these proto-language occurrences of content filled utterances which are then seen to portend our recursive,loquacious linguistics.

Language is a combinatorial communication system able to generate an infinite number of meanings. Nonhuman animals use similar modes to expand content, which suggests an evolutionary precursor to our human capabilities. We tested whether wild chimpanzees used these procedures and found four combinatorial cases whereby bigram meanings were or were not derived from their parts. Such a system in nonhuman animals has never been documented and may be transitional between rudimentary systems and open-ended systems like our own. (Abstract)

Gontier, Nathalie, et al. Introduction to Evolving (Proto)Language/s. Lingua. 305/103740, 2024. In this premier journal, University of Lisbon, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland, Dalarne University, Sweden and Rutgers University, USA system linguists describe wider and deeper sources now being found of informative creaturely conveyance, broadly conceived, based on interdisciplinary studies. A typical entry is Emergence and evolution of language in multi-agent systems by Dorota Lipowska and Adam Lipowski.

Long considered uniquely human, today scholars argue for evolutionary continuity between human language and animal communication systems. While it is recognized that language is an evolving communication system, it is not well known from which species language evolved, and what behavioral and cognitive features are precursors. This special issue on Evolving (Proto)Language/s bundles several current protolanguage theories to provide overviews from (paleo)anthropology, genetics, physiology, developmental, evolutionary, ecological, and pragmatic research lines. (Excerpt)

Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Twindividuality

Muller, Paul, et al. Critical dynamics predicts cognitive performance and provides a common framework for heterogeneous mechanisms impacting cognition.. PNAS. 122/14, 2025. Our work suggests critical dynamics to be the setpoint to measure optimal network function, thereby providing a unifying framework for heterogeneous mechanisms impacting cognition.In this paper, Charité—Universitätsmedizin, Berlin computational neurologists led by Christian Meisel provide a strong verification to date of a cerebral self-organized criticality which achieves an optimum performance and go on to show how its interruptions can result in neural maladies such as epilepsy.

Cognitive function emerges from cortical network dynamics and is often impaired in disorders like epilepsy. Physics and information theory suggest that brain networks operate optimally at a critical state between order and disorder. Using cognitive testing and intracranial EEG from persons with epilepsy (PwE), we find that proximity to critical dynamics predicts cognitive performance across multiple domains. We show that factors such as interictal epileptiform activity, antiseizure medications (ASMs), and sleep-like episodes perturb the critical state. Together, these findings support the concept of criticality as a prime way to understand cognition in neurological conditions. (Excerpt)

Liang, Xinyu, et al. Functional divergence between the two cerebral hemispheres contributes to human fluid intelligence. Communications Biology. May 17, 2025. Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Institute for Brain-inspired Intelligence, Fudan University and University of York (Elizabeth Jefferies) neuroscientists describe their latest sophisticated imaging studies which further affirm the significance of our double duty cerebral faculty and archetypical hemispheric complements.

Hemispheric lateralization is considered a driving force behind the generation of human intelligence. In this study, we utilize the functional aligned multidimensional representation space derived from functional gradients to compute between-hemisphere distances within this space. We found that both global divergence between the cerebral hemispheres and regional divergence within the multiple demand network. Together, these findings deepen our understanding of bicamerality as a fundamental organizational principle of the human brain. (Excerpt)

Our results reveal an increasing functional lateralization which transitions from unimodal functions (visual, auditory, sensorimotor) to higher-level cognition (social cognition, decision-making). This aligns with established theories linking the left side to language processes and long-term memory and the right to the facial images and visual attention. (7)

Gontier, Nathalie, et al. Gontier, Nathalie, et al. Combinatoriality and Compositionality in Communication, Skills, Tool Use, and Language. International Journal of Primatology.. 45/473, 2024. University of Lisbon, Heinrich Heine University, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland and University Institute of Psychological, Social and Life Sciences, Lisbon scholars continue to reconstruct life’s long experience to better survive and benefit by way of salient gestures, lyric prosody, fluent articulations and natural narrative. We propose our Earthuman version as Her/History which serves to welcome fiterate ourselves. Altogether, one could suppose that a natural ecosmic genesis is trying to express its own voice, vision and self-recognition.

Combinatorial behavior involves joining elements into larger aggregates with meaning. It is contrasted with compositionality, which involves larger constituents whose content is derived from its component parts. Combinatoriality is found in primates and animals, whereas compositionality is considered uniquely human. In regard,, this special Combinatoriality and Compositionality in Apes, Hominins, Humans, and Birds issue unites papers that study these aspects in primate and bird communication systems, tool use, skills, and human language. (Abstract)

Bouchard, Jean-Philippe. The Self-Organized Criticality Paradigm in Economics & Finance. arXiv:2407.10284. We came to this entry from Markus Aschwanden’s Power Laws Associated with Self-Organized Criticality paper (2505.00748) wherein his astronomic SOC findings can be seen to extend in kind from coronae to metabolisms to informatics. Herein a senior European theorist describes how this optimum natural phenomenon appears equally evident in hyperactive monetary commerce. See also Critical fragility socio-technical systems by Jose Moran, et al at arXiv:2307.03546 for another J-P B paper.

Self-Organized Criticality (SOC) is the mechanism by which complex systems spontaneously settle close to a critical edge between stability and chaos. In this short review, we discuss how SOC could offer a plausible solution to the excess volatility puzzle in financial markets. We argue that in general the quest for efficiency and the necessity of *resilience* may be mutually incompatible and thus require specific policy considerations.

Jean-Philippe Bouchaud is a French physicist, co-founder chairman of Capital Fund Management, adjunct professor at École Normale Supérieure and held the Bettencourt Innovation Chair at Collège de France in 2020.

Earth Earns: An Open CoCreative Earthropocene to Astropocene PediaVerse

Wunderling, Nico. et al. Wunderling, Nico, et al. Climate tipping point interactions and cascades. Earth System Dynamics. 15/1, 2024. Thirty-two Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and European environmentalists including Jonathan Donges provide an extensive study of what might happen if major local weather zones tipped over to a new phase and in some cascade fashion proceeded to impact each other. See also Tipping in an adaptive climate network model by Tom Bdolach, et al at arXiv:2505.04533 for a latest update.

Climate tipping elements are large-scale subsystems of the Earth that may transgress critical thresholds (tipping points) under global warming pressures, with substantial impacts on the biosphere and human societies. Frequently studied examples include the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), permafrost, monsoon systems, and the Amazon rainforest. Here, we survey the literature on climate tipping forces and find that many of them are destabilizing. We conclude that tipping points should be studied both in isolation, but also with regard cross-interactions. (Excerpt)

Moallemi, Enayat, et al. Entry points for driving systemic change toward a more sustainable future.. One Earth. May 20, 2025. In this new Cell journal, we cite this entry by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia, Deakin University, Melbourne, Monash University and Cornell University environmental scholars as a good example of a comprehensive, sensible, reciprocal, two do list on the vital way to an Earthropocene Gaiability.

Achieving inclusive human development within planetary boundaries is an urgent and complex challenge. Here, we present nine integrated, theoretically informed and empirically grounded methods through which systemic change can be understood, initiated, and sustained. The entry points we found focus on momentum building, pathways to desirable futures, and the practical change across sectors and scales. This program can support more coherent policy design and inform decision-makers to shape sustainability agendas.

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