Like a first impression, the emails we send allow the recipient to judge us solely based on our choice of tone, punctuation and writing ability. We may come across as educated or illiterate, happy or disgruntled – it’s all in the delivery. As a recent study suggests, oftentimes the message you are trying to convey is not what ends up in someone’s inbox.

Communicology, the study of communication, draws on CONTINUE READING »

Pluto may have been demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006, but that hasn’t stopped astronomers from studying this intriguing plutoid. NASA recently announced the discovery of a fourth moon, be it a “mini-moon,” circling the former planet. Dubbed “P4” for the time being, the hunt is on for an appropriate name.

The practice of naming planets after gods and goddesses can CONTINUE READING »

According to a Japanese proverb: “A crying child thrives.” A recent study that examines the complexity of an infant’s cries in relation to his or her language development seems to offer a scientific basis for this folk wisdom.

For babies whose cries exhibited complex melodies by the age of two months, the study, published in CONTINUE READING »

Long, long ago, typewriters made no distinction between the number 0 and the letter O. While the two share the same shape, the origin of both number and letter are quite different. Let’s look at the distinct astrological and optical inspirations that created these seemingly identical symbols.

Derived from the Semitic letter Ayin and inspired by the circular CONTINUE READING »

The Los Angeles Lakers‘ Ron Artest has spent the majority of his basketball career stirring up controversy with his own brand of joie de vivre. The eccentric,  at times rowdy, small forward and shooting guard now graces this column for a linguistic reason. Artest plans on officially changing his name to Metta World Peace. If, as our recent post conjectures, our given names play a part in predetermining our destinies – what does the future hold for Mr. World Peace (and what does Metta CONTINUE READING »

The final space shuttle mission has blasted off, launching the fascinating word mystery of “Atlantis” into our consciousness: How did the name of a mythical kingdom thousands of leagues under the sea become the moniker for a vehicle soaring  thousands of miles into space?

In two of Plato’s dialogues, Timaeus and Critias – both penned around CONTINUE READING »