Science News

As it turns out, talking to plants may be a good thing. A new study published in PLoS One shows that chili seeds can perceive nearby plants even if these are enclosed in boxes. As it was not possible that the enclosed vegetables could communicate through air or soil, researchers believe that plants may be able to hear sounds.

A new study published in Science by Carnegie Mellon University's Charles Kemp and the University of California at Berkeley's Terry Regier shows that kinship categories across languages reflect general principles of communication. The same principles can potentially be applied to other kinds of categories, such as colors and spatial relationships. Ultimately, then, the work may lead to a general theory of how different languages carve the world up into categories.

And... http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/340963/title/Family__labels_framed_similarly_across_cultures

Musicians execute their performances better when the non-verbal sensorimotor communication between conductor and musician is maximized, according to research published May 9 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

A prototype dolphin speaker projects the full range of all dolphin-made sounds.