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What does English sound like to foreign ears?

What does English sound like to foreign ears?
We’ve all heard examples of fake Chinese or German from speakers who lack familiarity with either language. While typically cringe-worthy, these examples do raise interesting questions regarding our own language. What does English sound like to non-English speakers? After more than 40 years, Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol” remains one of the most illuminating examples. Prepare to rock out and sorta kinda rap with an Italian comedian: I think I love it. “Just for the story, in France, when we don’t speak English and we want to imitate the sound, we call it “yaourter”(to yoghourt), the imitation sounds like a very nasal language, kind of like a baby crying. Along similar lines, onomatopoeia (words that imitate or suggest the words they describe) provide amusing insight into the differences between different languages. And here’s a BBC Radio 4 interview with Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide on animal noises in other languages:

Penn psychologists find 6- to 9-month-olds understand the meaning of many spoken words Public release date: 13-Feb-2012 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Katherine Unger Bailliekbaillie@upenn.edu 215-898-9194University of Pennsylvania PHILADELPHIA -- At an age when "ba-ba" and "da-da" may be their only utterances, infants nevertheless comprehend words for many common objects, according to a new study. In research focused on 6-to-9-month-old babies, University of Pennsylvania psychologists Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley demonstrated that the infants learned the meanings of words for foods and body parts through their daily experience with language. Bergelson is a doctoral student and Swingley an associate professor in Penn's Department of Psychology. These findings unseat a previously held consensus about infant learning. In fact, infants are often referred to as "pre-linguistic," according to Bergelson. To test this belief, Bergelson and Swingley recruited caregivers to bring their children to a lab to complete two different kinds of test.

Literary Visions Due to licensing agreements, online viewing of the videos for this resource is restricted to network connections in the United States and Canada. 1. First Sight: An Introduction to Literature This overview introduces the course content and approach. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 100 Workout Songs for Your iPod I went running today (just a little… mixed in with my morning walk) for the first time in a long time. It felt great. Here are the songs on my high impact cardio playlist… either for running, or elliptical or bike or walking anything else cardio. You may or may not have my taste in music. I like quite the variety. I’m an 80′s band- freak so there’s a little of that in there. Starting with my current favorite song… and then in no particular order after that, here are 100 workout songs for your iPod. If you’ve got a favorite workout song that did not make my list, please share!

When nerve meets muscle, biglycan seals the deal In the absence of the protein biglycan, synapses at neuromuscular junctions in mice began to break up about five weeks after birth, according to a new study led by Brown University researchers. Reintroducing byglycan helped fix the loss of synaptic stability in cell culture. The research may be relevant to efforts to treat motor neuron diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gherig's Disease) and spinal muscular atrophy. A protein that has shown early promise in preventing the loss of muscle function in mouse models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, has been found in a new study to be a key player in the process of joining nerves to muscles. The protein biglycan needs to be present to stabilize synapses at the neuromuscular junction after they have formed, according to research led by Brown University that appears in the Feb. 14, 2012, issue of the Journal of Neruoscience. Now Fallon's research group has found another important role for biglycan.

Left-handed? Different bodies, different minds We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, absorbing information, weighing it carefully, and making thoughtful decisions. But, as it turns out, we're kidding ourselves. Over the past few decades, scientists have shown there are many different internal and external factors influencing how we think, feel, communicate, and make decisions at any given moment. One particularly powerful influence may be our own bodies, according to new research reviewed in the December issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Cognitive scientist Daniel Casasanto, of The New School for Social Research, has shown that quirks of our bodies affect our thinking in predictable ways, across many different areas of life, from language to mental imagery to emotion. People come in all different shapes and sizes, and people with different kinds of bodies think differently -- an idea Casasanto has termed the 'body-specificity hypothesis.'

The biology of dreaming o one would normally consider David Maurice, Ph.D., professor of ocular physiology in the Department of Ophthalmology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, a revolutionary. Nevertheless, he has reignited a decades-long controversy that could spark a revolutionary re-evaluation of an entire field of behavioral research. Dr. What Maurice has done is to suggest an alternative explanation for the phenomenon known as REM sleep, the stage in which the eyes rapidly move and most dreams occur. "Without REM," Maurice told 21stC, "our corneas would starve and suffocate while we are asleep with our eyes closed." Maurice's interest in REM began a few years ago. Often an idea from one scientific realm has important consequences to another, and Maurice's hypothesis has ramifications for a cross-disciplinary controversy in the fields of cognitive neurobiology and dream research. "What is at stake here is a theory of dreams that is scientifically valid," Dr. Interpretation vs. observation Drs. 1.

FDA approves the treatment of brain tumors with electrical fields The NovoTTF treatment involves placing pads onto the patient's skin that creates a low intensity and alternating electric field within the tumor Image Gallery (8 images) The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) has approved a new treatment for patients as an alternative to chemotherapy. The promising new non-invasive treatment by Novocure uses "Tumor Treating Fields" (NovoTTF) to treat cancerous growths and is now available for adult patients with recurring brain tumors (recurrent glioblastoma or GBM). The treatment delivers electric fields to a patient utilizing a portable, wearable device that permits the patient to maintain normal daily activities without down time. View all "Our device provides patients and physicians with a novel, non-invasive alternative to chemotherapy that is safe and effective," said Eilon Kirson, M.D., Ph.D., Novocure's Chief Medical Officer. The portable device, which weighs about six pounds (three kg), is used continuously throughout the day by the patient.

Focus on Brain Disorders - Bipolar Disorder - Introduction Bipolar disorder is a type of mood disorder. Mood disorders are broadly divided into unipolar disorder and bipolar disorder. Read more about the difference between bipolar and unipolar disorder. Read more about mood disorders. Bipolar disorder (previously termed 'manic-depressive illness') is a relatively common and chronic psychiatric condition in which patients experience episodes of mania and depression, usually with intervening periods of relative mood stability. Often beginning in adolescence or early adulthood, bipolar disorder has a profound negative effect on interpersonal, social, family and vocational outcomes and is a risk factor for substance abuse and suicide (Cassidy et al, 2001; Jamison, 2000; Maj et al, 2002). While the exact cause of bipolar disorder has not been elucidated, there are likely to be multiple contributors to the patho-aetiology of the disorder.

Sum of bilingual baby's ability equal to others › News in Science (ABC Science) News in Science Monday, 20 February 2012 Kerry SheridanAFP Dual learning Babies who are raised in homes where more than one language is spoken may appear to talk later than those learning just one language, leaving parents puzzled and concerned as to the reasons why. Conventional wisdom often suggests that bilingual children are confused and so they take longer to talk. "Both of these views are wrong," says University of Florida Atlantic psychologist Erika Hoff who is presenting at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver. "It is not the case that hearing two languages confuses the child and impairs their ability to acquire anything. Instead, psychologists should take a different approach to testing young children, one that measures their proficiency in both languages instead of just one. Merits of self-reporting In the LDS, parents are given a 310-word checklist, and are asked to mark which words their child says. Highlights other disorders

New brain connections form in clusters during learning New connections between brain cells emerge in clusters in the brain as animals learn to perform a new task, according to a study published in Nature on February 19 (advance online publication). Led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the study reveals details of how brain circuits are rewired during the formation of new motor memories. The researchers studied mice as they learned new behaviors, such as reaching through a slot to get a seed. "For the first time we are able to observe the spatial distribution of new synapses related to the encoding of memory," said Yi Zuo, assistant professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology at UC Santa Cruz and corresponding author of the paper. In a previous study, Zuo and others documented the rapid growth of new dendritic spines on pyramidal neurons in the motor cortex during the learning process. In addition, the researchers found that after formation of the second spine in a cluster, the first spine grew larger.

Never too soon: Means to reduce violence may start in utero It's hard to think of a baby being violent or destructive, but the seeds of violence may be planted before a child is born, according to research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Attention to health factors as early as the prenatal stage could prevent violence in later life, reports Penn Nursing Assistant Professor Jianghong Liu, PhD, RN, in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. Recent research demonstrates a biological basis of crime, says Dr. Liu. "'Biological' does not mean only genetic factors," she explains, "but also health factors, such as nutritional deficiency and lead exposure, which influence biological processes." Dr. Evidence shows that the risk factors for delinquency and crime begin early in life and that the brain undergoes the most critical development in children in the first 36 months, highlighting the importance of early intervention. Among the early health risk factors Dr.

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