Live from Palestine: they're not all suicide bombers. Some are just trying to survive.
Simulated Evolution of Language: a Review of the Field: Amy Perfors looks at the evolution of language and how it's being studied through computer simulation.
What evolutionary forces propelled the development of language? Are the language abilities of humans the result of an innate, language-specific portion of the brain, or do they result from a more general application of our cognitive abilities? These questions are some of the oldest and the most difficult for linguists to answer. For a long time they were restricted to philosophers. It is only within the last century (especially the last few decades) that the sciences of evolutionary biology, computation, psychology, and cognitive science have begun to provide a direction and a focus in our search for answers. Verbal theorizing and mathematical modeling, both guided by rigorous empirical study, are now the backbone of linguistic thought in this realm.
The shuttle launch has been delayed due to a fuel leak. It's now no earlier than Sunday at an undisclosed time between 2pm and 6pm Eastern. It's been widely reported recently that the secret launch time is not so much of a secret as NASA might hope since it's shared with thousands of people involved in the space program and fairly easy to figure out with some math, a computer, and information on the orbits of the destination.
Uncloaking Terrorist Networks: on building a picture of the social network involving the 19 September 11th hijackers.
