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"A lot of research has shown that bilinguals are pretty good at accommodating speech variation across languages, but there's been a debate as to how,"

lead author Kalim Gonzales, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Arizona

two views: One is that bilinguals have different processing modes for their two languages—they have a mode for processing speech in one language and then a mode for processing speech in the other language

Another view is that bilinguals just adjust to speech variation by recalibrating to the unique acoustic properties of each language."

Gonzales's research supports the first view—that bilinguals who learn two languages early in life learn two separate processing modes, or "sound systems

The study looked at 32 Spanish-English early bilinguals, who had learned their second language before age 8.

Participants were presented with a series of pseudo-words beginning with a 'pa' or a 'ba' sound and asked to identify which of the two sounds they heard

'pa' and 'ba' sounds exist in both English and Spanish, how those sounds are produced and perceived in the two languages varies subtly

'ba,' for example, English speakers typically begin to vibrate their vocal chords the moment they open their lips

Spanish speakers begin vocal chord vibration slightly before they open their lips and produce 'pa' in a manner similar to English 'ba.'

English-only speakers might, in some cases, confuse the 'ba' and 'pa' sounds they hear in Spanish

most people think about differences between languages

different words and they have different grammars

at their base languages use different sounds

One of the reasons it sounds different when you hear someone speaking a different language is because the actual sounds they use are different

someone might sound like they have an accent if they learn Spanish first is because their 'pa' is like an English 'ba,' so when they say a word with 'pa,' it will sound like a 'ba' to an English monolingual

For the study, the bilingual participants were divided into two groups. One group was told they would be hearing rare words in Spanish, while the other was told they would be hearing rare words in English

Both groups heard audio recordings of variations of the same two words—bafri and pafri—which are not real words in either language

Each group heard the same series of words, but for the group told they were hearing Spanish, the ends of the words were pronounced slightly differently, with the 'r' getting a Spanish pronunciation

Participants perceived 'ba' and 'pa' sounds differently depending on whether they were told they were hearing Spanish words, with the Spanish pronunciation of 'r,' or whether they were told they were hearing English words, with the English pronunciation of 'r.'

when you put people in English mode, they actually would act like English speakers, and then if you put them in Spanish mode, they would switch to acting like Spanish speakers

hearing the exact same 'ba's and 'pa's would label them differently depending on the context

When the study was repeated with 32 English monolinguals, participants did not show the same shift in perception; they labeled 'ba' and 'pa' sounds the same way regardless of which language they were told they were hearing

that lack of an effect

provided the strongest evidence for two sound systems in bilinguals

true primarily for those who learn two languages very young

If you learn a second language later in life, you usually have a dominant language and then you try to use that sounds system for the other language, which is why you end up having an accent

Only half of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today are expected to survive past the end of this century

Technology can strengthen these efforts, by helping people create high-quality recordings of their elders (often the last speakers of a language),

Google's philanthropic arm seeded the project, leadership of which will be ceded in coming months to the First People's Cultural Council and the Institute for Language Information and Technology at Eastern Michigan University.

Endangered Languages Catalog (ELCat), sponsored by the University of Hawaii, will also be contributing to the project.

these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school

a graduate student, recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures

moms in our study significantly more frequently used forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book

especially interested in looking at the language mothers use when reading both wordless picture storybooks and picture vocabulary books

to see if parents provided extra information to children like relating the events of the story to the child's own experiences or asking their child to make predictions.

The results of the study are significant for both parents and educators because vocabulary books are often marketed as being more educationa

even short wordless picture books provide children with exposure to the kinds of

language that they will encounter at school

lay the foundation for later reading developmen

At first, all DeeChee could comprehend was an unsegmented stream of sounds

had been programmed to break up that stream into individual syllables and to store them in its memory

words were ranked according to how often they came up in conversation

words like "red" and "green" were prized.

designed to recognize words of encouragement, like "good" and "well done,"

That feedback helped transform the robot's babble into coherent words, sometimes in as little as two minutes.

repetition of sounds helps infants learn a language, then it's not surprising that our first words are often mainstays like "mama" and "dada."

words that form the connective tissue of our language - words like "at," "with" and "of" - are spoken in hundreds of different ways, making them difficult for newbies to recognize

more concrete words like "house" or "blue" tend to be spoken in the same way nearly every time

study relied on the human volunteers speaking naturally

DeeChee was programmed to smile when it was ready to pay attention to its teacher and to stop smiling and blink when it needed a break

designed to have a gender-neutral appearance, humans tended to treat it as a boy

It may be the case that what these kids need is just much more practice than the rest of us

starts with a game involving a number line

“What is the number that is right in the middle between 200 and 800? Do you know it?

A classic sign of dyscalculia is difficulty in grasping the place-value system,

A soft computer voice tells Christopher to “find the number and click it

The game involves zooming in and zooming out to rescale the number line

talks through each move — a strategy that Babtie encourages

but it takes him more than a minute to locate 210. His classmates, meanwhile, are learning to multiply two-digit numbers.

Butterworth

made his name probing obscure speech and language disorders

tested 31 eight- and nine-year-old children who were near the bottom of their class in mathematics but did well enough in other subjects.

Compared with normal children and those with dyslexia, the dyscalculic children struggled on almost every numerical task, yet were average on tests of reading comprehension, memory and IQ.

launched to the International Space Station almost a year ago

A second ancient number system allows humans and many other animals to instantly and precisely recognize small quantities, up to four.

People who are poor at distinguishing approximate quantities do badly in maths, suggesting that the approximate-number system is crucial.

some work shows that dyscalculics are poor at recognizing small numbers, suggesting that this ability is also fundamental to numeracy

scans of people with dyscalculia suggest that their intraparietal sulci are less active when processing numbers and less connected with the rest of the brain compared with numerate children and adults.

views such results as consequences, not causes, of the poor numerical abilities that characterize dyscalculia.

Approximation and a sense of small numbers, while critical, are not enough for humans to precisely grasp large numbers,

calls this 'numerosity coding': the understanding that things have a precise quantity associated with them, and that adding or taking things away alters that quantity.

argues that another cognitive capacity is even more fundamental to number sense

Language, he argues, empowers humans to integrate the two number systems — giving them the ability to intuitively distinguish, say, 11,437 from 11,436.

young children who could not yet count past two nonetheless understood that adding pennies to a bowl containing six somehow altered its number, even if the children couldn't say exactly how.

If numerosity coding is fundamental, it predicts that dyscalculics

struggle to enumerate and manipulate all numbers, large and small.

hopes that, by honing this ability, the Number Sense games will help support his research ideas

Eyetalk

is designed to be portable, affordable, and operate without requiring an Internet connection

Future versions of Eyetalk will target a global market and enable users to hear information aloud in one of many languages.

early prototype, known as the FreedomLens, was one of 16 semi-finalists chosen from 29 nations to present at the 2013 Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC), February 25-30 at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business in Seattle

The project began with a challenge issued by

faculty member Seema Pissaris, a successful entrepreneur who founded Games Trader

Last fall, Pissaris urged students in several of her classes to think about developing a social entrepreneurship project

also has additional color calibration tools for the rover’s Mastcam

; in addition to the words “Mars 2012″ and “To Mars, To Explore” around its top bezel,

along its edge

Along with line drawings and the word for “Mars” in sixteen languages, Curiosity’s sundial bears the following inscription

“For millennia, Mars has stimulated our imaginations. First, we saw Mars as a wandering star, a bringer of war from the abode of the gods. In recent centuries, the planet’s changing appearance in telescopes caused us to think that Mars had a climate like the Earth’s. Our first space age views revealed only a cratered, Moon-like world, but later missions showed that Mars once had abundant liquid water. Through it all, we have wondered: Has there been life on Mars? To those taking the next steps to find out, we wish a safe journey and the joy of discovery.”

AMD, the photoreceptors do not function, which prevents the brain from receiving these signals from the eyes

bio-retina implant is essentially a combined imaging circuit and neural interface which is glued rather than sutured to a patient’s macula

area of the retina responsible for high-resolution central vision

Measuring 3 x 4 mm and 1 mm thick, the implant is designed to capture light through the normal optical track of the eyeball and stimulate neurons to transmit information to the brain, essentially restoring the function of the damaged photoreceptors

Light incident on the implant is collected by an array of CMOS pixels

first-generation bio-retina will use an array of 600 pixels, although the aim is to increase this to 5000 pixels in future generations

Nano Retina has dedicated a substantial amount of time developing a proprietary algorithm that translates the received visual information and image into the neuron language

translating circuitry that discriminates 100 gray-scale levels and responds to varying light levels. It is a sophisticated process

implant uses an array of micro-electrodes that first penetrate into the retina, then connect closely to the neurons and thereafter transmit the information. The goal is that every pixel will connect to a neuron, so that every pixel in the array would use a micro-electrode

neurons must be stimulated electrically

the bio-retina implant also requires a source of electrical power

Patients who undergo surgery to implant a bio-retina will need to wear a special set of glasses

glasses feature a built-in battery and an infrared diode laser. “The infrared laser light is transmitted into the eye and captured by a miniature photovoltaic cell on the bio-retina

harvests the energy, which in turn powers the electronic circuitry. Our goal is for the imager and the electronics to consume no more than 1mW

The cause of the pre-hibernation malfunction may perhaps be traced back to a buildup of abrasive lunar dust, but no one knows at this time.

who are also deaf, signed up for the project just as the national Science Foundation funded the research

The team tested their system during a field trip visit to the Jean Messieu School for the deaf

Research from one of the tests revealed that the signer should be displayed in the center of the lens

deaf participants could look straight through the signer as they focused on a planetarium show.

This was particularly surprising for researchers as they believed that deaf students would prefer to have a video displayed at the top, as Google Glass normally presents itself

Researchers hope that with further studies, this tool can also be used for literary guidance

One idea is when you're reading a book and come across a word that you don't understand, you point at it, push a button to take a picture

Professor Mike Jones

Jones

Jones will publish the full results of their research in June at Interaction Design and Children