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Joshua Greene, Harvard psychologist, posits that we have two competing moral circuits in our brains: a utilitarian, rational, cost-benefits circuit and an emotional circuit. Both circuits battle for dominance in the brain's ventromedial prefrontal cortex. When dilemmas produce vivid images in our heads, we tend to respond emotionally, due to our natural wiring. Take away the pictures - the brain goes into rational, calculation mode. In another experiment, Greene and a colleague, Amit, also found that people who think visually make more emotional moral judgments, whereas verbal people make more rational calculations.

This article talks about the combined efforts of a team of academics in reconstructing the voice of an Ancient Egyptian priest. It's really interesting to see how linguists work to help figure out which tonal sounds Ancient Egyptian made, and how that would effect the voice of the Priest. It also brought me a question on the ethics of trying to bring someone "back to life" via their voice.

Fascinating look at the subcultural language of hospitals! The article provides several examples of "argot," the formal name for slang or jargon. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "argot" as "an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group" [1]. According to its stated definition, argot permits those in the know to 1. share complex pieces of information without bystanders understanding what they are saying. 2. create or reinforce a bond between users. 3. give some emotional distance between the speaker and the event and its impact on patients and family members. 4. permits those in the know to express regret or even revulsion at having to deal with unpleasant situations. "Code brown," which refers to a conspicuous episode of fecal incontinence, is an example frequently used in the hospital setting.

As AI advances, so does its language. A chat bot by Google uses language to speak with others in conversation. However, it runs into some problematic issues, especially regarding its ethics. For instance, it will associate doctors as men and nurses as women. Research is being put in place to make it a safer program.