One mystery you want the answer to most

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Dyatlov's a pretty strange event, for sure.

I'd like explanations for UFO encounters - did aliens really visit the planet?

One of the first things Bill Clinton wanted the truth about when he first became president was Aliens.

[ilikeverin]

why the hell can't we communicate with the other higher mammals any better than we can?

Because they don't have language that we know of.  Other primates (chimps, bonobos, orangutans...) aren't even vocal learners - all of their noises come pretty much baked in.  We have an easier time trying to talk to elephants, cetaceans, bats, and (some) birds.  Even then, it's not clear that they combine "words" (or some similar equivalent) together to form sentences like we do.

yeah yeah, still, seems overcomeable (is that a word?).  It should probably be one of the bigger human goals.  Space travel number 1, we got to get off this rock at some point in the next 2 billion years, it could be next Tuesday.  We should be focused on that.  Medical advances should be number 2, keep us healthy so we can enjoy life better.  Talking to dogs should be number 3.  Way ahead of faster modes of getting large numbers of us around the Earth quicker or erections that last longer.

If you would like to increase funding for my research and the research of language scientists, please contact your elected officials

[dead0man]

you do science on dog talking?

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

The final fate and location of Jimmy Hoffa.

[OSR STANDS WITH PALESTINE]

Did we really go to the moon.
Is Hillary Clinton a Reptilian
Why did Jackie Kennedy shoot JFK

[Transgender for Everybody]

Hey, if we're listing multiple mysteries, I've got a couple more.

What if Seinfeld still on TV? And more importantly, what if Quantum Leap still on TV?

[ilikeverin]

you do science on dog talking?

Well, the research I do is looking at how humans understand and process language.  If you're interested in how other animals communicate, having a good sense of how humans do it is really important; otherwise we can't really judge whether other animals are doing parts of what we call "language".  I've tried to collaborate with a bird lab to investigate some of the questions I'm interested in, but that fell through, unfortunately.  I've also taught two semesters worth of a class that I created that centered on parallels between human language and animal communication.

As far as dogs go, a few (not many) language scientists are looking at dogs.  Dogs aren't vocal learners and don't seem to have very complex "words", so people have looked more at what dogs are able to understand from humans.  Chester is a very good boy who knows hundreds of words!  Of course, language is about more than knowing words, but that's an interesting start.  There's a PhD student in one of my labs at UMD who is looking at whether dogs can pick up on their own name in a noisy context... it sounds kind of boring, but the technology she's using is stuff we use for human research all the time.  She can later ask more complicated questions, like what the minimal differences between sounds that dogs can pick up on; say, could a dog understand the difference between the names "Jack" and "Jake"?

[dead0man]

Ahh, yes, I love that stuff.  Chester is why I got a Border Collie.  


Whose a good boy?  Sagan's a good boy, yes he is.


I'm just fascinated by intelligence of the other higher mammals and frustrated that we can do so many awesome things with science, but we haven't figured out how to communicate any better with gorillas (dolphins, whales, pigs, dogs, monkeys, goats, whatever.....but not cats! ).



Keep up the good work!

[muon2]

We currently understand leptons and quarks as the most fundamental particles in the universe from which all matter is made. In the past we thought that about atoms, and then about protons, neutrons, and electrons. The last 50 years have uncovered no signs of anything smaller. The mystery I'd like answered is have we reached the most fundamental level of particle or does it continue on to smaller levels? And along that line, if there is yet a smaller more fundamental level than quarks and leptons, does this decomposition continue indefinitely or is there a end point?

[Tartarus Sauce]

A more thorough explanation of the sequence of a events that facilitated the Bronze Age collapse would be nice.

[RINO Tom]

The prospect of a forgotten civilization has always fascinated me, specifically predating our accepted "beginning of civilization."  Discoveries like Gobekli Tepe are always forcefully integrated into our current theories, partly (IMO) so academics can "save face," so to speak.  I think there's a decent amount of evidence that civilization has a longer history than we were taught.

[dead0man]

That's probably true.  I'd be shocked if there wasn't some serious and important (at the time at least) civilizations we know next to nothing about.  I think most of the push back comes when people try to claim there were advanced civilizations with flying machines and such.

[HillGoose]

where is Andy Kaufman?