By flame, drum and song - How did people communicate over distance in the ancient world? We answer this question by examining signal fires, talking drums, and languages composed entirely of whistling.

Ancient mail, and the oldest known library - Once again, the title says it all. We look at mail in the ancient world, and take a look at the oldest known library. Heres an article about the Persian p

Numbers and letters - We pick it up from last time and finish the story of our alphabet, along with a look at where our numbers came from. - Check out our latest attempt at Phils show. - Part 2 of ta

How we learned to write right - This time we start from the very beginnings of writing, and move on to just before the invention of alphabets. - Heres part one of our latest attempted at Episode One.

Who said what when, and how? - The evidence is patchy and your hosts are daffy, but we try to figure out when language began. Heres an article on an experiment to see how much language helps when tea

Monkey talk! - We look at how nonhuman primates use language, compare it to human language use, and guess how one turned into the other. Meanwhile, over on brothersbarton.net, we have: take 100 of ep

Animals, lies and language An honest signal is useful for the one sending and receiving it. But, dishonest signals tend to destabilize the ability to communicate. How did human language develop when w

Prey or play - When differing animals meet, they sometimes communicate. Sometimes threats, sometimes lies, sometimes laughter. We take a look at interspecies communication. Here are two different vide

Ah, those babbling bacteria - We begin a new subseries this week on language and communication. For starters, let’s have a looksee at how single-celled organisms chat. Here’s a quick video about the b

Accidents and asteroids - We didn’t notice it was going to be asteroid day until yesterday, but by coincidence, today is all about asteroids. Here’s something on an attempt to experiment with moving a