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Where do languages come from? Many linguists think that all human languages came from a single one that was spoken in East Africa around 50,000 years ago. But how would it have sounded–would it have been mainly grunts? New research suggests that it sounded somewhat like the speech of Yoda in "Star Wars."

In LiveScience.com, Natalie Wolchover quotes linguist Merritt Ruhlen as saying, "This language would have been spoken by a small East African population who seemingly invented fully modern language and then spread around the world, replacing everyone else."
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When we’re looking for extraterrestrial life, other moons may be our best bet. Among the most habitable alien worlds is Saturn’s moon Titan.

In recent years, the search for potentially habitable planets outside our solar system has increased. NASA’s Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009, has found more than 1,000 possible planets so far. BBC News quotes astronomer Dirk Schulze-Makuch as saying, "The first question is whether Earth-like conditions can be found on other worlds, since we know empirically that those conditions could harbor life."
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(If you did, we hope you used your Dreamland Festival mug!) Why do some people get drunk after only a few drinks, while others seem to be able to put away much more alcohol? It turns out that immune cells in your brain may contribute to how you respond to alcohol.
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If you’re fat, it might be because of the way your mother ate when she was pregnant. A high-fat diet during pregnancy can lead to obese children. And mothers who were mistreated as children have an increased risk of giving birth to low birth weight babies.

This is often (but not always) part of growing up in poverty. Researcher said Amelia Gavin says, "Our findings suggest that a mother’s economic position in childhood and her experience of maltreatment during childhood have implications for her children born years later. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that maternal childhood maltreatment may lead to lower birth weight among later-born offspring."
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