Arguments about what is and isn’t “open source” are often resolved by deferring to the Open Source Initiative (OSI): If a piece of software is available under a license rubber stamped as “open source” ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Among the myriad abilities that humans possess, which ones are uniquely human? Language has been a top candidate at least since ...

Neural networks first treat sentences like puzzles solved by word order, but once they read enough, a tipping point sends them diving into word meaning instead—an abrupt “phase transition” reminiscent ...

A new study claims to have identified the first speakers of Indo-European language, which gave rise to English, Sanskrit and hundreds of others. By Carl Zimmer In 1786, a British judge named William ...