Language networks are built based on different principles and, for the most part, are designed to be scale-free. Global statistical properties of language networks are independent of linguistic structure and typology so do linguistic structures really influence the statistical properties of a language network? More concretely, does semantic or conceptual network have the same properties as a syntactic one?

Researchers at the Institute of Applied Linguistics at Communication University of China say they have shown that dynamic semantic network of human language is also small-world and scale-free but it is different from syntactic network in hierarchical structure and node's degree correlation.

Did late Lower Paleolithic people hunt or were they scavengers? A University of Arizona anthropologist says that humans living at a Paleolithic cave site (Qesem Cave) in central Israel between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago were as successful at big-game hunting as were later stone-age hunters at the site, but earlier humans shared meat differently.

Qesem Cave ("Qesem" means "surprise") people hunted cooperatively, then carried the highest quality body parts of their prey to the cave, where they cut the meat with stone blade cutting tools and cooked it with fire.

Early modern humans living on the southern Africa coast employed pyrotechnology, the controlled use of fire, 72,000 years ago, to increase the quality and efficiency of their stone tool manufacturing process, according to a report in Science.

The international team of researchers deduces that "this technology required a novel association between fire, its heat, and a structural change in stone with consequent flaking benefits." Further, they say their findings ignite the notion of complex cognition in early man.

If their findings hold up, it could mean humans' ability to solve complex problems may have occurred at the same time their modern genetic lineage appeared, rather than developing later as has been widely speculated.

Want to drive the politically correct segment of academia into a tailspin? Tell them there's a group of people hurting animals and watch the outrage. Then tell them they are religious and watch it grow. But then tell them they are a South American religion and it's part of their native heritage. Hilarity ensues.

Candomblé is a religion practiced by the "povo de santo" (people of saint) primarily in South America. They say it is inspired by older African beliefs. It definitely makes much use of animal sacrifice. It believes in the 'soul' of nature so anthropologists label it a form of Animism.

Do you long to hear the dulcet sounds of the salpinx, barbiton, aulos or the syrinx? Of course not, because no one has heard them in centuries. Most people have never even heard of them.

But you will soon have the chance to experience musical instruments familiar to ancient civilizations but long since forgotten.

Ancient instruments probably got lost because they were too difficult to build or too difficult to play. The ASTRA (Ancient instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application) team is tasked with bringing them back to life and already have successfully reconstructed the sound of an earlier instrument called the 'epigonion'.

For most of the last century archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and even geneticists have argued about who the ancestors of Europeans living today were.

People lived in Europe before and after the last big ice age and managed to survive by hunting and gathering and farming spread into Europe from the Near East over the last 9,000 years, which boosted the amount of food that could be produced by as much as 100-fold. But the extent to which modern Europeans are descended from either of those two groups has eluded scientists.

Did animals teach us one of the oldest forms of human technology, basketry? Did that help us learn to count? These are just two of the themes due to be explored at a University of East Anglia event which takes place June 5-6) is part of Beyond the Basket, a new research project led by the university exploring the development and use of basketry in human culture over 10,000 years.

Basketry has been practiced for millennia and ranges from mats for sitting on, containers and traps for hunting, to partitions and walls - all of which have been central to advancing our culture.

Human brains have tripled in size over the past 2 million years, growing much faster than those of other mammals.

What might the reasons be for such dramatic brain expansion?

University of Missouri researchers studied three hypotheses for brain growth: ecological demand, social competition and climate change.

Yes, climate change. They're not stupid. An entire presidential cabinet is stuffed with carbon dioxide true believers so it's good diplomacy to at least consider global warming may make us devolve - that would be terrific marketing for a carbon trading scheme. Luckily, the much more likely social competition was determined in their analysis as the major cause of increased cranial capacity.

Yesterday, the Brazilian national team overcame a 2 goal deficit to defeat the USA squad 3-2 in the final of the Confederations Cup. The unheralded USA team was a surprise but teams always are until they achieve big wins over a period of time. Then it becomes predictable and expected, like Brazil.

But what makes a great footballer? Being in excellent physical condition undoubtedly helps but few people actually believe that intense physical training alone can turn an average player into Cristiano Ronaldo - who is Portuguese. Instead, there is something else that must be added. Scientists from the University of Queensland have decided to study what this "something else" might be.

Do friends wear the same clothes or see the same movies because they have similar tastes, part of the reason they became friends or, once a friendship is established, do individuals influence each other to adopt like behaviors?

Social scientists don't know for sure and are still trying to understand the role social influence plays in the spreading of trends because the real world doesn't keep track of how people acquire new items or preferences.

But the virtual world of "Second Life" does. Researchers from the University of Michigan have tried to use this information to study how "gestures" make their way through this online community. Gestures are code snippets that Second Life avatars must acquire in order to make motions such as dancing, waving or chanting.