The melody of speech

By Stan van der Burght / 12 February 2024

In spoken language, it’s not only the words we say that matter, but also how we say them. When we speak, we constantly produce small changes in the tone of our voice, how loudly we speak, or when we decide to pause for a bit (the technical term for these aspects of speech is prosody). How we speak can convey how we feel about something, but it can also affect the meaning of our words. As we will see next, the same sentence can have different meanings, just by changing how we say it.

The journey of scientific discovery: Why is it important to use the same (or similar) tools when digging?

By Alex Titus / 4 December 2023

Getting from an idea to the ultimate goal of intellectual gold (knowledge) can be long and winding for each researcher. Nevertheless, this process involves the same four steps, regardless of the question: 1) digging into the papers, 2) then into theories, 3) back into papers, and 4) ultimately running experiments. In steps one to three, scientists can take a personalized approach, choosing which papers and theories to use to develop new studies. In step four, however, scientists try to use the same (or very similar) tools as all other scientists so they can compare and confirm the intellectual gold (knowledge), allowing them to continue updating and developing theories.