Grey matter volume differences in the left caudate nucleus of people who stutter.

The cause of stuttering has many theoretical explanations. A number of research groups have suggested changes in the volume and/or function of the striatum as a causal agent. Two recent studies in children and one in adults who stutter (AWS) report differences in striatal volume compared that seen in controls; however, the laterality and nature of this anatomical volume difference is not consistent across studies. The current study investigated whether a reduction in striatal grey matter volume, comparable to that seen in children who stutter (CWS), would be found in AWS. Such a finding would support claims that an anatomical striatal anomaly plays a causal role in stuttering. We used voxel-based morphometry to examine the structure of the striatum in a group of AWS and compared it to that in a group of matched adult control subjects. Results showed a statistically significant group difference for the left caudate nucleus, with smaller mean volume in the group of AWS. The caudate nucleus, one of three main structures within the striatum, is thought to be critical for the planning and modulation of movement sequencing. The difference in striatal volume found here aligns with theoretical accounts of stuttering, which suggest it is a motor control disorder that arises from deficient articulatory movement selection and sequencing. Whilst the current study provides further evidence of a striatal volume difference in stuttering at the group level compared to controls, the significant overlap between AWS and controls suggests this difference is unlikely to be diagnostic of stuttering

The evolution of language: a comparative review

For many years the evolution of language has been seen as a disreputable topic, mired in fanciful "just so stories" about language origins. However, in the last decade a new synthesis of modern linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to make important contributions to our understanding of the biology and evolution of language. I review some of this recent progress, focusing on the value of the comparative method, which uses data from animal species to draw inferences about language evolution. Discussing speech first, I show how data concerning a wide variety of species, from monkeys to birds, can increase our understanding of the anatomical and neural mechanisms underlying human spoken language, and how bird and whale song provide insights into the ultimate evolutionary function of language. I discuss the ‘‘descended larynx’ ’ of humans, a peculiar adaptation for speech that has received much attention in the past, which despite earlier claims is not uniquely human. Then I will turn to the neural mechanisms underlying spoken language, pointing out the difficulties animals apparently experience in perceiving hierarchical structure in sounds, and stressing the importance of vocal imitation in the evolution of a spoken language. Turning to ultimate function, I suggest that communication among kin (especially between parents and offspring) played a crucial but neglected role in driving language evolution. Finally, I briefly discuss phylogeny, discussing hypotheses that offer plausible routes to human language from a non-linguistic chimp-like ancestor. I conclude that comparative data from living animals will be key to developing a richer, more interdisciplinary understanding of our most distinctively human trait: language

Urban blue: A global analysis of the factors shaping people's perceptions of the marine environment and ecological engineering in harbours.

Marine harbours are the focus of a diverse range of activities and subject to multiple anthropogenically induced pressures. Support for environmental management options aimed at improving degraded harbours depends on understanding the factors which influence people's perceptions of harbour environments. We used an online survey, across 12 harbours, to assess sources of variation people's perceptions of harbour health and ecological engineering. We tested the hypotheses: 1) people living near impacted harbours would consider their environment to be more unhealthy and degraded, be more concerned about the environment and supportive of and willing to pay for ecological engineering relative to those living by less impacted harbours, and 2) people with greater connectedness to the harbour would be more concerned about and have greater perceived knowledge of the environment, and be more supportive of, knowledgeable about and willing to pay for ecological engineering, than those with less connectedness. Across twelve locations, the levels of degradation and modification by artificial structures were lower and the concern and knowledge about the environment and ecological engineering were greater in the six Australasian and American than the six European and Asian harbours surveyed. We found that people's perception of harbours as healthy or degraded, but not their concern for the environment, reflected the degree to which harbours were impacted. There was a positive relationship between the percentage of shoreline modified and the extent of support for and people's willingness to pay indirect costs for ecological engineering. At the individual level, measures of connectedness to the harbour environment were good predictors of concern for and perceived knowledge about the environment but not support for and perceived knowledge about ecological engineering. To make informed decisions, it is important that people are empowered with sufficient knowledge of the environmental issues facing their harbour and ecological engineering options

A MODEST review

We present an account of the state of the art in the fields explored by the research community invested in 'Modeling and Observing DEnse STellar systems'. For this purpose, we take as a basis the activities of the MODEST-17 conference, which was held at Charles University, Prague, in September 2017. Reviewed topics include recent advances in fundamental stellar dynamics, numerical methods for the solution of the gravitational N-body problem, formation and evolution of young and old star clusters and galactic nuclei, their elusive stellar populations, planetary systems, and exotic compact objects, with timely attention to black holes of different classes of mass and their role as sources of gravitational waves. Such a breadth of topics reflects the growing role played by collisional stellar dynamics in numerous areas of modern astrophysics. Indeed, in the next decade, many revolutionary instruments will enable the derivation of positions and velocities of individual stars in the Milky Way and its satellites and will detect signals from a range of astrophysical sources in different portions of the electromagnetic and gravitational spectrum, with an unprecedented sensitivity. On the one hand, this wealth of data will allow us to address a number of long-standing open questions in star cluster studies; on the other hand, many unexpected properties of these systems will come to light, stimulating further progress of our understanding of their formation and evolution.Comment: 42 pages; accepted for publication in 'Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology'. We are much grateful to the organisers of the MODEST-17 conference (Charles University, Prague, September 2017). We acknowledge the input provided by all MODEST-17 participants, and, more generally, by the members of the MODEST communit