Can robots learn language?  Is understanding a language depending on how we see the world and does a Spanish speaker see the world in the same way as an English one?

Linguistic and cognitive experts are going to argue those issues when they arrive at Northumbria University next week for the fifth annual ‘Embodied and Situated Language Processing 2012’ conference August 28-30.

A sociology paper claims that binge-drinking college students are having a much better time in school than their non-binge-drinking counterparts.

Binge drinking may be popular on campuses not simply because young people have no jobs yet don't live at home, but because binge drinkers are cool and therefore happy with their college experience. According to the surveys, students from higher status groups (i.e., wealthy, male, white, heterosexual, and Greek affiliated undergraduates) were consistently happier with their college social experience than their peers from lower status groups, i.e., poor, female, minority, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ); and not in a sorority or frat.

The world wastes 1.3 billion tons of food per year.  If only scientists could create a "biorefinery" that could change food waste into a key ingredient for making plastics, laundry detergents and scores of other everyday products.  Because wasting less food would just be crazy talk.

The food biorefinery process involves blending the waste foods with a mixture of fungi that excrete enzymes to break down carbohydrates in the food into simple sugars. The blend then goes into a fermenter, a vat where bacteria convert the sugars into succinic acid. Succinic acid is one of those key materials that can be produced from sugars and that could be used to make high-value products - everything from laundry detergents to plastics to medicines.

The start of the Universe may have been more like water freezing into ice than the popular conception of a Big Bang, say theoretical physicists from the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. They have a new hypothesis (conjecture?) which suggests that the secret to understanding the early universe is in the cracks and crevices common to all crystals, including ice.

Lead researcher on the project James Quach said their current ideas are the latest in a long quest by humans to understand the origins and nature of the Universe.

British women no longer feel inferior next to sassy siren Spaniards or chic French women. They are taller - in heels, anyway. Brits sport a towering 3.3 inch heel on average.

 3,792 women across five European countries (France, Germany, Spain, Denmark and the UK) were questioned in a survey by footcare company COMPEED.  Spanish women were second at an average 3.2 inches, the Danish were at 3, Germans at 2.7 and French women at 2.4 inches. 25% of British women said that they often wear heels over 4 inches and 3% are adding on 6 inches of height. 

The forests of the coastal regions from California to British Columbia are known for unique and ancient animals and plants, like redwoods, tailed frogs, mountain beavers and even folk tales of the legendary Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch).

Now it has something else.  Citizen scientists from the Western Cave Conservancy and arachnologists from the California Academy of Sciences have reported a newly discovered spider. named Trogloraptor ("cave robber") for its cave home and spectacular, elongate claws.  The only thing missing is evidence of it feasting on Orc flesh.