Linguistic Laws in Nature and Fatherless Condor Chicks from Parthenogenesis

Learn about linguistic “laws” that also show up in nature; and how two California condors were born without fathers.

January 13, 2022

Linguistic “laws” like Zipf’s law of abbreviation and Menzerath’s law also show up in biology, geography, and more by Grant Currin

Two condor chicks were born from parthenogenesis, something we’ve never seen before by Cameron Duke

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