The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.
Today, humans speak to each other in nearly 7,000 languages; it’s estimated that 90% of those languages will be gone by 02050, displaced by English, Spanish, or Chinese. Meanwhile, there’s a broader question about how well we’re preserving the rest of the world’s cultural heritage. But while we may be losing our collective memories, the thoughts of individuals are more and more likely to live on.
Some recent news stories about losing, or preserving, human culture:
1. What we have here is a failure to communicate:
65,000-year-old language goes extinct
Why half of the world’s languages are in serious danger of dying out
2. Goodbye to all that:
Machu Picchu, Barcelona church on threatened list
3. Culture goes back further than we imagined:
Oldest ‘writing’ found on 60,000-year-old eggshells
Modern behavior found half-million years earlier than previously thought
4. Speak, memory:
Device turns thoughts into speech
Researchers show brain waves can ‘write’ on a computer
Brain scanners can tell what you’re thinking about
New camera promises to capture your whole life
We invite you to submit Long News story suggestions here.
