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Brief Communications
Nature 424, 900 (21 August 2003) | doi:10.1038/424900a
Open Innovation Challenges
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Fast Growth of Transformed Soybean Shoots
A method for accelerating growth of soybean shoots is desired.
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Protect Enzyme from In Planta Degradation
A proposal for stable expression of an enzyme in corn seed is desired.
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Professorship in Bioprocess Engineering
- University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna
- Vienna 1180 Austria
Lectureship in Condensed Matter Theory
- Lancaster University
- Lancaster, UK
Linguistics: Modelling the dynamics of language death
Daniel M. Abrams1 & Steven H. Strogatz1
Abstract
Thousands of the world's languages are vanishing at an alarming rate, with 90% of them being expected to disappear with the current generation1. Here we develop a simple model of language competition that explains historical data on the decline of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Quechua (the most common surviving indigenous language in the Americas) and other endangered languages. A linguistic parameter that quantifies the threat of language extinction can be derived from the model and may be useful in the design and evaluation of language-preservation programmes.
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