"We are only beginning to understand the ways in which the animal mind is as complex as our own. A prairie dog's vocal language is now the most sophisticated ever decoded, but their unique jump-yip poses as many questions as answers. Gorillas use sign language to describe past events to researchers, so does this mean they ruminate and relive their lives? When an ant looks in a mirror to see a dab of blue paint on its head, they try to clean it off,...

"An intellectual history of the late Roman Republic-and the senators who fought both scholarly debates and a civil war. In The Roman Republic of Letters, Katharina Volk explores a fascinating chapter of intellectual history, focusing on the literary senators of the mid-first century BCE who came to blows over the future of Rome even as they debated philosophy, history, political theory, linguistics, science, and religion. It was a period of intense...

"Like her much-loved heroine Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen ‘played and sang’. Music occupied a central role in her life, and she made brilliant use of it in her books to illuminate characters’ personalities and highlight the contrasts between them. Until recently, our knowledge of Austen’s musical inclinations was limited to the recollections of relatives who were still in their youth when she passed away. But with the digitisation of music...