Knowing a language that uses counting words can shape one’s ability to understand large numbers.

A new study of deaf people who have made up their own hand signals to communicate shows that without number words, it’s hard to keep track of more than three objects at a time.

“Learning language really shapes the way we think,” said cognitive psychologist Elizabet Spaepen of the University of Chicago, lead author of a paper published Feb. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It can change the way we conceptualize something as seemingly basic as number.”

Psychologists had...

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Photo: Christian Stoll

That full-size shovel in your toolshed is too big for a tactical backpack and too unwieldy for hand-to-hand combat: For those who spend time planting surveillance hardware, burying their secrets, or digging up someone else’s, a foldable entrenching tool is a must-have. Gerber’s new E-Tool With Pick boasts a powder-coated steel blade with serrated edge for cutting through roots or … um… limbs and a sharp spike for piercing ice, walls, and attackers’ skulls. A compact 9.3 x 6 inches when folde...

Hay fever, dog, peanut and other allergies may protect sufferers from certain types of brain tumors, a new study suggests.

In surveys of hospital patients, individuals with glioma — a common form of brain and spinal cancer — were less likely than cancer-free individuals to report having allergies, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers report online Feb. 7 in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Several teams had previously explored the link between allergies and glioma, says UIC epidemiologist Bridget McCarthy, who led the study. Her team set out to confirm these...

1996: “Cyberspace” is not yet a household word but is about to get a big boost in the public consciousness with an international, one-day event, 24 Hours in Cyberspace.

Top editors, photographers, computer programmers and designers, contributing from all over the world, collaborated to document a single day on the internet. It became not only a digital time capsule but a coming-out party, of sorts, for a medium whose impact was as dramatic in its day as television was a half century earlier.

24 Hours in Cyberspace was the inspiration of photographer Rick Smolan, who created the “Day in the L...

When Palm first unveiled webOS in 2009, the new platform was supposed to be the next mobile messiah.

With its sexy user interface, a developer-friendly backend and a host of new features like multitasking and contact Synergy, everyone was certain webOS would be the platform to rejuvenate the once-prominent PDA pioneer company.

Of course, webOS has shaped up to be less of a Jesus than an L. Ron Hubbard, as the platform’s following never rose above cult status.

As of November 2010, Palm’s market share of U.S. mobile platforms weighed in at a paltry 3.9 percent, according to a comScore report....

A memoir isn’t enough to rehabilitate the careers of today’s disgraced public officials. Any case you make for yourself is damaged by the fact that you’re the one making it. A shrewder tactic is to go full-on Assange, releasing formerly secret documents that you can say prove you were right all along. And so here’s Donald Rumsfeld, doing his best WikiLeaks impression to accompany his new book.

After Iraq and Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, there are few rhetorical tactics Rumsfeld can employ to satisfy his hordes of critics. So he’s accompanying his memoir, Known and Unknown, with...