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Finalists announced for Coller Dolittle challenge to decode animal communication
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Finalists announced for Coller Dolittle challenge to decode animal communication

The Coller Dolittle Challenge for Two-Way Interspecies Communication has revealed the shortlist for its second annual US$100,000 prize – with a US$10 million Grand Prize on offer for the researchers that unlock the secret of two-way interspecies communication. The laureates include a team of NCCR researchers studying the similarities between bonobo and human communication.

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Exploring the past, present and future of language

The Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Evolving Language is a nationwide interdisciplinary research consortium bringing together research groups from the humanities, from language and computer science, the social sciences, and the natural sciences at an unprecedented level. Together, we aim at solving one of humanity’s great mysteries: What is language? How did our species develop the ca­pa­city for linguistic expression, for processing language in the brain, and for con­sist­ently passing down new variations to the next generation? How will our capacity for language change in the face of digital com­munication and neuroengineering?

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    Haig, G., & Schnell, S. (2026). High animacy does not favour zero over pronouns – especially for objects. In The Documentarist Turn (pp. 488–517). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/slcs.240.19hai
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Evolving Language is led by Balthasar Bickel (Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), UZH), Nina Kazanina (Department of Basic Neurosciences, UNIGE) and Klaus Zuberbühler (Institute of Biology, UNINE). Over 40 research groups across Switzerland are taking part in this NCCR, from 9 different institutions as well as partners in industry (Google AI, Sonova) and public organisations. The project has 3 leading houses: the University of Zurich, the University of Geneva and the University of Neuchâtel.

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