Recent SFI Omidyar Fellow Laura Fortunato is among researchers studying the evolution of language and words -- and cultural practices -- much as biologists study the evolution of living organisms, according to a New Scientist cover story.

"The trick is to plunder the same tool kit that allows biologists to find sense in the messy genetic variations between species...The technique can even tell us about our ancestors' day-to-day lives -- what kind of marriage systems they had, and even what type of gods they believed in," writes New Scientist's Douglas Heaven.

Language trees, he writes, can help track the transmission and evolution of not only words, but also cultural practices.

"Laura Fortunato of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico used the method to examine marriage systems in early Indo-European cultures..."

Read the article in New Scientist (September 5, 2013, subscription required)