Summary: John Dolittle is a fictional character with a slightly unbelievable ability to talk with animals in Hugh Lofting’s series of children’s books of the 1920s. In 2013, scientists are discovering real world evidence of sophisticated communication and even language among a vast array of wildlife species, which greatly expands the possibilities of actual human to non-human discourse. We have a conversation with Dr. Daniel Wesson, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University, who recently discovered that rodents talk to each other via sniffing. Also, Dr. Con Slobodchikoff discusses what he knows about animals using grammatical language, a discovery inspired by his pioneering study of prairie dogs. read more
