Ape brains show linguistic promise Three members of the family of great apes have a crucial speech-related brain feature previously thought unique to humans.” The finding, essentially a left-right asymmetry in the part of Broca’s area that subsumes speech production in humans, was revealed through a project doing MRI imaging of great apes’ brains and may be related to the apes’ prominent use of gesture in their communication. BBC

If you weren’t already familiar with this (it only recently came to my attention; I heard or read nothing about this when my children, now 3 and 7, were infants), it is a recent trend in some circles to teach preverbal children sign language as a tool for communication enhancement and intellectual enrichment in general as well as to facilitate the inclusion of those with hearing impairments in society.