When I was a kid, I was convinced I could speak to animals. As an adult, now I’m not so sure, but the interest remains. I think the world would be a better place if we could communicate with other species here on Earth. So I’m happy to report that actual scientists are working to rectify the situation.

A scientist who decoded the vocalizations that a bird uses to communicate has won a $100,000 prize for making progress towards a world in which humans can talk to the animals—without being met with a blank response. Dr. Julie Elie at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2026 Coller-Dolittle prize for two-way interspecies communication after working out the 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocabulary and their meanings.

For more than a decade, Elie observed and recorded the sounds the birds made and classified the calls according to the situation and the bird that made them. She then used machine learning to analyse what and how information was encoded in the calls. Finally, she ran tests that showed the birds agreed with her classification.

Experts in multiple believe two-way communication with animals will one day become possible. National Geographic reports that one organization, Project CETI, is attempting to decode whale vocalizations. They believe that it’s much more similar to human language than previously thought. Many other scientists around the world are also studying animal communication. Researchers have taught sign language to captive chimps, documented cuttlefish sending signals using arm gestures, and identified language-like whistles being used by bottlenose dolphins.

“Not so long ago, people thought that animals were not communicating at all, or very simple things,” Nicolas Mathevon, author of The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate tells CNN. He has studied animal communication in birds, dolphins, monkeys, hyenas and crocodiles, and even attempted to parse the cries of human babies for meaning. Hippos are next on his list.

Well, this is messy. An Iranian official contradicted President Trump’s claim that direct U.S.-Iran talks would be held in the Qatari capital later today, saying on Monday evening that an Iranian delegation would be in Doha over the next two days but not to hold talks with U.S. officials.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said technical talks with the U.S. had yet to start, though Iran is seeking clarification of parts of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two earlier this month. Specifically, he said, an Iranian technical team would meet with Qatari officials about the unfreezing of $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets held in a Doha bank. The money has become the latest sticking point in the vaguely worded MOU, which, despite tit-for-tat attacks in recent days, was to initiate a 60-day period of negotiations over a permanent end to the war.

Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon remain in negotiations over the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also told Fox News Monday that Israel could find itself at war with Iran “within two days’ if Iran fires missiles at Israeli territory.

Did you hear about heat wave that recently hit the Paris fashion week? Well, it’s coming this way. A dangerous heat dome will intensify over the Eastern United States this week, pushing temperatures into dangerous levels and probably breaking hundreds of records across three dozen states and affecting more than 162 million people.

Experts say the weather pattern will bring a combination of stifling, tropical levels of humidity, high temperatures that could easily soar past 100 degrees for several consecutive days. And don’t expect much relief after dark, with overnight low temperatures hovering near 80 at times in major cities across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. From parts of the Plains to the East Coast, heat index values could surge toward 110 degrees.

The risk for heat-related impacts is forecast to reach major or extreme levels for more than 220 million Americans in total through Saturday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s HeatRisk data. Cities in the risk zone include Boston; New York; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington; Chicago; Minneapolis; St. Louis; Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta; Orlando, Florida; and Cleveland. Be careful out there.