Motor Cortex Influences Word Comprehension
Researchers from HSE, Northumbria University, and Aarhus University have experimentally confirmed the hypothesis, whereby comprehension of a word’s meaning involves not only the ‘classic’ language brain centres but also the cortical regions responsible for the control of body muscles, such as hand movements. The resulting brain representations are, therefore, distributed across a network of locations involving both areas specialised for language processing and those responsible for the control of the associated action. The results have been published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
Who Studies Russian Science and How?
On February 8, Russian Science Day, the Higher School of Economics, along with the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and the Ministry of Education and Science, released its annual statistical data book on the state of science, technology, and innovation. Below, the Director of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge and HSE First Vice Rector Leonid Gokhberg discusses how research on science in Russia is advancing.
HSE Experts Investigate How Order Emerges From Chaos
Igor Kolokolov and Vladimir Lebedev, scientific experts from HSE’s Faculty of Physics and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences, have developed an analytical theory, which binds the structure of coherent vortices formed due to inverse cascades in 2-D turbulence with the statistical properties of hydrodynamic fluctuations. Uncovering this link can be useful in identifying the causes of the particular characteristics of such atmospheric phenomena as cyclones and anticyclones. Their research is presented in an article published in the ‘Journal of Fluid Mechanics’.
Student Research Competition 2016 Winners Awarded at HSE
This year students from other Russian and international universities competed against HSE students. The new HSE project ‘Scientific Battles’ was also announced at the award ceremony.
Who Finances Charities
The belief that the non-profit sector is mainly supported by private donations is nothing but a myth. According to Natalia Ivanova's study Foreign Experience of Government's Impact on Philanthropy and Its Applicability in Russia, government support accounts for a substantial part of charity budgets.
One’s Ability to Make Money Develops Before Birth
Researchers from the Higher School of Economics have shown how the level of perinatal testosterone, the sex hormone, impacts a person’s earnings in life. Prior research confirms that many skills and successes are linked to the widely known 2D:4D ratio, also knows as the digit ratio. This is the ratio of the index and ring fingers, and it is considered a reflection of the level of perinatal testosterone, the male hormone of the mother that acts on the development of the offspring during pregnancy.
Piggy Bank in Crisis, or How Russians Save
More than half (51%) of Russians did not make savings before the current economic crisis and are not making any today. As of the end of 2016, 70% of Russians did not have any outstanding loans or debts. Researchers of the HSE Institute for Social Policy (ISP) examined Russians' borrowing and saving behaviour in the ‘Monitoring of Russian Population in 2016: Revenues, Expenditures and Social Well-being’.
Computer Modelling Used to Create New Generation Medicines
Structure and Dynamics of α-hairpinin Peptide Tk-hefu2 in Water: Computer Simulations, an article in which HSE researchers make discoveries relevant to a variety of fields, including mathematics, information science, physics, and biology, opens up new opportunities for medicines to arise that regulate the function of potassium channels that ensure the vital functioning of human cells.
HSE Researchers Compare Performance in Mathematics for Children Starting School in Russia, Scotland and England
Researchers from the HSE Institute of Education have adapted and begun using an assessment tool for comparing the knowledge and skills of children starting school. Their first results were obtained from a sample of children starting school in Russia and the UK.
Scientists Reveal Relationship between Perfectionism and Insomnia
For perfectionists, sleep quality is often far from perfect. However, perfectionism per se seems to be just part of the story; another important factor is a perfectionists' tendency to experience frequent symptoms of anxiety, sometimes for relatively minor reasons. These are the findings made by a team of Russian and UK sleep researchers, published in the January 2017 issue of Personality and Individual Differences journal.