Scientists Learn to Better Predict Space Weather
An international team of astrophysicists has been studying the formation of strong electrostatic waves, ion holes, in the Earth's magnetotail and assessing their impact on space weather. They found that ion holes propagate oblique to the local magnetic field. The study's findings can contribute to a better understanding of processes in the Earth's magnetotail which affect space weather in the near-Earth plasma environment and the polar region. The paper is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Russians Feel Disappointed with Their Income if Their Reference Group Average is Higher
Researcher Anastasia Dubnovitskaya of HSE University has studied the impact of social comparison on the level of Russians' pay satisfaction. The study used data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey — HSE University (RLMS-HSE) from 2002 to 2018. It turned out that the main contribution to Russians' pay satisfaction is the difference between their actual pay and the average wages of the reference group — people with similar characteristics. The size of one's own wages was of secondary importance.
AI Helps Discover New Space Anomalies
The SNAD team, an international network of researchers including Matvey Kornilov, Associate Professor of the HSE University Faculty of Physics, has discovered 11 previously undetected space anomalies, seven of which are supernova candidates. The researchers analysed digital images of the Northern sky taken in 2018 using a k-D tree to detect anomalies through the ‘nearest neighbour’ method. Machine learning algorithms helped automate the search. The paper is published in New Astronomy.
New RSCI List Includes 944 Journals
The Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) quality assessment and journal selection working group has updated its list of journals based on the results of expert review and monitoring of the quality of publications. The expert review examined such criteria as the scientific level of the journal, its relevance, its consistency, the level of the scientists on its editorial board, the journal’s adherence to publishing and scientific ethics, and the quality of its formatting.
'We Construct a Portrait of Russian Society'
HSE is presenting A Society of Unequal Opportunities: The Social Structure of Modern Russia, a new book whose authors use an original model to paint a collective portrait of Russians in the last decade. IQ.HSE asked Svetlana Mareeva, co-author of the monograph and Director of the HSE Institute of Social Policy’s Centre for Stratification Studies, about the highlights and trends discussed in the book and whether they tend to change in particularly challenging times.
HSE Researchers Identified the Age-Related Changes in Gamma-Band Oscillations in Auditory Cortex in Children
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain have identified previously unknown age-related changes in brain activity during the perception of auditory information in a group of children aged 7–12 years. The researchers used magnetoencephalography (MEG), an ultra-precise method of brain activity recording. The results obtained can be used to explore the impairments in language comprehension in children with autism. The study was published in the Human Brain Mapping.
HSE Researchers Develop New Method for Analysing Genetic Admixture of Populations
Researchers of the HSE International Laboratory of Statistical and Computational Genomics together with their international colleagues have proposed a new statistical method for analysing population admixture that makes it possible to determine the time and number of migration waves more accurately. The history of Colombians and Mexicans (descendants of Native Americans, Spaniards and Africans) features two episodes of admixture that occurred about 350 and 200 years ago for Mexicans and 400 and 100 years ago for Colombians. The results were published in the Plos Genetics journal.
Study Helps Explain Why Students Cheat
Evgeniia Shmeleva and Egor Sagitov of the HSE Institute of Education examined the relationship between how study sessions are designed and the likelihood of students’ cheating. They found students more inclined to cheat when expected to learn by rewriting and retelling the study material and more likely to be honest when engaged in interactive learning activities such as debates.
Professional Athletes Perform Better against Former Clubs, According to Research
A team of Russian researchers affiliated with the HSE University, RANEPA, and NES found professional athletes to perform better against their former clubs. At least in some circumstances, emotions seem to have a greater effect on their performance than knowledge of the opponent's tactics. The study's findings are published in the Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Economics and may be useful for coaches, sports managers, and bookmakers.
How Bilingual Brains Work: Cross-language Interplay and an Integrated Lexicon
An international team of researchers led by scientists from the HSE University have examined the interplay of languages in the brains of bilinguals. Using EEG data of Russian-English bilinguals, the authors were the first to demonstrate nearly instant and automatic detection of semantic similarity between words belonging to their two languages, suggesting the existence of an integrated bilingual lexicon in which words are activated in parallel in both languages. The study findings are published in Cortex.