Press releases

Soon, chat bots will be able to laugh at your jokes. They also know when you’re going to laugh – even before you are aware of this.  This has been shown in a new thesis that investigated the gaze patterns linked to laughter.   ‘Dialogue system’ refers to technologies such as chat bots or conversation […]

Comfort women is the term used for the systematic sexual exploitation of women and girls that took place under the Japanese Empire 1932–1945. It has been estimated that the system comprised anything from 20 000 to 400 000 women at some 2 000 different “comfort stations” and this is described today as either slavery or prostitution. 80 years […]

Human history and cultural heritage in various places are often well researched and documented. A new anthology edited by three Swedish researchers explores what ties these places together – footpaths. “They are unobtrusive remains, but with a very significant cultural footprint,” says Daniel Svensson, historian at Malmö University. Pathways lead us forward as we walk […]

County administrative boards and the Swedish Forest Agency use species sightings reported by the public to make various environmental decisions. This is done largely on the basis of trust between a few actors who determine which sightings can be used as a basis for decisions. This is shown by researchers at the University of Gothenburg […]

Montale in northern Italy can have been one of the earliest centres in Europe for production of wool during the Bronze Age. Production may also have been on an industrial scale. Archaeologist Serena Sabatini has drawn this conclusion after having analysed archaeological finds in the form of textile tools and teeth from sheep and goats. […]

The Kamprad Family Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Research & Charity funds a research and collaborative project on cultural entrepreneurship with a grant of SEK 25 million to Linnaeus University. The project is led by professor Anders Högberg at the Department of Cultural Sciences at Linnaeus University. It will run for five years, starting in 2022. “The […]

In order to improve living conditions in poor countries, mutual collaboration and an understanding for each other’s differences is required. There is a risk that various support projects create a structure for climate transition that does not work in reality once the project funds are finished. This is shown in a new dissertation from Linnaeus […]

Mesopotamia and the Indus civilisation were both urban civilisations with large, densely populated and planned cities, 6000-1990 BCE. A new thesis in archaeology points out that the ancient Indus society showed complex patterns of urbanity that were rare in other ancient societies. The aim of the thesis was to analyse the main differences in the […]

Several new studies among Syrian refugee families in Turkey and families with infants in Sweden and Bhutan show that children of mothers in poor mental health risk falling behind in their cognitive development. However, very small changes can suffice to break this correlation and enable the children to return to their normal developmental level. The solutions where the same in all three countries

Historian Birgit Tremml-Werner at Linnaeus University has studied letters, agreements and licenses between the Spanish Empire and Japan in the 17th century. She investigated how the word “friendship” was used and translated. The result: the Spaniards often spoke of friendship in their trade documents, while the Japanese neither used nor translated the word. In both […]