Social sciences

The EU-funded DISEASES project has been exploring how the Victorians diagnosed, understood and dealt with many of the phenomena related to stress and overload that characterise today’s modern globalised society. One intriguing discovery has been on the Victorian emphasis on phobias, particularly ailurophobia – the fear of cats.

Researchers have found that our increasing thirst for digital technology can have negative effects on our mental and physical health, neurological development and personal relationships.

It is a well-known fact that Facebook is more than a social media channel. Each year, the company makes about 4 billion dollars in advertising revenues. What people advertising on Facebook did not know until now, however, is how much profit their own activity actually generates.

Many contemporary artworks are endangered due to their extremely fast degradation processes. NANORESTART – a project developing nanomaterials to protect and restore this cultural heritage – has created a 3D printed artwork with a view to testing restoration methods.

Six months on from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, researchers are still trying to ascertain how and why the Leave campaign was ultimately victorious. In new research partly supported by the EU-funded PHEME and SOBIGDATA projects, 3 million tweets were analysed over a 6-month period that showed immigration was by far the most important issue driving Leave voters.

EU-funded researchers have created a database of previously unavailable Arabic, Persian and Turkish texts dating from the 13th to 16th centuries.

A new study released by the EU-funded FUTURE SKY SAFETY project has reported that half of airline pilots believe that fatigue is not taken seriously by airlines, raising questions about safety within the European aviation industry.

Following the granting of a young British girl’s instructions to be cryogenically preserved so she can be revived in the future when a cure for cancer exists, there has been intense debate inside and outside the scientific community on both the viability of cryogenic freezing but also on the ethical issues thrown up by the procedure. Once again, it raises the centuries-old question that defines the conflict between modern science and ethics: Even if we could do something, should we?

EU-funded researchers have found that the body clock breaks down when light and temperature are out of sync, affecting activity levels.

In a newly published report that was supported by the EU-funded ANTICORRP project, Transparency International has highlighted how citizens in Europe and Central Asia view corruption as one of the biggest problems facing their country.

A recently published study part supported by the EU-funded NEOMILK project has outlined widespread evidence of prehistoric milk production in southern Europe.

EU-funded mathematicians under the HDSPCONTR project have developed a series of algorithms and mathematical models that can predict and influence the behaviour of social groups.

EU-funded research into rare Medieval documents has shed light on how language was used to assert imperial power over a diverse population under the Mediterranean Almohad Empire.

With less than a week to go before American voters are asked to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in arguably the most important US presidential election in a generation, scientists and psychologists are shedding light on the underlying factors of what drives an individual’s decision to vote for one candidate or party over another.

EU-funded researchers have been investigating the lives of migrants and migrant families both in Europe and in their country of origin to better understand the impact migration has on their life course.

New research has shown that the part of the brain that is activated during dishonesty responds less and less to each subsequent lie, providing a new explanation as to how a seemingly innocent white lie can often have the tendency to spiral out of control.

A recently published study supported by the EU-funded EMOTIONS IN CONFLICT project has highlighted how Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli teens cooperate better after being taught that people can change.

An EU-funded project has been helping cities face the future with confidence by tackling climate change, putting the green back into cities, and preventing urban sprawl in new and exciting ways.

As the Halloween season gets into full flow, the English-speaking world is currently experiencing a wave of ‘creepy clown’ sightings that first began in the United States but has now spread to the UK, Canada and Australia. Most have been confirmed as copycat hoaxes but the distress and anxiety caused to victims is very real indeed – and consequently, there has been increased interest in the scientific and psychological reasons as to why clowns are able to instil such a feeling of terror into so many people.

Following its final conference that took place in Brussels on 4 October 2016, the EU-funded HERCULES consortium has provided stakeholders with a detailed set of policy recommendations that will preserve Europe’s diverse heritage in cultural landscapes.

In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck the Italian town of Amatrice and its surrounding region on 24 August 2016, Italian authorities requested the help of the EU-funded TRADR project. The project stepped up to the plate and quickly deployed two Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and three Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to the devastated region.

During its final conference in Brussels from 27 to 28 September, the FESSUD project brought together leading academics, economists and financial experts to disseminate its key results and discuss how Europe’s financial system can be better structured to serve economic, societal and environmental needs.

In a new book, ‘The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of a Blockbuster Novel’, two Stanford academics describe how an algorithm they designed is able to predict, with 80 % accuracy, which new novels will become mega-bestsellers.

A recent study has rejected the idea that reducing the number of official EU languages would be more effective, efficient and inclusive. Rather, it argues that such a policy would exclude approximately four out of five Europeans from having a deep understanding of official EU information.

With the use of affordable, low-tech femtocells, the EU-funded TUCAN3G project is bringing 3G connection to the otherwise unconnected regions of the world.