
Setting Personal Boundaries in the Age of ‘New Ethics’
Psychologists acknowledge that there is no longer any public consensus on gender relations and issues. The HSE Media Practices Centre held a training session on ‘How to Find Common Ground with People Living in the New Ethical Reality,’ in which experts discussed key elements of ‘new ethics’ and their influence on social relationships.

Readiness to Punish Others for Selfish Behaviour Explained by Functional Brain Connections
The stronger the functional brain connections, the less inclined someone is to punish others for unfair behaviour. This conclusion was reached by HSE researchers following a neuroimaging experiment. Their paper ‘Wired to punish? Electroencephalographic study of the resting-state neuronal oscillations underlying third-party punishment’ was published in the journal Neuroscience.

CPD Training of Staff Boosts Self-confidence
There is a significant psychological effect of continuing professional development programmes, i.e. people feel more confident in solving problems. After training, employees note that they cope better with tasks both at work and home.

Wonderful Lanthanides: Researchers Systematize Global Data on the Properties of Rare-Earth Metals
Yury Belousov, Associate Professor at the HSE Faculty of Chemistry, joined his colleagues from Moscow State University, Lebedev Physical Institute, and the University of Camerino, Italy, to work on a review, in which they compared and analysed over 200 lanthanide azolecarboxylates. The scholars were the first to systematize the scattered published information in a single source, which will be useful for technology developments in electronics, metallurgy and nuclear medicine, as well as in the chemical and nuclear industries. The review was published in Coordination Chemistry Reviews.

Researchers Come Up with a New Explanation of Processes that Underlie Working Memory
Researchers from the HSE Centre for Cognition & Decision Making have developed a computational model of working memory and demonstrated the stabilizing effect of gamma oscillations, as well as the importance of fast interaction between the model components. The study results have the potential to become part of a theoretical basis for experiments on improving working memory functions with non-invasive brain stimulation. The study was published in Frontiers in Neural Circuits .

‘If We Can’t Prevent the Robot Invasion, We Should Lead It’
The induction of the MuseNet deep neural network into the Russian Union of Composers in April 2021 has interesting implications—will artificial intelligence edge live performers out of their profession? Evgenia Evpak, composer, teacher at the HSE Faculty of Communications, Media, and Design and graduate of the HSE ISSEK Master’s programme in Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation, believes that humans still have a future in the music industry.

HSE Researchers Discover Nucleotide Sequence Responsible for Effectively Fighting Pathologies
Researchers from HSE University have discovered nucleotide sequences characteristic of microRNA isoforms (microRNAs with errors). The discovery will help predict errors in microRNA behaviour and create drugs that can detect targets (such as viruses) more effectively. The results of the study have been published in the RNA Biology journal.

How to Improve the Vaccination Campaign and Achieve Global Immunity to COVID-19
An international study conducted with the participation of HSE University researchers has found that people in developing countries are much more willing to get vaccinated, the most common reason for not getting vaccinating is fear of side-effects, and attitudes towards vaccination are primarily influenced by doctors and health professionals.

Europe to Face a Reverse Brain Drain: Up to 3.5 Million Highly Skilled Professionals Could Return Home
As the pandemic continues and working from home becomes the norm in some industries, professionals who once left to work in other countries are beginning to return home. Researchers from HSE University, the Catholic University of Louvain and the University of Lille have found out how strong this movement could be and what economic, social and political implications it might bring. The preprint of the study was published in the GLO Discussion Papers.

The Trauma of Chernobyl: Why Our Collective Memory of Disasters Tends to Fade with Time
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The event recedes ever further into the past, but the legacy of the trauma it caused endures. That stress produced trauma, and the trauma became part of Russia’s collective memory. Sociologists Yulia Belova, Margarita Muravitskaya and Nadezhda Melnikova of HSE’s Institute for Applied Political Research and Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology researched what this means for people who lived in the radioactively contaminated zone around the reactor and why the collective memory of the accident might disappear.