A new study shows that, during the Ice Age, both the East Asian summer monsoon and desertification in Eurasia were driven by fluctuating Northern Hemisphere ice volume and global sea level. Currently, two thirds of the world’s population depends on agriculture sustained by rains of the East Asian summer monsoon, and future climate change in this region can therefore have a major impact on global food production. “We can now show that when ice volume decreased and sea level rose, the summer monsoon rainfalls in East Asia intensified and spread further inland, while sandy deserts in China retreated,” says Dr. Thomas Stevens, first author and researcher at Uppsala University. With today’s shrinking ice caps and rising sea levels, this has implications for how the Eurasian continent will once again experience changes in the summer monsoon rainfall and desertification.

This year’s edition of Företagsänglarna is now open for applications! So what is Företagsänglarna? Quite simply, it is like Uppsala’s own version of Dragons’ Den. You submit your business idea and get to pitch it to five entrepreneurs with the chance of securing an investment in your company. Uppsala University is a partner of the show through UU Innovation and we hope to see as many students and researchers as possible showing off lots of brilliant ideas. Apply as soon as possible to secure a spot on the show!

Is there a connection between immunological diseases and mental problems? Is it possible to counter memory loss in dementia? How significant is sleep to the health of the brain? These are three examples of current research on the brain at Uppsala University, which will be presented in connection with the Bissen Brainwalk in Uppsala on 17 March 2018.

Young digital gamers do not have fewer friends at school than their non-gamer peers, two new research articles from Uppsala University indicate. In their study, researchers Lina Eklund and Sara Roman investigated how digital gaming affects young people’s friendship formation. The results show that neither the adolescents who spend much of their time gaming nor those who self-identify as gamers have fewer school friends than their peers who play little or not at all. Evidently, too, students who are self-identified gamers tend to become friends with one another. In other words, the common interest of digital gaming seems to lead to new friendships at school. “The results are both surprising and expected. Sure enough, we thought ‘gamers’ would turn out to be making friends with one another. Gaming is such an important part of today’s youth culture that anything else would be odd. Just as adolescents used to get together through shared music tastes, so gaming is now a key element in media consumption. On the other hand, we weren’t so sure whether players would prove to be less sociable, or thus have fewer friends at school. Here, the previous research is limited,” Eklund says.

This winter, we held a crash course in bandy for international students. Among the participants was Study in Sweden blogger and UU student Sania, and here are her impressions of the course and the popular Swedish sport bandy!

Audra, along with a group of fellow students, took a trip north to Lapland to experience winter in it's purest form. Read the following post to find out what she thought about Lapland :) /David

Klara Bertils, is a linguist and doctoral student at the Uppsala Antibiotic Center, which analyses conversations between healthcare staff and patients in consultations where antibiotic prescription may be relevant. What is a linguist doing among antibiotics researchers? “I’m interested in conversations when important things are involved, and communication between healthcare staff and patients prior to a possible antibiotics prescription falls within that category without a doubt. In my project, I will document and analyse meetings with patients suffering from respiratory infections with the aim of identifying possible patterns in the talks that can lead to improved antibiotics prescription.” What can your results contribute in the long term? “Our ambition is to produce educational materials that provide healthcare staff even better tools to handle antibiotic-related patient talks. Swedish patients are generally aware of the challenges we are facing, and with the knowledge we gather, we hope to be able to contribute to more in-depth involvement in responsible antibiotic management.”

Looking for something to do this weekend? In front of the Orangery in the Botanical Gardens we have created an ice skating rink. Here, skaters of all ages can practice basic skills as well a pirouettes. We hope to see you there!

Although we are currently moving towards brighter times, Sweden in the midst of winter is very dark. To cope with the darkness, Rhianna tried out the light room provided by the Student Health Service. Find out what she thought about the experience in the blog! /David

Follow out Instagram account @taggedforuppsala and get a glimpse of what some of our current international students are up to. 😊 If you're a current student and want to share your experience in Uppsala or Visby on @taggedforuppsala, please send us a pm! /David

Scholarships for top-level sports students! If you are an active top-level athlete and have studied at least one semester and are studying at least half-time at Uppsala University you can apply for a scholarship of 25,000 SEK. Both study and sport qualifications are considered when awarding the scholarship. Two scholarships are intended for female students and two for male students. Your application must be submitted by 2 March 2018 at 16:00. Scholarships are appointed in May 2018. See www.uu.se/en/admissions/study-at-uppsala-university/sports-and-studies.

Until recently, the sun was the only star whose surface could be studied in detail. All other stars are so far away that they only look like small dots, even with the world’s largest telescope. But by connecting together several telescopes at the VLT facility in Chile, a research team was able to take pictures of a nearby giant star with such a high resolution level that it is possible to distinguish structures on the surface. The images show how huge bubbles, two hundred times as large as our own sun, transport energy from inside the giant star up to its surface. The images can be used to understand how the intense stellar winds of giant stars gradually lead to the star’s death. “There are really exciting advances happening in star research right now,” says Sofia Ramstedt, docent at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, who also took part in the study. “Technological advancements have enabled amazing astronomical images and this coincides with the development of realistic 3D models of stars. By comparing observations and theory, we can make new discoveries and major advances.”