Keyword: University Communications

An international research team has shown that the modelling of species distributions in Amazonia requires information not only of climate but also of soils. At the same time, they found considerable inaccuracies and other problems in the available soil maps. For conservation planning, it is important to obtain reliable information on where and how widely different species are distributed in Amazonia.

The most popular programmes were Global Innovation Management, Biomedical Sciences, Information Security and Cryptography, Education and Learning, and Futures Studies, which received altogether 733 applications. All in all, the international Master’s degree programmes received 1,116 applications from 98 countries, whereas the number of applications in the previous year was only 502.

Doctor Christian Ott has been appointed to the position of a senior researcher for a fixed-term of two years to the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Turku. The position has a four-month trial period.

The new Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Finland, Tom Dodd, visited the University of Turku on Wednesday, 24 January. According to Mr Dodd, Brexit is a phase in the British history that defines the entire nation, and separation from the EU will happen next spring as planned. Mr Dodd wishes that the relations between the UK and the EU will remain good.

According to a national register study comparing Finnish birth cohorts from 1987 and 1997, an increasing number of adolescents receive a psychiatric or neurodevelopmental diagnosis. The number of diagnosed adolescents increased especially for girls in the younger cohort. The results of the study conducted by the University of Turku and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) were published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal.

Scientists have been familiar with Finnish landforms for decades. Now, however, researchers from the University of Turku have discovered a new landform previously unknown to science with the aid of laser technology. After the initial discovery in Finland, similar forms have also been found in Sweden.

Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku has established a Laboratory of Business Disruption Research in order to research and develop management and realisation models for business disruptions. The partners of the Laboratory are Aller Media Finland, Bayer Nordic SE, IBM Finland, OP Financial Group, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers Oy), Rolls-Royce Oy Ab and Valmet Automotive Inc.

Historically, grandmothers have been important to their grandchildren, and the help provided by grandmothers has increased grandchild survival during the times of high child mortality. However, there have been signs that in many populations, the impact of maternal grandmothers and paternal grandmothers on their grandchildren has been different. A recent study shows that X-chromosome relatedness between grandmothers and their grandchildren did not affect grandchild survival in the 18th and 19th century Finland.

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Turku receives a donation of €3 million for the mathematical modelling of complex systems. The donation supports long-term top research in mathematics significantly and enables new, multidisciplinary openings.

The new Master’s Degree Programme provides the students with a strong basis to work as a human neuroscience expert and a wide skill set to conduct research and handle issues related to human brain and behaviour.

​Senior Researcher Teemu Rinne