The new International Laboratory for Mirror Symmetry and Automorphic Forms will open at HSE’s Faculty of Mathematics in 2017. This project, overseen by Ludmil Katzarkov (Professor at the University of Miami), won the Fifth Mega-Grants Competition of the Government of the Russian Federation.

It has long been known to science that women find it easier than men to switch between tasks. But how exactly their brains function differently in such situations has so far been unclear. Recent research reveals that male brains appear to consume more energy when they need to shift attention. In addition to this, in men there is greater activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal areas of the brain compared to women, as well as activation in some other areas which is not usually observed in women.

HSE graduate Mikael Yan and his company are part of the world’s largest startup accelerator, 500 Startups. In an interview with Success Builder, Mikael talks about the benefits of chat robots, how to stay positive when talking with investors, and how he became part of 500 Startups after getting a flat tire on a San Francisco highway.

In the Faculty of Humanities’ new master’s programme, Cultural and Intellectual History: Between East and West, students will study the history, culture, and traditions of Eastern and Western Europe from the Middle Ages to now. The programme, which begins accepting applications in 2017, also offers students the opportunity to receive a diploma from a partner university abroad.

As of today, HSE offers 46 courses on Coursera, an international online education platform, and one third of them are English-taught. This means that HSE is one of the Top 10 universities by the number of online courses offered on that platform.

On November 15-16, an international symposium dedicated to childhood and adolescence took place in Moscow in honour of the 120th anniversary of Lev Vygotsky’s birth. Several participants in the symposium, entitled ‘Lev Vygotsky and Modern Childhood’, were especially interested in the unique Russian experience that flowed from the traditions established by the renowned Soviet psychologist.