2013

Cuban nationalism amplified by patriotic salsa rhythms replaced Marxist ideology when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russians went home.

In many countries in Latin America, the vice president is the only one to benefit from the resignation of the president. This could be the source of the political instability in these countries.

Each year, we spend billion of dollars on dietary supplements. New research indicates that vitamin pills may upset the fragile balance in our cells and thus cause more harm than good.

Extensive statistical analyses of the mutation distribution in several thousand cancerous tumours make it possible to find cures for types of cancer that cannot be treated today.

The Vikings did not only go West to pillage and plunder. Most of the silk found in the Oseberg ship may have been purchased by honest means from Persia.

A simple method has been found that tells people who have become seriously ill after a tick bite once and for all whether they have bacteria in their blood.

To be able to communicate the content of the philosophy of Aristotle, the mathematics of Euclid and the message of the Bible, translators have created a wealth of new words and concepts that previously did not exist. A database of historically important texts and their translations – developed at the University of Oslo – is now being used by researchers all over the world.

Medium-sized waves can destroy wind turbines at sea, causing them to break like matches. Mathematicians are trying to explain why.

The USA uses uranium from Russian nuclear weapons as fuel in its civilian nuclear power plants. If the weapon-grade uranium is mixed with the Norwegian element thorium, the waste becomes 95 per cent less radioactive.

The number of incorrect cancer prognoses can be halved with computerised image analysis. In three years time, the method can be used on patients with bowel cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer.

It will now be possible to detect cancer by measuring the elasticity of tumours. The method is cheap, safe and radiation-free.

In five to seven years, solar cells will have become much cheaper and only one-twentieth as thick as current solar cells. The trick is to deceive the sunlight with microbeads.