Museums can give us better beer, paint and omega-3
Natural history collections aren’t just dusty financial sinkholes. Actually, they can be gold mines for industry.
Humanities
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Unique Middle Age tapestry gives insight into medieval times
Norwegian churches in the Middle Ages were decorated with embroidered tapestries that told Bible stories almost like a comic series. The Høylandet tapestry is the only one of its kind that has survived the march of time.
Japan’s cuteness phenomenon is hundreds of years old
You’ve seen the pictures and the products: Japanese teenage girls in a pastel little-girl world, and children and adults who love Hello Kitty products. They’re all part of the Japanese kawaii phenomenon, which actually started several hundred years ago.
Boys still lag behind in reading
When boys start school, they recognise fewer letters and their corresponding sounds than girls do. The difference is just as great at the end of the school year.
Cheerful Madonna with a lot of bling
A Madonna figure from Grong municipality is one of the best preserved and special church sculptures in Norway from the Middle Ages. She looks like a sweet, friendly girl who’s been asked to model for the sculpture.
How forgetting about Middle Age treasures saved them
One of Scandinavia’s finest collections of church art from the Middle Ages lay hidden and forgotten in Norwegian churches for centuries. Indeed, this long forgetting is precisely what preserved the unique church art.
Improve your Norwegian with tailor-made language app
Choose from 77 mother tongues and 6 Norwegian dialects. A new app offers customized Norwegian language exercises based on your native language. The newly launched app could prove a useful tool in adult education, too.
So what is “gand” sorcery – really?
Some people may have heard about the magical phenomenon of gand. When life seems to be against you or you’re plagued by one misfortune after another, you might jokingly say that you’ve been ‘ganda’ if you’re Norwegian. But what did gand really look like and why do we associate it with the Sami people?
Men are men and women have to watch out
Women who work on ships have to take responsibility for not being sexually harassed. This is the message according to a new book on gender, sexuality and power structures in large organizations.
Eiderdown farming – a living cultural tradition
For centuries, perhaps millennia, people and birds have interacted with each other. The tradition of eiderdown harvesting from this northern duck is still practised.
What the Vikings put in their pillows
Not too many people are able to identify birds by examining a single feather. But a number of folks need to know that sort of thing, and it can actually save lives.
Scandinavians shaped by several waves of immigration
So you think people in present-day Sweden and Norway are different from each other? It turns out that would have been closer to the truth some 9500 years ago.
Houses reused for over 1000 years during Stone Age
We’ve always heard that Stone Age people lived in caves. It turns out that’s not the case. They often lived in earthen huts, which they reused and kept up rather than building new ones.
Mystery in the bear cave
The oldest known bear bones from northern Scandinavia have been discovered in a limestone cave. But the cave also contained a mystery.
Pope said ‘no thanks’ to Norwegian coins
Norway minted its own coins during much of the Middle Ages. But the coins didn’t always impress outsiders or even the Norwegians themselves.
An Italian agricultural community seen through a 50-year-old looking glass
Fifty years ago an anthropologist studied and described an Italian agricultural community that was characterized by poverty, the Mafia and vendettas. Now his anthropological dissertation has been translated into Italian and is helping the community to understand themselves better.
Thousand-year-old cathedral surrenders its secrets, stone by stone
The secrets of St Olav’s shrine and Nidaros Cathedral have drawn pilgrims for nearly a thousand years. Curious researchers have also made the journey, eager to solve the mysteries locked up in the cathedral’s stones.
Archaeological finds unearthed on the fly
What was supposed to be a simple excavation to allow for the expansion of a church cemetery turned into a treasure trove of historic artefacts, including a decorative fitting from a book “imported” by Vikings from Ireland.
3000-year-old graves found under new E6 highway
Archaeologists from NTNU have unearthed Bronze Age graves ahead of planned road construction in Melhus municipality.
Vikings conquer Disney World
Disney World wants to showcase archaeological artefacts from the NTNU University Museum for millions of Florida visitors.
All forms of sexual harassment can cause psychological harm
Even the least severe forms of sexual harassment can have serious consequences for high school students who are targeted. Girls struggle the most.
When Vikings didn’t rely on mobile money transfers
What is money exactly, and what’s the connection between modern-day mobile money transfers and the larger-than-life Viking Halldórr?
The stalker who reveals hidden patterns
What really happens in meeting rooms? Why does communication sometimes just flow and other times get totally stuck?
What do we do with boys who can’t read?
Boys are much worse at reading than girls. The disparities have been quite consistent over 15 years. New insights may give hope – if they’re put to use.