"Grettir said that his temperament had not improved and that he had much more trouble restraining himself and was much quicker to take offence than before. He noticed a marked difference in that he had grown so afraid of the dark that he did not dare to go anywhere alone after nightfall – he thought he could see all kinds of phantoms." 

This is a quotation from The Saga of Grettir the Strong, describing how the protagonist is tormented by darkness. The reader sees clearly how anxiety, fear and hallucinations haunt Grettir Ásmundarson, a man with the physical strength to take on almost anything, except the dark. 

Anyone who reads will have noticed that darkness can play a significant role in staging and narrative, but also that it has symbolic significance in literature and language. For example, this description of the interplay between the opposites of dark and light uses poetic imagery that could almost be taken from modern literature. 

Conspiracy mentality around the globe tends to be particularly pronounced on the political fringes. Results of surveys involving more than 100,000 participants in 26 countries show a correlation between belief in conspiracies and identification as far-left, and, in particular, far-right. The results were published in Nature Human Behavior recently and Hulda Þórisdóttir, associate professor of political science at the University of Iceland is one of the authors.

Conspiracy theories have circulated at all times, in all cultures, and among all populations. They routinely appear in conjunction with major incidents, such as those that today take the form of terrorist attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and presidential elections.  The term "conspiracy mentality" is used to describe the mindset of an individual who is convinced that hidden, malevolent forces are at work somewhere, plotting against targeted groups or even the whole world. 

The University of Iceland has in recent years focused on supporting staff and students from all schools in innovation and utilisation of research findings. The university is keen to create new social and economic opportunities and to increase its impact on the community at large. The university currently owns shares in around 20 start-ups, founded by staff and student – all of them working on addressing challenges faced by Icelandic society and often humanity as a whole. 

One of these is the company Atmonia. Atmonia is developing a revolutionary technology that will facilitate environmentally friendly production of fertilizer and increase agriculture’s access worldwide to fertilizer that will reduce their carbon footprint. The company is furthermore a founding partner a green energy park in Reyðarfjörður in east-Iceland, where Atmonia’s technology will be used for sustainable production of fertilizer for the domestic market.