Researchers are increasingly using video games as ways to measure people’s abilities (or lack thereof), and mobile games couldn’t be absent from those studies. Recently, New Scientist reported on a study that used the mobile game Sea Hero Quest (Free) to primarily test Alzheimer’s disease symptoms but ended up also showing that Nordic people have the best sense of direction and the best navigational abilities in the world. Sea Hero Quest has you setting off in a boat, making several twists and turns through numerous icebergs, and then finding your way back to a starting point no longer visible. Players from 193 games navigated the icebergs of Sea Hero Quest, and the best players were from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. These results, of course, generated all kinds of Vikings-related headlines.

The results could be partly explained by how much Nordic people enjoy outdoor activities and how the winter landscape around those countries does force someone to have a good sense of direction and rely less on landmarks. Or it could be that Viking blood. The study also showed that men scored higher than women on average, people who play games did better than those who don’t, and you’re a better navigator at 19 than you are at 30. I’m always interested when games are used for scientific research, and I’m sure there’s plenty of opportunities here to measure people’s rage threshold as well.