Press releases

An experimental freshwater aquarium facility for research and teaching has been built at Karlstad University. The 250 m2 facility consists of five
rooms, equipped with several independent aquarium systems to create stream and lake-like environments. The four large, seven-meter long artificial streams are unique for Sweden, with few equivalents in the rest of the world.

In its bill Research for a Better Life (2004/05:80) the Swedish government presents its appraisal of how SEK 2.34 billion in new funding for research and development should be used with an eye to bolstering the position of Sweden as a research nation. The measures target both pure and needs-specific research and are geared to stimulate new Swedish innovations for growth and sustainable development

Acupuncture, in combination with exercise in the home, is clearly the best way to alleviate pain in pregnant women in connection with symphysiolysis, or slippage in the cartilage holding together bones. This is shown in research from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Sweden that is being published in the prestigious British medical journal BMJ.

For the first time in the world, researchers at the Quantum Device Physics Laboratory of the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, have been able to measure a current by counting the single electrons that pass through a nanoelectronic circuit. This is a fundamentally new way of measuring electrical currents, and may find its application in measurements of extremely small currents with very good accuracy. The results are published in the scientific journal Nature.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA have found no association between acrylamide intake in foods and risk of breast cancer among Swedish women. The findings appear in the March 16, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Professor Anna Brunström, Karlstad University, is heading a research project that will lead to more reliable and secure telecommunications via the Internet. Reliability is an important aspect when telephony moves over to the Internet, so-called IP-telephony.

A new method for navigation at sea, independent of GPS, is being put forward in a dissertation from Linköping University.

Scientists at Uppsala University and the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences have been participating in an international collaborative project to map the wild origins of the domesticated pig. The findings show that the wild boar was domesticated several times in different parts of Europe and Asia. The study is being presented in tomorrow’s issue of the scientific journal Science.

A gene that, in different variants, increases or decreases the level of atherosclerosis has been identified in mice. The corresponding human gene has been shown to play a role in the development of myocardial infarction. The results of the study is published this week on Nature Genetics Online.

A dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Götenborg UNiversity in Sweden shows that 1.3 percent of those waiting for a bypass operation die waiting. Many more patients would survive if high risk cases were given top priority.