Press releases

Sweden and the United States are to cooperate on aspects of research and development in the field of security. FOI (the Swedish Defence Research Agency) has been asked by the Government to initiate cooperation and to negotiate an agreement with the United States Department of Homeland Security. Relevant areas of research could, for example, include protection against dangerous substances and aspects of border and transport security including harbour security.

In the face of strong competition, FOI is to take part in one of thirteen research projects to be awarded funding for research relating to the fight against terrorism under the EU’s security research programme.

Repairing major damage to the derma is a difficult problem facing plastic surgeons. But now researchers at Linköping University have hit upon a highly promising method. By injecting tiny balls of gelatin, they have managed to get various types of cells to grow spontaneously in the areas where new tissue needs to be generated.

Peofessor Bjorn Vennstrom and colleagues in Spain and at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) have identified novel neural functions of thyroid hormone (TH), revealing that it is required during discrete periods of brain development to confer “normal” behavior.

Five years ago x-ray crystallography made it possible for the first time to study ribosomes in cells, where the all-important synthesis of proteins takes place. But it hasnt been understood just how amino acids are joined together to form proteins. Now researchers at Uppsala University have discovered the only possible mechanism and have used it to explain a number of biochemical experiments.

The sense of smell in women who are on the pill is tuned in to food, while women who are not on the pill are better at picking up the odor of male sweat. This is shown by Swedish and American researchers in the latest issue of Biological Psychology.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have discovered a previously unknown virus that has been found to affect children. The virus, called human bocavirus, was identified by the team using a new method for virus discovery on respiratory tract samples drawn from children at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. Their findings are published in the latest issue of PNAS (the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA).

Every eighth adult Swede suffers from migraine. Using a new method, researchers at Göteborg have managed for the first time ever to provide a detailed picture of an untreated attack. This will be of great significance for the development of new forms of treatment. The findings are reported in a dissertation at the Sahgrenska Academy.

Researchers at the Umeå Plant Science Centre at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden, report about a breakthrough in our understanding of how plants control their flowering. In an article published in the international journal Science, Thursday 11th, they show how a small molecule that is formed in the plant leaves is transported to the shoot tips where it induces the formation of flowers. This knowledge can lead to the development of new tools that can be used to control the timing of plant flowering, something that is of central importance in both agriculture and forestry.

A private donation of USD 5.5 million (approximately SEK 43 million) will allow Karolinska Institutet to create a brand new research centre where alternative forms of treatment can be assessed scientifically. It is intended that work will start at the centre in 2006.