The saint's legend speaks of a king who died a dramatic death in battle outside the church where he had just celebrated mass. But what can modern science tell us about his remains? A joint research project headed by Uppsala University now reveals more of the health condition of the medieval king Erik, what he looked like, where he lived and what the circumstances of his death were.
A difference of one hundredth of a percent in fitness is sufficient to select between winners and losers in evolution. For the first time researchers have quantified the tiny selective forces that shape bacterial genomes. The story is published today in the prestigious journal PLoS Genetics.
Human communication is powered by rules for combining words to generate novel meanings. Such syntactical rules have long been assumed to be unique humans. A new study, published in Nature Communications, show that Japanese great tits combine their calls using specific rules to communicate important compound messages.
For the first time, researchers have succeeded in passing an antibody through the blood-brain barrier to act as a tracer for PET imaging of the brain. This resulted in more precise information being obtained than with regular radioactive tracers. The study provides hope for more effective diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease and improvements in monitoring the effects of medication.
Individuals subjected to chronic low-dose exposure to organochlorine pesticides show and increased risk to obtain a future diagnosis of cognitive impairment. This is shown in a international study now published in Environmental International.
Sometimes so-called synonymous mutations occur in DNA. These do not lead to a change in the protein sequence but which may still have major negative effects on the ability of bacteria to survive. New research from Uppsala University has now shown that an organism can efficiently compensate for the negative effects. These findings have been published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
They live several kilometers under the surface of the earth, need no light or oxygen and can only be seen in a microscope. By sequencing genomes of a newly discovered group of microbes, the Hadesarchaea, an international team of researchers have found out how these microorganisms make a living in the deep subsurface biosphere of our planet.
The human desire to master light has taken us from controlling fire to building global optical networks. But several questions still remain to be answered. At this year's Celsius-Linné lectures on February 18, top international researchers Professor Eli Yablonovitch and Professor Lene Vestergaard Hau will present pioneering ways to manage and manipulate light for use in countless areas.
A new species of bird has been described in north-eastern India and adjacent parts of China by a team of scientists from Sweden, China, the US, India and Russia, headed by Professor Per Alström, Uppsala University, and Swedish University of Agricultural Science, SLU. The bird has been named the Himalayan Forest Thrush, Zoothera salimalii.
A new study shows that a novel imaging-based method for defining appropriateness of breast cancer treatment is as accurate as the current standard-of-care and could reduce the need for invasive tissue sampling. The results suggest that the method might lead to more optimal treatment of individual patients.
Most horses today are treasured for their ability to run, work, or be ridden, but have lost their wild-type camouflage: pale hair with zebra-like dark stripes and markings known as the Dun pattern. Now an international team of scientists has discovered what causes the Dun pattern and why it is lost in most horses.
The fossil group called the Ediacaran biota have been troubling researchers for a long time. In a new study, published in Biological Reviews, researchers from Sweden and Spain suggest the Ediacarans reveal previously unexplored pathways taken by animal evolution. They also propose a new way of looking at the effect the Ediacarans might have had on the evolution of other animals.
Harmful organic molecules in the indoor air can cause adverse health effects – a problem known as the “sick building syndrome”. A promising new solution is being developed at Uppsala University – window glass with a nanostructured coating based on titanium dioxide which uses sunlight to remove organic pollutants from the indoor air by passing it between the inner panes of the window.
There was no word for terrorism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but outbreaks of terrorist violence were frequent. In his new book on terrorism in history and literature, Uppsala University Professor of English Literature, Robert Appelbaum, documents the many ways terrorist violence was used, responded to, and written about in early modern Britain and France.
How can you tell if your mathematical model is good enough? In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University implemented a Turing test in the form of an online game (with over 1700 players) to assess how good their models were at reproducing collective motion of real fish schools. The results are published in Biology Letters.
Now a simple blood test can reveal your biological age—how old your body really is. The new research from Uppsala University is published in the Open Access journal Scientific Report@Nature today. ‘With this knowledge, it may be easier to motivate medical treatments or get a patient to change lifestyle and monitor the effect,’ says one of the authors, Professor Ulf Gyllensten.
Experiencing a traumatic event can cause life-long anxiety problems, called posttraumatic stress disorder. Swedish researchers from Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet now show that people with posttraumatic stress disorder have an imbalance between two neurochemical systems in the brain, serotonin and substance P. The greater the imbalance, the more serious the symptoms patients have.
The press release "Posttraumatic stress disorder reveals an imbalance between signalling systems in the brain" is cancelled. Embargo until December 1st at 9.00 GMT
The ruff is a Eurasian shorebird that has a spectacular lekking behaviour where highly ornamented males compete for females. Now two groups report that males with alternative reproductive strategies carry a chromosomal rearrangement that has been maintained as a balanced genetic polymorphism for about 4 million years.
Many of the world’s approximately 117 million lakes act as wet chimneys releasing large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The most recent estimates show that CO2 emissions from the world’s lakes, water courses and reservoirs are equivalent to almost a quarter of all the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels.