Search results

As China modernizes, its waste management capacities are put to a test. Faced by significant pressures to find a solution for growing municipal solid waste, China’s authorities have embraced waste incineration technology as a seemingly cost-efficient alternative to landfills. Against this push, significant societal opposition against the construction of waste incinerators has been mounting. Yet wh

Popular science: Find a suitable area for rainwater harvesting Rainwater harvesting is a technique to capture and store rainfall where it falls. The technique of water harvesting can be used for different purposes, e.g providing irrigation water, drinking water, increase groundwater recharge, and reduce flood risk. The application of rainwater harvesting is suitable in arid and semi-arid areas, w

The Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus) faces imminent endangerment due to climate change resulting in the declining population of its primary prey, the European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). With ongoing environmental shifts, this threat intensifies, heightening the risk of extinction for the species. The aim of this study was to explore a potential conservation strategy; the possibility of relocating

Nature provides science and society with a virtually unlimited supply of structurally diverse and biologically active molecules; the natural products. While some are directly useful in commercial applications, others are valuable for studying and understanding biological phenomena at the molecular level. An example is the signaling of nerve cells, which has been explored in considerable detail usi

Only 40% of the total CO2 emitted by human activities and natural sources remain in the atmosphere, since the rest is taken up by plants and oceans. In particular temperate and boreal forests are usually significant sinks of carbon, even if they are very susceptible ecosystems and they might turn into sources in consequence of the predicted temperature increase. That is one of the reasons why a ne

Popular Abstract in Swedish Cellulosa är ett av de vanligast förekommande biologiska ämnena på jorden och en mycket viktig råvara. Cellulosa är en polymer, uppbyggd av glukosmolekyler som är bundna till varandra i kedjor. Kedjorna kan bli mycket långa och består ofta av flera tusen glukosmolekyler. Eftersom cellulosakedjor är lineära kan de packa sig parallellt med varandra och bilda styva fibrer Soluble derivatives of cellulose have become increasingly important in industrial products e.g. in pharmaceutical applications and in technical dispersions. The polymer characteristics of modified celluloses are to a high degree determined by the substituent distribution along the polymeric backbone. The distribution will be more or less heterogeneous both due to the fact that polymers from renewa

Fragrance production in petunia flowers is highly regulated. Two transcription factors, ODORANT1 (ODO1) and EMISSION OF BENZENOIDS II (EOBII) have recently been identified as regulators of the volatile benzenoid/phenylpropanoid pathway in petals. Unlike the non-fragrant Petunia hybrida cultivar R27, the fragrant cultivar Mitchell highly expresses ODO1. Using stable reporter lines, we identified th

Since the EU introduced the European Landscape Convention (ELC) in 2000, the landscape has received growing attention in spatial planning and environmental impact assessments. To promote implementation of the ELC, the Swedish National Heritage Board proposed its Landscape Vision 2020, which addresses the goal of a ‘holistic landscape policy’. This study examined challenges and benefits brought by

We investigated whether the spruce seed moth (Cydia strobilella L., Tortricidae: Grapholitini), an important pest in seed orchards of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.), can make use of the spectral properties of its host when searching for flowers to oviposit on. Spectral measurements showed that the flowers, and the cones they develop into, differ from a background of P. abies needles by a

Permafrost degradation has the potential to change the Arctic tundra landscape. We observed rapid local thawing of ice-rich permafrost resulting in thaw pond formation, which was triggered by removal of the shrub cover in a field experiment. This study aimed to examine the rate of permafrost thaw and the initial vegetation succession after the permafrost collapse. Methods In the experiment, we mea

Ytan av alla celler är dekorerad med kolhydrater som står för mycket av den information en cell överför till omgivande celler. Många av kolhydraterna tillhör en föreningsklass som kallas proteoglykaner som består av ett protein sammanbundet med en eller flera långa kolhydratkedjor. Dessa kolhydratkedjor kallas glykosaminoglykaner och är bundna till proteinet via kolhydraten xylos. Än så länge har β-1,4-Galactosyltransferase 7 (β4GalT7) is a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of proteoglycans (PGs) and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) chains, which are important macromolecules involved in many biological processes such as cell growth and cell signaling as well as in cancer pathobiology and viral and bacterial infections. Despite its pivotal role, much is still unknown regarding the specific structure of