Published 17 April 2018 Illustration: Alessandro Tota (artist), Fiamma Luzzati (storyboard artist) . In 2017, the European Research Council (ERC) adopted a new approach to making research accessible to a broader audience – creating cartoons. Malin Parmar, a professor of cellular neuroscience at Lund University and recipient of an ERC grant, is one of the Swedish researchers whose research formed t

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/final-episode-erccomics-series-cells-life - 2025-07-29

Published 18 April 2018 Lukas Tomas and Harry Björkbacka (Photo: Björn Martinsson) New research from Lund University in Sweden shows that inflammatory, unstable atherosclerotic plaque has a metabolism that differs from that of stable plaque – and is similar to that of cancer cells. Future research will therefore investigate whether cancer drugs could potentially be used to treat cardiovascular dis

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/similarity-between-high-risk-atherosclerotic-plaque-and-cancer-cells-discovered - 2025-07-29

Published 19 April 2018 Image: Lund University Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Umeå are to become test cities in a new national sharing economy programme. “The cities of the future are facing major challenges. Sweden shall be a leader when it comes to developing the solutions that a sharing economy entails”, says Kes McCormick at Lund University. The programme – Sharing Cities Sweden – will be la

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-swedish-cities-become-sharing-economy-test-pilots - 2025-07-29

Published 27 April 2018 The European Union will ban the world’s most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees. The ban on neonicotinoids, approved by member nations today, is expected to come into force by the end of 2018 and will mean these insecticides can only be used in closed greenhouses.This ban on three main neonicotinoids has widespread public as

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/eu-agrees-ban-use-neonicotinoids - 2025-07-29

Published 30 April 2018 The blue-tailed damselfly (Ischnura elegans) in mating formation. Photo: Rachael Dudaniec How are insects responding to rapid climate change? Damselflies are evolving rapidly as they expand their range in response to a warming climate, according to new research led by Macquarie University researchers in Sydney. Damselflies are evolving rapidly as they expand their range in

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/are-damselflies-distress - 2025-07-29

Published 2 May 2018 Gaia. Illustration: ESA/ATG medialab and ESO/S. Brunier. The most comprehensive star catalogue in the history of astronomy has been released, mapping out an impressive 1.7 billion stars. The catalogue is based on observations made by the European satellite Gaia, and contains the exact distances, luminosity, temperatures and colours of millions of stars in the Milky Way. Astron

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/most-detailed-star-catalogue-ever-released - 2025-07-29

Published 3 May 2018 Ivanna Read. Photo: Mats Kristersson. Meet Ivanna Read: the Master's student in Strategic Communication who is putting Lund University on the map as a blogger on Studyinsweden.se. In addition to being a high achiever academically, she is also the University's latest global ambassador - on 8 May she will be named as Lund University's Global Swede at a ceremony at the Ministry f

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/lund-universitys-new-global-ambassador - 2025-07-29

Published 4 May 2018 Agroecology is a better alternative than large-scale agriculture, both for the climate and for small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to researcher Ellinor Isgren from Lund University in Sweden. This agricultural model preserves biodiversity and safeguards food supply while avoiding soil depletion. “We must consider other, alternative models for developing agriculture,

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/agroecology-better-alternative-sub-saharan-africa - 2025-07-29

Published 14 May 2018 New sand filters being installed at Ringsjöverket in southern Sweden. (Photo: Sandy Chan) Sustainable, biological filters called slow sand filters have been used to filter drinking water since the 1800s. They don’t use any chemicals, create no waste and use very little energy. However, technologies that meet modern requirements for control, monitoring and time-efficiency have

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/eco-friendly-water-treatment-works-best-experienced-bacterial-flora - 2025-07-29

Published 15 May 2018 Elia Psouni For human beings to function socially, they need to be able to perceive, understand, and talk about others’ mental states, such as beliefs, desires and intentions. There is no consensus among researchers as to when children develop this ability. Previous research indicates that it emerges around the age of four, but research at Lund University in Sweden shows that

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/attentive-adults-increase-childrens-ability-empathise - 2025-07-29

Published 16 May 2018 Malin Parmar (Photo: Kennet Ruona) One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Novo Nordisk, are starting a new stem cell program for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease in close collaboration with Lund University. Over the last ten years, Professor Malin Parmar and her research team at the Biomedical Centre in Lund have conducted successful, clinically relevant, ba

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/collaboration-between-lund-university-researchers-and-novo-nordisk-paves-way-large-scale-cell - 2025-07-29

Published 16 May 2018 Blue tits (Photo: Johan Nilsson) For decades, researchers have thought that access to food determined the brood size of birds. Now, biologists at Lund University in Sweden have discovered a completely new explanation: the body temperature of small birds can increase by more than 4°C to exceed 45°C when they are feeding their young. Larger broods would require more work, resul

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/small-birds-almost-overheat-while-feeding-their-young - 2025-07-29

Published 22 May 2018 James Surmeier (Photo: Kennet Ruona) James Surmeier, professor at Northwestern University, recently visited Lund University where he gave the 2018 Segerfalk Lecture. In this interview, he talks about how technology is helping brain research to advance, about almost giving up research altogether – and the discovery that could slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease. James 

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/exciting-times-brain-researchers - 2025-07-29

Published 23 May 2018 Photo: Mikael Risedal What makes for a successful transition to a low-carbon energy system? Local involvement, perceived fairness and information sharing, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden. The researchers studied two cases, one in Samsø (Denmark) and one in Feldheim (Germany) of successful implementation of low-carbon energy systems. Samsø is the world

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/how-local-communities-can-transition-sustainable-energy-systems - 2025-07-29

Published 24 May 2018 Photo: Pål Axel Olsson Since 2012, the EU project Sandlife has worked to restore open sandy habitats in southern Sweden. Overgrown environmentally-protected areas, known as Natura 2000 areas, on sandy land in Skåne, Halland and Öland, have been opened up to become more accessible to both the public and rare plants and animals. The first results are now being presented and the

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/biodiversity-increased-after-open-sandy-habitat-restoration - 2025-07-29

Published 25 May 2018 Sara Gabrielsson and Bertha Mhepela (Photo: Ann Åkerman) In Tanzania, girls on their period avoid going to school, something that affects their opportunities for education. A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that the menstrual cup could be a step towards better school attendance, and a life with more freedom. As a young woman in Tanzania, having your period is a

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/menstrual-cups-could-help-girls-attend-school-tanzania - 2025-07-29

Published 29 May 2018 Fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) Photo: Marcus Stensmyr A new doctoral thesis from Lund University in Sweden shows how fruit flies use their sense of smell and humidity to find food, avoid dehydration and discover the best place to lay their eggs – in overripe marula fruits. Faeces from herbivores are also suitable, but the flies reject carnivore excrement. Summer is high

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/fruit-flies-fear-lion-faeces - 2025-07-29

Published 30 May 2018 The EU biofuel regulation does not guarantee a reduced climate impact – nor does it address the core issue of substantially reducing transport emissions, according to a new doctoral thesis from Lund University in Sweden. “On a smaller scale, biofuels can be a good alternative for public transport, but we cannot solve the climate issue by simply replacing fossil fuels with bio

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/eu-biofuel-regulation-not-sustainable-long-term - 2025-07-29

Published 31 May 2018 Photo: Josefin Starkhammar Millions of years of evolutionary fine-tuning have made dolphins phenomenally good at using echolocation to orient themselves, find food and communicate with one another. But how do they actually do it? New research from Lund University in Sweden shows that they emit two intertwined ultrasound beam components at different frequencies – and with slig

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/dolphin-algorithm-could-lead-better-medical-ultrasounds - 2025-07-29

Published 1 June 2018 This year, Sweden celebrates a century of democracy and fair elections are seen as self-evident. How did our democracy develop and how did we get rid of election fraud? A political scientist at Lund University in Sweden has now examined the country’s election fraud history and its underlying causes – from 1719 to the early 1900s. The conclusion? Bureaucrats and political part

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/how-sweden-became-one-worlds-most-stable-democracies - 2025-07-29