By Andrew Williams •
July 30, 2009
Swedish scientists have discovered that vast numbers of wild birds in the Baltic Sea area are dying of a strange paralytic disease caused by advanced thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency in eggs, young, and adults.
In a new research paper the team, from Stockholm University, Sweden, report that levels of Thiamine, vital for the proper functioning of the nerves, were found to be deficient in the eggs, livers and brains of several local bird species, contributing to significant declines in many bird populations over the last few decades.
Hearteningly, it seems that paralysed individuals can be successfully remedied by thiamine treatment
By Andrew Williams •
January 12, 2009
A Swedish inventor has unveiled a solar-powered water purifier that could provide billions of the world’s poorest people with access to clean and disease-free drinking water [video].
The device, called the Solvatten, (Swedish for ’sun water’), looks much the same as a standard jerrycan and can be filled with up to ten liters of water, opened out, and left in the sun. A simple indicator shows either a red or green face to let users know when the water is safe to drink (typically after 3-4 hours), thus avoiding the risk of contracting water-borne diseases.
By Ariel Schwartz •
January 5, 2009
If you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax. The Swedish town of Halmstad has a solution. After an environmental review showed that Halmstad’s crematorium was pumping too much smoke into the air, the facility’s director decided to re-use heat from the cremations to warm up the crematorium’s buildings.
By Max Lindberg •
February 2, 2008
The Swedes are an inventive lot, but this article in The Local really takes the cake, or milk, if you will.
They milk 1000 cows at Wapnö castle outside Halmstad, Sweden, and during the process of cooling the milk from 37 to 3 degrees C, they have devised a way to capture that heat and use it to warm up the castle and workshop buildings.
By Max Lindberg •
December 22, 2007
Visitors to Stockholm could soon have a new option for cheap airport accommodation – a Boeing 747 at Arlanda airport.
Uppsala businessman Oscar Diös has been given permission by airport owner LFV and the Swedish National Roads Administration to open a youth hostel in a Jumbo Jet parked by the airport entrance.
Read all about it at The Local
