Science Faculty Magazine No 1 2017 - English by Faculty of Science - University of Gothenburg

Faculty of Science 1|2017

SCIENCE FACULTY M

Syrian Loujain on track to reach her goal in Sweden EDUCATION

Birds – a passion for both birdwatchers and researchers RESEARCH

CELL BIOLOGIST JOHANNA HÖÖG

Yearns to see things that have never been seen before

EDITORIAL SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE Science Faculty Magazine is for those interested in the University of Gothenburg and in particular the work at the Faculty of Science.

We hope you will enjoy this glance into the Faculty of Science. The Science Faculty Magazine’s target group ranges from Faculty staff and alumni to business and industry, public actors and politicians with an interest in mathematics and the natural sciences.

EDITOR Camilla Persson +46-31-786 9869 camilla.persson@science.gu.se

EDITORIAL STAFF Carina Eliasson Robert Karlsson Linnéa Magnusson Tanja Thompson

PUBLISHER

Gustav Bertilsson Uleberg

LAYOUT

Camilla Persson

COVER

Researcher Johanna Höög Photo: Malin Arnesson

ADDRESS

University of Gothenburg Faculty Office of Science Box 460 405 30 Göteborg Sweden E-mail: info@science.gu.se

Billes Tryckeri

ONLINE MAGAZINE

www.sciencefacultymagazine.com

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

he climate threat is ever present, and important research is under way in an attempt to understand how changes in climate affect life on Earth. One topical subject that is described in this issue is groundwater levels in Sweden, which are low because of the dry weather. But there are technical solutions to remedy water shortages. Research on the impact of climate change on groundwater levels is still in its infancy, however. THERE IS PLENTY of water on the planet, however, and

melting of the ice caps in the northern and southern hemispheres is connected with climate changes caused by humans, especially carbon dioxide emissions. In addition to the immediate effects of rising sea levels in low-lying parts of the world, we need to know more about how other repercussions, such as acidification of the oceans, affect living organisms. Water also plays a crucial role in the formation of quick clay and the destabilization of the ground that results. This can have major consequences, as in the case of the landslide at Tuve, which you can read about in this issue. RAPID CHANGES IN CLIMATE also have an impact on biodiversity. Certain species disappear while others gain better living conditions, but the possibility of adapting is decreasing, which could lead to a reduction in biodiversity. These issues are the focus of both the Gothenburg Centre for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology’s chair-programme in the spring and the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre.

NYHETER

»Science-based facts need to be generally known, and citizens can expect universities to contribute these to the general discussion»

Gothenburg invests heavily in biodiversity

WE CAN LEARN MORE about our own planet by stud-

ying exoplanets, researchers argue. Improved instrumentation has made it possible to detect numerous exoplanets in other solar systems where there is the possibility of life as we understand it. Developments in the field are both interesting and fascinating. INTERACTION WITH THE SURROUNDING community is an important part of a university’s activities. Sciencebased facts need to be generally known, and citizens can expect universities to contribute these to the general discussion. Collaboration in this sense is mainly about information and working towards a good dialogue with decision makers. However, collaboration can be so much more, and a mutual exchange with other government agencies and the business community provides important perspective on research issues and contributes to utilisation of the research. Our alumni active outside of the university world serve as important bridges between academia and industry. THIS HAS BEEN A SMALL SELECTION from the content of this issue of Science Faculty Magazine. Spring is here and we can look forward to a pleasant summer, with time for rest and reflection. This is our contribution. Read and marvel at the wonderful world of science.

New worlds being discovered with advanced telescopes

A mudslide devastated an entire area on Hisingen

Elisabet Ahlberg, Dean

New trend

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017 in birdwatching

THE RESEARCHER

Thin slices of cells for electron microscopic images are made in a microtome that Johanna has received from a colleague at the University of Oslo. ‘The newly purchased instrument is a basic piece of equipment, but to produce tomography myself and be able to get 3D images, I plan to use the more advanced equipment available at Umeå University.’

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

‘That is why I have started a whole new field of research’ After 15 years abroad at some of the world’s most prestigious universities, Johanna Höög has returned to Sweden. Now she is starting a whole new field of research in which she will study the 3D structure of sperm flagella using cryo-electron tomography. ‘The coolest thing about my job is when you see things that nobody else has seen before.’

e meet cell biologist Johanna Höög at Lundberg Laboratory, her workplace for the last couple of years. Right now, she is excited about being able to order an electron microscope so that she can start her research in earnest. ‘Using electron microscopy, we can take high-resolution photos of cells and with electron tomography take pictures from many different angles and then assemble them into a three-dimensional image. You could say that this is where structural biology and cell biology meet.’

ral student at Europe’s top laboratory, EMBL (the European Molecular Biology Laboratory) in Heidelberg, and it continued when she received a postdoctoral position in Oxford. At the same time, she received a research grant established to enable young researchers to stay in the best research environments in the world. ‘The research grant essentially made it possible for me to go wherever I wanted to’, says Johanna, who spent three years in Boulder, Colorado, among other places. AFTER THOSE YEARS IN the United States,

ELECTRON MICROSCOPY IS A hot research

field abroad, but it is perhaps not as common in Sweden. During her years abroad, Johanna has become something of an expert in the field, and she even says that she ‘really gets going when she sees an excellent image’. This fascination began when she was still a docto-

she returned to Germany and Dresden. There she met her husband, Per, who grew up in the United States with Swedish parents, and they had a wonderful time in Germany. She first began thinking about moving home to Sweden when their daughter Julia was born. ‘After having skyping with the family in SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THE RESEARCHER Trollhättan practically every day, we felt that it was time to move home again.’ SHE STUDIES FLAGELLA – that is cellular ‘tails’ – that occur with some cells. The flagella can serve as a propeller, for example, enabling a cell to swim. Most people researching flagella look at green algae, but Johanna has also studied the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness. Her findings have shown that the flagella of both of these organisms look very different, and she then posed the question of how the flagella in human cells are constructed. But such studies have not been carried out. ‘That is why I have started a whole new field of research’, she says with a smile. One type of human cell that has a small propelling tail is sperm, making sperm cells ideal subjects for study. By mapping out how

the flagellum is structured and comparing healthy sperm with infertile ones, it should be possible to determine where the problem lies. ‘For example, we can look at infertile sperm that swim in a circle instead of straight ahead. What isn’t working? What part of the engine is missing?’ JOHANNA IS SET TO get her research under

way as soon as the new instrument arrives and she has received ethical permission to study human cells. That is something that was not needed when she started to check into this in the United States. ‘It will be very exciting to get started and look at human cells, where we can find brand new things and see things that nobody else has seen.’ TEXT CAMILLA PERSSON PHOTO MALIN ARNESSON

Johanna Höög Age: 38 Family: Her husband, Per, who is also a researcher at the University of Gothenburg, and 5-year-old daughter Julia What I do when I’m not working: ‘Spend time with the family; we are very tight. And we travel a lot to meet up with friends, who live all over the world. As a hobby, I grow tomatoes in the greenhouse at home. I counted 67 plants today.’ Best place to stay: ‘Southern Germany, where it is super nice. I really hated living in England. When I studied there, I had to hold two extra jobs to pay the rent. Nine people shared a WC and living standards were lousy. Not to mention the bad weather.’

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

Illustration: Livia Winkler

NEWS

More natural cultivation environments benefit salmon stocks The more the cultivation environment for salmon resembles that of nature, the better equipped the fish are to make the transition from a cultivated to a wild environment. Malin Rosengren, at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, shows in her thesis how compensation cultivation, cultivation tanks in which fish are raised, can be improved by simple measures. A problem for the salmon species that migrate between freshwater and saltwater is that spawning areas for the fish today are destroyed by hydroelectric dams. This has resulted in what is known as compensation cultivation, or tanks in which salmon are raised before being released into natural waterways. But a cultivation environment, where thousands of fish swim in the same tank, differs significantly from natural waterways. There is a great risk that the fish will become stressed and poorly equipped to survive in the wild environment.

New way to ionise large molecules is discovered An international research team led by researchers at the Department of Physics has discovered a new way to ionise large molecules that cannot be explained by the photoelectric effect, which was discovered by Albert Einstein. The discovery has implications for astrophysics in describing how charged particles behave in newborn stars. The discovery, which recently was published as a lead story in Physical Review Letters, has fundamental importance for understanding the ionisation process. This is the process by which an atom, through the loss of one or more electrons, makes the transition from being neutral to becoming positively charged.

New insight into circadian rhythm increases our understanding of the ageing process Disruptions in circadian rhythms may increase the risk for both cancer and premature ageing. Now researchers at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology have demonstrated a mechanism through which light can affect a protein, peroxiredoxin, that has proved to be essential for biological clocks to function properly. ‘In our study, we have identified a new way for the cells to sense light, a signal chain that peroxiredoxin is part of’, says researcher Mikael Molin.

Three dimensional structures pave the way for future medication Researchers at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, in collaboration with international researchers, have developed new chemical compounds that could ultimately lead to new drugs for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. The interdisciplinary research group has concentrated on the enzyme DHODH, which plays a key role in the cell’s production of the DNA building block pyrimidine.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

Gothenburg summit meeting for biodiversity Thirteen partners have joined forces with the University of Gothenburg as hosts for a programme to promote biodiversity. ‘Biodiversity is essential for our survival on Earth and for maintaining natural processes of the ecosystem’, Alexandre Antonelli says.

wo years have passed since we interviewed Alexandre Antonelli, professor of biodiversity (issue 1/2015). He dreamed then that within ten years he would lead a research centre on biodiversity at the University of Gothenburg and expressed a desire for biodiversity to assume a higher profile in society. Now, two years later, the University of Gothenburg is hosting a new centre of expertise and research, the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, where he is executive director. ‘I could not have imagined what tremendous support and impact a suggestion for a research centre would garner among colleagues, the administration and the public’, Alexandre says. ‘Many people are talking about biodiversity and many have become inspired. But this is only a first step towards achieving our goals and truly making a difference.’ BIODIVERSITY IS ABOUT the abundance of variation among living organisms of all origins. Threats to biodiversity include destruction or diminishment of habitat, the killing of too many individuals in a species and pollutants that have a negative impact on the environment. There are about eight million species in the world, if you exclude bacteria. Of the eight million, we are acquainted with only a little

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

more than 10 per cent, and researchers are constantly discovering new species. Unfortunately, human beings are the main reason that species have been eradicated and that many species run the risk of extinction. ‘There are many aspects related to abundant biodiversity, ranging from economic, moral and aesthetic considerations to the sustainability aspect’, Alexandre explains. THE GOTHENBURG GLOBAL

Biodiversity Centre is made up of 13 different partners who are doing research on biodiversity or are involved with it in various ways. Håkon Sigurdsson is the research director and project manager at Universeum, one of the centre’s partners, and he believes that the centre contributes to work that is among the most important we can undertake today. ‘Building knowledge about biodiversity to understand the context in which we ourselves play such a large role is absolutely crucial for us to be able to hand over a beautiful and functioning world to our children and their future.’

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

Alexandre Antonelli maintains that knowledge, interest and resources for biodiversity studies exist in many different places in society but rarely are brought together. ‘By increasing collaboration among the centre’s partners and members, we hope to vigorously address major issues and solve problems that we previously have not been able to resolve.’ THE CENTRE IS IN PLACE, but for Alexandre Antonelli, it’s only a first step. Now he is dreaming of developing a laboratory with robots that can do most of the work. The robots should be able to process large amounts of information, which can produce exciting results. ‘We should be able to sequence the genome of thousands of species and use the information to shed light on some of the most fundamental questions in biology. Such an initiative would make Gothenburg a unique cradle for cutting-edge research and attract students and researchers from all over the world, especially from developing countries where biodiversity is often very high, but resources are low.’ TEXT LINNÉA MAGNUSSON PHOTO ALEXANDRE ANTONELLI

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

Working under a theme encourages an interdisciplinary approach and collaboration Why is there such a great variety of species in tropical countries compared to the rest of the world? What role can museums and herbaria play in research on evolution? These are some of the questions that are the focus of the Origins of Biodiversity programme organised by the Gothenburg Centre for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology (GoCAS) in the spring.

rigins of Biodiversity is led by Professor Scott Edwards, an evolutionary biologist from Harvard University. ‘Evolution and biology involve taking a step back and considering the world objectively’, Scott says. The programme brings together researchers and students in the fields of biology, medicine, mathematics, physics and computer science to discuss the theory of evolution and biodiversity based on their respective fields.

THE PROGRAMME CONSISTS OF workshops

with five different themes relating to subjects such as phylogeography – that is, the geographic distribution patterns of species and their genetic kinship. Scott Edwards has not encountered anything like GoCAS before and anticipa-

tes many dividends from the programme. ‘The nice thing about the collaboration between the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology is that it brings people together’, says Scott. ‘Research no longer takes place in isolation, but is a collaborative effort. It’s a matter of bandying about ideas with each other and saying, “What if we do it this way?” Or “What kind of experiment can we conduct to test this idea?”’ BIOLOGIST KARIN HÅRDING is coordinator for the spring programme. ‘GoCAS seeks to promote curiosity-guided research under a theme that has an interdisciplinary nature and encourages collaboration among multiple departments.’ TEXT&PHOTO LINNÉA MAGNUSSON

Biodiversity brings together researchers in two centres of expertise and research. Professor Alexandre Antonelli (left) and Allison Perrigo from the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre together with Professor Scott Edwards, who is leading the Origins of Biodiversity theme within the Gothenburg Centre for AdvancedSCIENCE Studies in Science and Technology. FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017 11

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

Expensive drops for a more secure future Ninety-seven per cent of the world’s usable fresh water is stored as groundwater. Despite this, we know very little about groundwater and how, for example, it is being affected by climate change. Hydrologist Roland Barthel wants to change this.

ecause of the dry weather pattern in the summer of 2016, southeastern Sweden was affected by water shortages. The situation was worst on Öland, but Gotland and the eastern coast of Götaland also experienced major problems from lack of access to water. ‘In Sweden there should be no water shortages’, Roland Barthel says. ‘We have many

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

large lakes, particularly Vänern and Vättern, so there is more than enough for everyone to get water. Our problem is the distribution of the water. In a sparsely populated country with great distances, we need to have long water pipes, and we haven’t built up a good system for that.’ WHEN WATER SHORTAGES arise in a region, they are mainly due to two aspects. In part there’s the natural aspect, whether there is more or less water in the groundwater reservoir. But the technical aspect also is important. If there is a good and well-developed water supply system that can handle water shortages over a certain period of time, no problems arise. It can be a matter of de-

salination of seawater, for example. Öland lacked this type of system. PROFESSOR BARTHEL IS A hydrologist and has conducted groundwater research for more than 20 years. Groundwater systems are complex. The water can be anywhere from a few centimetres to 100 metres below the surface of the ground, and a variety of factors influence what the level in an area is. If it rains a lot and intensely, a greater proportion of the water will run off from the surface of the land and less will penetrate into the groundwater, but if it rains less intensely, more water sinks into the ground. If an area gets a lot of rain in the winter and spring instead of in summer, more water

goes down into the groundwater because less water evaporates. ‘There are no two places on Earth where groundwater behaves exactly the same’, says Roland. ‘But the time series we have over how groundwater has behaved are short, often no more than 50 years old, and there is very little understanding of how groundwater systems actually respond to climate change. This makes the model results that exist very uncertain.’ ROLAND HAS RECENTLY launched a threeyear research project in which he and his colleagues will study measurement data from groundwater systems. The goal is to find correlations between groundwater resour-

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

ces and climate changes to see how future climate changes may affect groundwater systems in Sweden. Because relatively little measurement data has been collected in Sweden, the data to be used for method development comes from measurements made in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. Eleven million people live there in an area somewhat larger than the regions of Västra Götaland and Halland. As a result, a well-developed water distribution system has been built to convey water from Germany’s largest lake, Lake Constance, and other sources. The effort to supply the population with water has also led authorities to conduct measurements of groundwater there to a much greater extent than Sweden. THE MEASUREMENTS in Germany

come from an area with large differences

in climate, geology and topography, which encompasses virtually all the conditions that also exist in Sweden. The question that Roland wants answered is: when can you foresee an approaching water shortage? He shows a series of images of measurements of groundwater supplies during 30 years at various locations in southern Germany. Some curves slope slowly downward, while the others vacillate strongly between high and low values in a short time. By studying how the climate correlated with the measurements, researchers can see how it has affected the groundwater systems on that particular site and in that sort of environment. ‘When we see what it looked like in the past, we can predict what the future will look like’, says Roland. ‘The goal is to create a tool kit that we can use in Sweden to investigate how groundwater will react to changes in different places – in urban environments, in the countryside or along the coast. In the past I’ve used large, complex models that require a great deal of data and time, but they did not provide reliable results.’ THE CLIMATE MODELS that have been

Groundwater levels in large reservoirs, June 2016 Above normal Close to normal Below normal Far below normal

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

created in Sweden indicate that the climate will become warmer and drier in southeastern Sweden and wetter in western Sweden. Generally, there will be more rain in the six cooler months of the year. If this will lead to more or less groundwater in a region is very difficult to determine because of the numerous and complicated processes going on that have an impact. On one hand, higher temperatures lead to more evaporation and

NYHETER

In one of his projects, Roland Barthel (second from right) looked into the state of water resources on the two Koster Islands in northern Bohuslän. Because of the large proportion of summer residents on the two islands, the water supply varies a great deal between the summer and winter months.

less snow, but one the other hand they also lead to longer growing seasons. In addition to the natural and the technical aspects, there is a third aspect that can affect if and when a water shortage occurs. Roland refers to this as a social aspect: what we perceive as water scarcity? As an example, he cites a person staying in a summer cottage who is accustomed to being able to shower only a few times a week at the most. ‘In that case, greater scarcity is required for the person to perceive it as a water shortage. On the other hand, if you are accustomed to having water as soon as you turn on the faucet, maybe you have a different view of having a water shortage.’ IN ADDITION, IT’S RELATIVELY common to have a private well in Sweden. Close to 1.2 million Swedes get their water from private wells annually, and that figure rises by one

million during the summer when many live in their summer cottages. ‘There is a psychological factor at work here. Many people want to have their own well with their own water – even if the water tastes bad’, Roland says with smile. ALTHOUGH THE SUMMER of 2016 demon-

strated that water shortages can occur in Sweden, Roland doesn’t think that Sweden will experience this as a big problem in the future. The solutions available today are sufficient to solve the problems that may arise. ‘But worldwide, there are many regions that have big problems with their water supply, and in those regions there are not always technical possibilities and financial resources available to eliminate the problem. At the global level, water scarcity is one of the most serious dangers of our time.’ TEXT ROBERT KARLSSON PHOTO SHUTTERSTOCK & STEFAN BANZHAF ILLUSTRATION SGU, GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF SWEDEN SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

Is there anybody out the Almost 25 years have passed since the discovery of the first exoplanet – that is, a planet outside our solar system. Today, we know of several thousand of them. ‘It’s difficult to put into words how exciting this is’, says researcher Andreas Johnsson. ‘We’re actually talking about whole new worlds.’

he first confirmed observation of an exoplanet occurred in 1995. Since then a lot has happened. When Time magazine recently compiled a list of the 100 most influential people right now, three of them were researchers linked with efforts to discover exoplanets. ‘The first that were found were gas giants several times larger than Jupiter, but in recent years we have found more and more planets made of rock like Earth’, says physical geographer Andreas Johnsson. HE HAS TAKEN HIS research domain beyond

our planet’s boundaries and is studying the landscape and climate of the planet Mars. His primary focus has been on the water on our neighbouring planet. Currently, he is working with measurements made on a certain type of landform where the earth-layer has slowly moved down the hillsides on Svalbard. The formations are virtually identical to formations that have been found on Mars. ‘How material moves down the slopes on Mars has long been unclear. By comparing results of studies we’ve done on Svalbard, we’ve seen that it’s probably due to the fact that the ground thawed and froze again and again successively on Mars. This is another sign that in the past there has been much more liquid water in the soil on Mars. These formations could

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

not have come into being otherwise.’ Although there are interesting worlds to study in our own solar system, Andreas maintains that the research on exoplanets provides an even broader perspective on our place in the universe. The distant solar systems where exoplanets exist and how they differ in regard to how our own solar system looks can give us greater understanding of how our solar system formed. Our own solar system also gives us tools to evaluate new exoplanetary systems. ‘In the astronomical context, this can be a matter of small nuances. Such as that our planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water can exist and life can emerge, whereas one of our neighbours, Venus, is a blast furnace and our other neighbour, Mars, is a freezer. Knowledge of our own solar system’s planets allows us to better study new exoplanets.’ THE FACT THAT RESEARCHERS are discovering so many exoplanets right now is due to improved instrumentation, which has opened up new opportunities. A major contributing factor is the Kepler Telescope, which was launched in 2009 and has discovered more than a thousand exoplanets. ‘The Kepler Telescope is so powerful that we are discovering planets almost wherever we aim it.’ Because planets reflect so little light,

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

ere? most exoplanets are discovered by indirect methods. One such approach is to observe how there is a slight reduction in a star’s brightness when a planet moves in front of its parent star. Even so, researchers can already say something about the planets that have been found, including the distance from the star they orbit, the planetary mass and even what the environment of the planets may look like. ‘This is a fantastic area of research. It’s very stimulating to imagine what they look like and being able to send instruments there or even go there. As a physical geographer, I can’t help thinking about all the fascinating landscapes to explore – alien landscapes that all relate a unique history. The thought is staggering.’

Planet UCF-1.01 orbits the star GJ 436 and is about 33 light years from us. UCF-1.01, one of the smallest exoplanets that have been found, is two-thirds the size of Earth.

TEXT ROBERT KARLSSON PHOTO NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. HURT (SSC)

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

FORTY YEARS SINCE THE TUVE LANDSLIDE The time was 4:04 PM when the ground in Tuve suddenly started moving. Five minutes later 65 houses had been destroyed and nine people had lost their lives in one of Sweden’s largest landslides. ‘Research has taught us more about the formation of quick clay and its preconditions since the Tuve landslide’, says geologist Mats Olvmo.

n 30 November it will be 40 years since an entire residential area in Tuve on the island of Hisingen was destroyed by a mudslide. This was by no means the first landslide along the Göta River Valley, but it is the one that had the greatest impact on many people in modern times. Besides the fact that nine people were killed, 400 were left homeless when their houses were destroyed. What happened on that November afternoon? Like several other landslides around the Göta River, the Tuve slide was caused by quick clay. Quick clay is a kind of clay that is sensitive to mechanical disturbance and that can quickly lose its stability. ‘The structure of the clay collapses and it becomes completely fluid’, Mats says.

QUICK CLAY SLIDES develop in what are known as sensitive clays, which mainly occur along the coasts of Sweden, Norway, Canada and elsewhere. This type of marine blue clay had been deposited on the seabed adjacent to the ice sheet that melted away during the latest ice age. In connection with land elevation, the clay was then lifted above the water’s surface, where the salt was slowly leached out by rainwater or groundwater.

In somewhat simplified terms, you could say that the salt acts as a kind of binder in the clay. When the salt disappears, the clay becomes sensitive and there is a risk that it will liquefy if it is subjected to the kind of shaking that occurs in connection with traffic or construction. BUT IT’S NOT JUST groundwater that affects the stability of the clay. A variety of other factors are involved. For example, quick clay is formed at different rates, depending on how soil layers are built up and how the landscape is configured. In the case of Tuve, many factors coincided, causing the landslide. It started in the area between two heights, Snarberget and Tångeklacken, where the surface of the bedrock tilts steeply downwards and the clay is not supported by rock down along the valley. There was good potential for leaching here, and after an extremely rainy autumn, what is called pore water pressure was sky-high. This meant that the clay was exposed to such high pressure from the groundwater that it was almost lifted off the substrate. THE TUVE LANDSLIDE became the starting shot for more comprehensive research on

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

quick clay. Because there are many factors that come into play when quick clay slides are formed, it is difficult to predict where they might occur. ‘To be able to locate quick clay, you need to find places where the preconditions for dehydration of the clay are favourable’, says Mats Olvmo. Various methods have been developed to identify potential quick clay hills. In 2014 a new method was published in a thesis by

construction, which overloaded the hillside. ‘Even if you have good control of the geotechnical conditions, things can still go wrong. Lack of communication in connection with construction is one such example’, says Mats. But the landslide area in Tuve will not be built upon. After the landslide a total of 70 houses that either were damaged or stood on the edge of the slide area were demolished, and the area has since been reinforced

»Even if you have good control of the geotechnical conditions, things can still go wrong» Martin Persson from the Department of Earth Sciences. The method consists of a computer model that can be used to quickly predict the quick clay conditions for large areas. ‘My method can be used to utilise large amounts of archived geotechnical data, geological knowledge about soil layers and the established theory of how quick clay is formed. In this way, we can better predict where quick clay is found and utilise land properly to reduce the likelihood of large landslides’, says Martin Persson.

by piling. But you can still see traces of the landslide in the terrain, which moved the entire Kvillebäcken hillside. ‘The landscape in the slide area changed radically during the few minutes that the landslide took place. The ground was displaced as much as 200 metres down towards the stream Kvillebäcken along an area 800 metres long and 600 metres wide. The stream was moved tens of meters eastward, and even today you can see traces of the landslide.’ TEXT CAMILLA PERSSON PHOTO KAMERAREPORTAGE & TILDA FRANKLIN

TODAY GEOTECHNICAL investigations are

routinely conducted before deciding to build in an area. But that does not mean that landslides do not occur. One example is the 2006 landslide at Småröd south of Munkedal, where the new motorway collapsed. The landslide occurred because a large amount of excavated material was piled up in connection with the motorway Senior lecturer Mats Olvmo has, among other things, taught students about mudslides and how they form. 20

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

A METHOD TO FORECAST QUICK CLAY The thesis Predicting Spatial and Stratigraphic Quick-clay Deployment in SW Sweden by Martin Persson presents a method for predicting quick clay preconditions over large areas. The method shows that the preconditions for quick clay are greatest in Bohuslän and the Göta River Valley. The Swedish Geotechnical Institute is currently evaluating its usefulness, along with other geotechnical and geophysical methods.

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

They’re following in the plant hunter’s footsteps

Ida Skog and Morgan Sjöberg are going hiking in the footsteps of Scottish plant hunter George Forrest. They want to investigate which plants still remain one hundred years after the adventurer’s expeditions in southwestern China.

t’s a cold spring day in the Botanical Garden in Gothenburg and a China basking in the heat of summer seems extremely distant. But it is precisely there, to the province of Yunnan in southwestern China, that Ida Skog and Morgan Sjöberg will soon be headed.

The next step was to look for a plant hunter who had been a pioneer in China. They discovered Scotsman George Forrest. To learn more about him, Ida and Morgan travelled in November last year to Edinburgh, Scotland, to visit the Royal Botanic Garden. Both plants and documentation

»I think it´s so awesome that we will be walking in Yunnan province in George´s footsteps» When they met on the bachelor’s programme for the craft of gardens and landscape architecture, they discovered that both of them were interested in hiking. And when the time came for their degree project, Ida and Morgan began talking about what would be the most exciting thing to do. ‘We began thinking about where our plants come from and discovered that many, such as rhododendrons and primroses, come from China’, Morgan says. ‘And we thought we wanted to compare what it was like a hundred years ago with the way it looks today.’

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

from Forrest’s expeditionary trips are collected there, providing an opportunity to get an idea of what it was like to be a plant hunter in Yunnan a hundred years ago. ‘The Royal Botanic Garden has a large collection of archival images’, Morgan says. ‘George photographed a lot during his expeditions in Yunnan. We have pictures from his camp and from the slopes up in the mountains and also many photos of individual plants. So there is a great deal of archival material that is especially exciting for us. It also makes it possible to find the places

THEME

TELLUS – THE EARTH WE INHERITED

where he set up camp and the plant places he found.’ George Forrest made seven research expeditions to Yunnan province. ‘He died of a heart attack after a hunt during his last expedition in the early 1930s and is even buried in a small village in Yunnan’, says Ida. IN PREPARATION FOR the trip, Ida and Morgan have read Forrest’s diary entries and travelogues and ploughed through maps and literature written about him. They want to compare the plant hunter’s role in the past with the present and examine how vegetation has changed since the beginning of the 20th century. They have chosen to call their degree project ‘Expedition south of the clouds’ with the subtitle ‘A plant hunter’s history in

Yunnan, the Chinese province with the most species’. And they also are planning to continue working later with the collected material. JUST BEFORE THE LILACS bloom in Sweden, they will be off to China. Morgan and Ida agree that this will probably be the biggest adventure of their lives. ‘I think it’s so awesome that we will be walking in Yunnan province in George’s footsteps, and maybe get to experience some of the same things he did’, Ida says. ‘He was one of the first plant hunters there. He had not made any similar trips before he went to China, and neither have we. So it feels like we will be having a little of the same experience. This will be a real experience, and I am really excited about it.’ TEXT&PHOTO CARINA ELIASSON ARCHIVAL IMAGES ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NEWS

Fish can succumb to heatstroke, too

The ongoing global warming trend brings not only elevated temperatures but also extreme heat waves. Among other things, this affects oceans and lakes and the fish that live there. In his doctoral thesis Andreas Ekström, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg, has investigated how much heat fish can

put up with. Studies show that when ocean temperatures increase, certain fish populations move northward towards cooler waters. Other species that are not as mobile must stay and endure climate changes. For these species, an extreme heat wave is enough to exterminate an entire population of local fish. ‘Today we do not know

Increased algal bloom probable in the future Because of climate change, algal bloom might occur earlier in the season. And the Baltic Sea region may be particularly affected in the future. ‘The Baltic Sea is a sensitive area that is utilised by many people’, biologist Maria Karlberg says. ‘This makes the possible future impacts interesting to study.’ Maria and her research colleagues have investigated how increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, higher water temperatures and reduced salinity of the sea affect cyanobacteria and thereby algal bloom. The results showed that cyanobacteria have benefited from climate change compared with other groups of phytoplankton, such as diatoms and dinoflagellates. And increased growth of cyanobacteria means that algal bloom gets a boost.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

Photo: Göran Hansson

Fish can adapt to rising sea temperatures, but only to a certain degree. There is a risk that entire populations may die out as the climate changes. And it’s probably the fish’s heart that determines how high a temperature a fish can tolerate. This is borne out by new research from the University of Gothenburg. exactly what determines the heat tolerance of fish, but much suggests that their hearts play a central role’, says Andreas. IF THE WATER temperature rises too much, the fish’s heart can completely cease functioning, with deadly consequences. But why is this? ‘It may be partly because the heart’s

New master’s programmes combine subject studies with teaching methods In the spring of 2015, the University of Gothenburg started a fast track for scientists who wanted to get a teaching degree. Now the concept is being further developed when subject studies are complemented with teaching methods in new master’s programmes. Plans call for four master’s programmes to start in the autumn of 2017 that combine studies in chemistry, physics, mathematics or biology with short teacher training.

NEWS own supply of oxygen is limited when it gets too warm. This, in turn, could lead to an inability of the heart to pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the body.’ A LARGE PART of Anders Ekström’s research has been conducted at the Biotest enclosure in the archipelago outside the Forsmark nuclear power plant. This artificial enclosure is a unique research environment because for decades cooling water from nuclear reactors has been pumped out into a onesquare-kilometre enclosed

area in the archipelago. It has raised the water temperature by 5-10 ° C compared to the surrounding Baltic Sea water. Studies indicate that perch in the heated Biotest enclosure are not as heatsensitive as perch in the cooler archipelago. The differences in thermal tolerance depend both on the fact that hearts of fish in the Biotest enclosure pump better at high temperatures and that the fish have developed a more efficient way to convert energy in the heart compared to other perch.

Greater understanding of bacterial communities through new statistical methods Viktor Jonsson, Department of Marine Sciences, presents several new statistical methods for DNA-based analysis of microorganisms in his doctoral thesis. ‘My methods will increase our understanding of how bacterial communities are organised and function.’ With metagenomics, the genetic make-up of microorganisms present in a particular environment, such as bacteria in the stomach of a person, are analysed. But the amount of data generated is large and complex, placing high demands on the statistical analysis.

Refined method adds new piece to the cancer puzzle Illustration: James Barnett

The right gut feeling important for migratory fish Why do salmon spend so much time in dangerous waters on their journey to the sea? In his thesis Jeroen Brijs, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, shows that the answer can be found in the fish’s stomach. The changes that occur in the gastrointestinal tract when the fish are moving from freshwater to saltwater are absolutely necessary for them to survive the migration. ‘If they fail to compensate for the salty seawater, the fish will soon die of dehydration’, Jeroen says.

A special method of mass spectrometry commonly used to analyse computer chips, lacquer and metals has been refined so that researchers can better determine which cells in the body are harmful. ‘The method may have significant implications for the future analyses of breast cancer tissue, among other things’, says Tina Angerer, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THE RESEARCHER

Choosing freedom as a researcher After three months in industry, physicist Giovanni Volpe was bored, said thank you very much and chose to begin postgraduate studies. Today he leads a group that is working to develop microscopic robots that can transport medications to individual cells in patients.

n the summer of 2016, Giovanni Volpe sat in his office at Bilkent University in the Turkish capital of Ankara and pondered his future as a researcher. Since he came to the country in 2012, much had changed. Turkey was then a country where the number of active researchers had gone from 30,000 in 2002 to 80,000 in 2013. The number of universities had more than doubled from the late 1990s, and the country was

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

in negotiations with the European Union for membership. Turkey seemed to have a bright future as a research nation. Three years later the conflict between secular and traditional Muslim interests made life as a researcher more difficult. Several researchers had had their funding withdrawn by the regime, and many had chosen to leave the country. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I contacted various universities across Europe to see if there was interestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, says

NYHETER

Part of Giovanni Volpe’s research involves developing and using laser beams as optical tweezers to grab and manipulate particles.

Giovanni. ‘I got a positive response from the Department of Physics here in Gothenburg, and because my girlfriend is a researcher at Karolinska Institutet, I knew what I was getting into when I moved to Sweden.’ GIOVANNI WAS BORN and raised in northern

Italy. As a child, he was interested in science, and he did his undergraduate studies at Padua’s venerable university, the second ol-

dest in Italy after Bologna. After completing his master’s degree, he began working in the business world. ‘But I got bored’, he says, smiling. ‘The only goal was to make money for the company and for yourself. I got an offer to begin postgraduate studies, so after three months, I quit my job and began postgraduate studies instead. I liked the idea of being a researcher. I thought it would be more fun, for one SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THE RESEARCHER thing, and I liked not having a direct financial goal at the other end of what I was doing.’ He did his postgraduate studies at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona, and after a postdoctoral period at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, he came to Bilkent University. Towards the end of summer in 2016, he left Turkey for Gothenburg and the Department of Physics. Today he leads a research group with close to ten people and has a wide network of collaborations with other universities in Europe and the United States.

fiction only a few decades ago, but nowadays they are actually an area of work in many of the world’s leading laboratories, including my own.’

IN ADDITION TO research at the University of Gothenburg, Giovanni Volpe has a far-reaching collaboration with Karolinska Institutet to study the brains of people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. When a person gets Alzheimer’s, the Giovanni Volpe disease has already developed in Age: 37 some cases for up to 30 years Occupation: Researcher at without it being noticed in the the Department of Physics. person. The group has developed a Family: Girlfriend, who is series of tools that apply network a researcher at Karolinska theory to data obtained from Institutet. patients using various techniques, Leisure interests: Work out, such as magnetic resonance imaeat good food, read, watch a ging (MRI) and functional MRI. movie, ‘preferably early Woody Allen films’. ‘The brain is incredibly good at adapting when damaged. It’s THE GROUP’S REpossible to be fully functional with SEARCH includes both only half of the brain intact, which is why basic research and applied research, and the neurodegenerative diseases may be undiagteam works in a variety of fields. One of the nosed for several years. If we can detect the major areas has to do with ‘micro swimearly signs in them, we can also treat them mers’. In simple terms, micro swimmers are much more effectively.’ biological and artificial objects of microscopic size that have the ability to get around on their own. They offer a number of opportuniHE OFTEN RETURNS to the creative freedom ties in both basic science and technical appliof being a researcher and the fact that he sees cations in nanoscience and nanotechnology. it as something of a hobby, although it often One of the potential areas of application is involves very long days. sending them into patients to cure diseases. ‘But there is no point in being a researcher ‘They can deliver medications to exactly from nine to five. In that case, you could get the right cell in a body’, says Giovanni. a better paying job. As a researcher, I have ‘Another area of application is for remediathe freedom to be able to start with an idea tion of contaminated lands. We can send out and pursue it without having to explain the robots to clean up the land and then conwhy.’ trol them by means of sound waves. These TEXT ROBERT KARLSSON PHOTO MALIN ARNESSON applications were considered pure science

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

COMPETING WITH MEMORY AS PROJECT The semifinals in the Exhibition of Young Researchers – organised in collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology, the University of Gothenburg and others – lasted a full day in March at Universeum. Among the winners were students Josefin Nyberg, Emma Witt and Virág Angyal from Hvitfeldtska upper-secondary, with their project about short-term memory.

t’s a cold spring day in March when upper-secondary school students in western Sweden compete with their school projects. But indoors at the entrance to Universeum, the temperature is all the higher. Students hurry along; unpack posters, pictures and tables; and put various ingenious constructions in place in some of the 26 stands at the exhibition. In one of the stands three girls paste up charts and pictures of the brain’s stages of development at different ages. ‘We applied for the Exhibition of Young Researchers because it seemed like a fun thing to do’, says Josefin Nyberg. ‘And then we’re very interested in the school project

we’ve done and getting the opportunity to present it to others.’ Along with classmates Emma Witt and Virág Angyal at Hvitfeldtska school, she is presenting their project, which deals with memory. ‘Our project is about short-term memory, and we compare the short-term memory of adults with that of children’, says Virág. A jury made up of researchers from the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology poses questions to the exhibitors, and then jurors vote on their favourites. But Universeum visitors also have the opportunity to look at the projects and vote on them. At the end of the day, when votes are counted and the jury’s deliberations are complete, it is clear that seven projects will move on to the finals in Stockholm. And among the winners is the project on short-term memory, so the girls are delighted, of course. TEXT&PHOTO CARINA ELIASSON

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

Science: a method for not fooling ourselves I have a scar on the middle of my left upper arm. It’s not beautiful, but it makes me happy every time I see it. It’s the scar from the smallpox vaccination I received as a child.

he smallpox virus has been eradicated since 1980, so I no longer need protection. But for me, the scar serves as a daily reminder of what science has done for us. Smallpox was a loathsome disease, which pursued humankind for more than 3,000 years. The virus has killed at least 300 million people, and those who survived could become deaf, blind and disfigured. Up until the time British physician Edward Jenner inoculated an eight-year-old boy with a cowpox virus on 14 May 1796, in the world’s first vaccination, a term derived from Latin vaccinus, from vacca, or ‘cow’. Less than 200 years later, smallpox became the first disease that we have succeeded in completely eradicating. And I have evidence of all this inscribed on the bare skin of my left arm. We are all success stories for science. We have not died of smallpox or pneumonia.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

When we were born, the obstetrician did not come directly from an autopsy without having first disinfected his or her hands. YOUR GPS WOULD not work if young Albert

Einstein had not sat in the patent office in Bern more than 100 years ago and thought about what it really meant that the speed of light is the same in all frames of reference. What that theoretical thinking led up to – both the special and general theories of relativity – are necessary for the Global Positioning System to display the right location. Atomic clocks aboard GPS satellites travel faster than atomic clocks on Earth. The special theory of relativity demonstrates that those clocks run faster due to the high speed of the satellites, and the general theory that because they are so far away, the Earth’s gravitational pull is weaker there. If we did not correct for this, the GPS would show more and more errors every second. In one

GUEST COLUMN 24-hour period, the error would amount to about 10 kilometres – and I definitely wouldn’t find my way anywhere. If you are reading this text online, this is possible because particle physicists at CERN in Geneva needed an easy way to share data with each other and therefore invented the HTTP protocol, and thus the World Wide Web. Is it not indeed easy to love science? AND I, AS A SCIENCE journalist, find it very

easy to love my job. It’s my job to tell these stories and to make dry research reports into exciting articles. I get to follow along in the lab with scientists who want to build living hearts, examine the ice caves beneath Antarctica or send space probes to the moons of Jupiter. And I get to hang around with Nobel Laureates and with newly fledged graduate students. But the biggest part of my job is still to say no. To tell my colleagues that all scientists are not always right. Because the research that journalists prefer to write about might not be the best research. The truth is often a bit more complex than that dark chocolate makes you thin, that breastfeeding makes you smart and that all women need to rest on the couch when they get home from work. BUT EVEN THOUGH you may have objections

to how science is portrayed in the media, scientific journalism is important for research. Above all, it’s important to reach out with results and to explain what you scientists really are doing. And why. But that’s not all. Keep in mind that it took investigative journalists to expose surgeon Paolo Macchiarini and former doctor Andrew Wakefield, who manipulated data and violated other ethical rules when he published his study of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Despite science’s own control mechanisms, it took journalists to uncover their research misconduct.

Whistle blowers who blew the whistle on Macchiarini gained no hearing at all for their accusations until Bosse Lindquist made his television documentary. British reporter Brian Deer’s long-standing efforts to reveal the truth behind Wakefield’s results is an exceptional achievement. MY JOB ALSO involves daily contact with people who do not want to accept what science says. They are the ones who have found a panacea for all the world’s problems, and parents who heard so many horror stories that they dare not give the vaccine to their children. They are the people who will never acknowledge that our emissions affect the climate, and the people whose entire outlook on life would collapse if the theory of evolution is true. And many others. The one thing that unites them, I think, is a capability they lack: the ability to change their minds. Many of them are afraid. Others may lack intellectual honesty. They have a hard time reconsidering their conclusions when so much speaks against them. And that is the ability we have to preserve at all costs. TO QUOTE PHYSICIST Richard Feynman, one of my idols: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool. That is the best description of science I know: a method for not fooling ourselves. And that is what we must stand up for, and convey to others.

Maria Gunther Science Editor at Dagens Nyheter This is an adapted version of the talk Maria Gunther gave at the March for Science in Stockholm on 22 April 2017.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

Seeking solutions for industrial problems What does the customer need? That is the most important question when chemist Nina Simic kicks off a new research project. She is passionate about achieving innovations that have direct applications in industry.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

THE ALUMNA

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

ound flasks with bubbling liquids in all colours of the rainbow and rows of racks with fuming test tubes. Say the word chemistry and it’s easy for one’s thoughts to run away and paint a picture of a chemistry laboratory taken from an old Hollywood film. The reality for today’s modern chemists, however, looks radically different. Nina Simic in particular is a living example of that. Instead of wearing a white lab coat, she turns up for the interview dressed in an attractive silk blouse.

TODAY NINA SIMIC IS the senior scientist for the global company AkzoNobel Pulp and Performance Chemicals. The company is the world’s leading producer of bleaching chemicals for the pulp industry and also produces special chemicals used in the manufacture of paints, cement and electronics. Nina Simic works in the Department for Process Development, Bleaching Chemicals, at the company’s plant in Bohus. Instead of running tests in the laboratory, she now serves as a central figure for a number of research projects. ‘I work as a scientific leader and a member of the management team that controls the department’s research and proposes new research projects’, Nina says. ‘Some projects are very long-term, have a high academic level and are often conducted as university collaborations. Right now we are working with five universities, where I coordinate projects and supervise students.’ Nina Simic’s group currently is working on a solution to a specific challenge – finding an alternative to hexavalent chromium. The material is a necessary additive in the production process for chlorate. But because of its toxicity, in the European Union a permit will be required in order to continue using it after 2017.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

‘We are under a great deal of pressure to find a solution, and as a researcher, I really enjoy the challenge of working on such a complex chemical problem’, says Nina. SHE HAS ALWAYS been motivated to see the industrial applications of research. ‘That’s why I have found my way to the business community. It’s exciting and challenging to immerse yourself in an industrial problem, break it down into basic chemical issues to be addressed and then translate the results of the research into new solutions that can be used industrially.’ Nina discovered how much fun it is to work in industry during her doctoral studies in inorganic chemistry at the University of Gothenburg. That was in the late 1990s when she had just received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry. The project continued for five years and was partly about optimising industrial batteries. ‘We collaborated with a battery company, and we found scientific explanations for why the batteries did not reach full power and what could be done about it. It was such a rush to deliver results to the company that could help them improve their products’, says Nina. HER CAREER THEN TOOK her via a postdoctoral position with the electrochemical group at the University of Bern, Switzerland, to AkzoNobel in Bohus. The chemicals company called on her and offered her a specialist job in inorganic chemistry. “It turned out to be a job that was a lot fun. The pace here is fast and you have to think in new ways. That suits my personality. I’m open and curious and see opportunities. And I can probably be a little impatient and somewhat of an optimist about how much time something takes,” she says, laughing.

THE ALUMNA NINA SIMIC’S INTEREST IN chemistry and chemical processes was aroused during her time in upper-secondary school outside of Kungälv. Through a dedicated science teacher, her eyes were opened to the natural sciences in general and chemistry in particular. The fact that her father was an engineer also contributed to the decision to continue her education at university. But what really clinched her commitment to studies was a year off from upper-secondary school. “I was tired of school and worked as a dental assistant for a year. Being an assistant was so insanely boring that I became very motivated to study,” says Nina. Nina’s motivating force is to have fun on the job every day. And she does just that. “I think it’s delightful and there are so many possibilities. But that also means it can get a little stressful now and then.” However, she is careful about recharging her batteries and has her own outlet for regaining energy – horseback riding. The family lives next door to a stable where Nina has her horse, and early mornings or late evenings about five times a week she sits astride her horse. ‘That’s where I recharge my batteries. Getting that perfect communication with the horse is intoxicating when you channel the horse’s own motivation to do what you want.’ IN THE FUTURE SHE wants to continue to work on de-

veloping new research projects in combination with business development, working closely with customers to understand their problems on a basic level of chemistry. In addition, Nina wants to continue in her role as a supervisor of doctoral students. She thinks that the supervisory function is extremely rewarding. It is almost akin to a chemical process in which the right dose of feedback must be added to allow doctoral students to grow. ‘I think it’s so enjoyable to see how people grow. When a student is vacillating and uncertain at the beginning, but then with supervision develops into an independent and motivated individual.’

Nina Simic

Age: 47. Occupation: Senior scientist at Akzo Nobel Pulp and Performance Chemicals in Bohus. Place of residence: Björlanda. Family: Partner and two children, 9 and 11 years old. Leisure: ‘When I’m with the family or with my horse; riding has always been a passion.’

TEXT KARIN FREJRUD PHOTO MALIN ARNESSON

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

HAVING A MANIA FOR B A birdwatching trend is sweeping Sweden. But birds are not just fascinating to watch. Researchers Angela Pauliny and Donald Blomqvist are also using them to better understand our aging processes.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

BIRDS

NEWS

n alert is received. An unusual citrine wagtail has been spotted in the Kungsbacka area, and suddenly mobile phones all around the country are sounding. Soon a steady stream of people are making their way down to the shoreline meadows at the Kungsbackafjorden Nature Reserve. If birdwatching in the past was considered eccentric, nowadays it is socially acceptable and a little cool. More and more people are drawn out to the countryside to be on the lookout for flying rarities, and the membership of bird societies like Club 300 is growing steadily. This spring SVT, the Swedish national public TV broadcaster, also latched onto the trend and is investing heavily in Swedes’ newfound interest in birds with the reality series ‘Det Stora Fågeläventyret’ (The Great Bird Adventure). Donald Blomqvist, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, thinks one reason for the birdwatching trend is new information technology. ‘It’s so easy to learn more about birds using your mobile phone today’, he says. ‘It also introduces a competitive element. You can quickly show many others that you’ve seen an unusual species.’

THERE IS A GROWING interest in photography as well, since it is now easy to share your best bird photos through social media. ‘Birdwatching can also serve as a kind of mindfulness’, adds Angela Pauliny, a colleague to Blomqvist. ‘Scouting for birds in nature becomes a much-needed form of relaxation and a pleasant contrast to the stress of everyday life.’ Angela Pauliny is a molecular biologist and uses molecular methodology to answer evolutionary questions. Donald Blomqvist studies evolutionary ecology and is interested in life histories and reproductive behaviours. He and his research team have received international attention for their studies of the connection between stress and aging, including why species that have fewer offspring tend to live longer. THROUGH THEIR STUDIES of species such as barnacle geese

and dunlins, these researchers have found that one important explanation for why certain individuals age faster than others depends on how long their telomeres are. Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that protect them against debilitating factors such as stress. The longer the telomeres, the better the protection and a healthier life. The length of telomeres varies greatly among different individuals, even among those of the same age. It depends in part on the length of telomeres we have inherited from our parents SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NEWS and partly on how much stress we have been subjected to. ‘This process is the same for people’, says Pauliny. ‘So it’s an important discovery, given that many of us live stressful lives today.’ ‘We can learn a lot from birds’, Blomqvist emphasises. ‘In our research we are continuing to work on stress and reproduction, on what mating behaviours look like and why some populations are changing or maybe dying out.’ RESEARCHERS MOSTLY THINK it’s a good thing that they now get to share their passion for birds with more hobby birders out in nature. In their view this contributes to greater involvement in nature conservation efforts. ‘When you know what a bird is called, what it looks like and you relate to it, then you also are more inclined to protect it. With more birdwatchers, there are more people who want to protect biodiversity.’ But there also are negative aspects. ‘Most people are very considerate, but there are aberrations. Some see birdwatching just as way of getting together and aren’t concerned about whether a bird is in poor condition or if they are disturbing the breeding process’, Pauliny notes. ‘There actually have been times when we have not been able to conduct our research but had to stop

CURIOUS ABOUT BIRD RESEARCH? Here are some references for the research carried out by Angela Pauliny and Donald Blomqvist: • Pauliny A, Devlin RH, Johnsson JI & Blomqvist D (2015). Rapid growth accelerates telomere attrition in a transgenic fish. BMC Evolutionary Biology 15: 159. • Blomqvist D, Pauliny A, Larsson M & Flodin L-Å (2010). Trapped in the extinction vortex? Strong genetic effects in a declining vertebrate population. BMC Evolutionary Biology 10: 33. • Olsson M, Pauliny A, Wapstra E & Blomqvist D (2010). Proximate determinants of telomere length in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis). Biology Letters 6: 651-653. • Pauliny A, Wagner R H, Augustin J, Szép T & Blomqvist D (2006). Age-independent telomere length predicts fitness in two bird species. Molecular Ecology 15: 1681-1687.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

work because too many people had come to a place where birds were nesting. The risk is that the young will not survive if the birds are disturbed.’ THEY HOPE THIS YEAR’S field work will be

calmer. Angela Pauliny and Donald Blomqvist are in the midst of final preparations for departure to Halland and the vast seaside meadows. They spend four to six weeks there each spring to make behavioural observations, band birds and sometimes take blood samples for genetic analyses. ‘It’s the highlight of the year and generates new ideas for research’, says Blomqvist. ‘This year we are focusing on northern lapwings. By means of telescopes, we will study how environmental stress factors affect parental behaviours and what their young are doing.’ RESEARCH ON TELOMERES is also procee-

ding. ‘We have broadened the study’, says Pauliny. ‘Now we’re also looking at reptiles and fish. People stop growing, but these animals continue to grow throughout their lives. How do they preserve their telomeres when they undergo so many cell divisions? That’s what we’re interested in looking at now.’ TEXT KARIN FREJRUD PHOTO DONALD BLOMQVIST & ANGELA PAULINY

NYHETER

BIRDWATCHING – Getting started • Join a bird society, where you can get pointers, advice and the chance to meet like-minded people. Sweden’s ornithological society, BirdLife Sverige, has a list of all societies in Sweden. Birdlife.se • Equipment: A good bird guide or bird app and binoculars will get you off to a good start. Don’t forget a notebook in which you can write down your observations. • At Artportalen.se, you can get tips on where different species have recently been spotted in Sweden. • Keep bird conservation in mind! Be considerate and remember to always put the birds first. Sources: Natursidan.se and BirdLife Sverige

Donald Blomqvist bands a dunlin. Visible in the top photo is a lapwing, one of the wader species that Angela Pauliny and Donald Blomqvist study in their research.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

NYHETER

Nearing the goal Nearly four years ago Loujain Elias left her native Syria for an uncertain life in Sweden. She was then halfway through her education to be a pharmacist. Now she has been able to resume her education. ‘After many years I’m now finally on the way to reaching my goal’, she says.

hen we meet Loujain Elias, she is enrolled in the fourth semester of the Study Programme in Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Science. ‘And second. And third’, she says with a smile. Because she can be given credit for certain courses, she has to try to piece together her schedule as best she can. She thinks this has both positive and negative aspects. The downside is that it’s stressful taking two courses at the same time, while the benefit is that she gets to know more classmates because she is enrolled in more than one semester at a time. ‘My plan is get my degree next year’, she says. During her years in Sweden, she has ma-

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

naged to take SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) and a crash course for meeting specific entry requirements for the pharmaceutical science programme in Sweden. But to go back to school and start studying upper-secondary school courses in chemistry when she already has taken college credit courses in the subject feels burdensome. She describes it as taking a step back. TO LEARN THE everyday language better

and connect with people, she chose to start working. For a while she worked in a kiosk in Gamlestaden in Gothenburg. Today she speaks nearly fluent Swedish and pursues her education in Swedish without a problem. ‘I’ve heard that you learn better if you get

THE STUDENT Sweden have to take courses in communication and how to respond to customers in the pharmacies, something that did not occur at all in Damascus.

your education in a language other than your mother tongue, because you think in a more logical way then’, she says. EDUCATION IN SWEDEN differs a lot from education in Damascus. There, students have much greater responsibility, and the teachers are not available for questions to the same extent at all. She explains that the students themselves are responsible for carrying out laboratory work based on what they learned in theory without getting help from teachers. ‘Here in Sweden teachers help students to grow, while in Syria you have to take responsibility for that yourself.’ Another big difference is that students in the pharmaceutical science programme in

IN ADDITION TO differences in education, the two countries also differ in their state of health. Loujain reports that various types of allergies are significantly more common in Sweden, while many more people suffer from cardiovascular diseases Loujain Elias in Syria. On the quesAge: 25 tion of why this is so, Family: Husband and mother she laughs: ‘No doubt in Sweden it’s because we like to Main difference between eat a lot!’ Sweden and Syria: ‘Everybody seems so busy and The fact that she stressed out here. It feels as if chose pharmaceutics a day doesn’t have 24 hours was primarily because here in Sweden.’ the labour market for Future plans: ‘I’m interested pharmacists was good in research, so I may continue in Syria. She actually with a master’s and postgrawas not at all interested duate studies. But first, I’ll in the subject, but that probably work.’ all changed when she began to study. ‘It’s extremely interesting to learn how diseases develop and what causes them and how medications work. Why does this particular drug work with this structure and not another?’ LEAVING HER NATIVE country and her entire life with friends and studies obviously was not easy. Loujain finds it hard trying to talk about the time when she had just arrived in Sweden. ‘It was difficult in the beginning, being forced to leave your native country where you have your friends and are studying for your dream job. The country where I met my husband, and where I still have so many memories. But now I’m starting to feel at home here in Sweden, that Sweden is my native country.’ TEXT CAMILLA PERSSON PHOTO MALIN ARNESSON

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

EXPEDITION

Four questions for Michael Axelsson, who is on his eighth expedition in Antarctica. This time you’re going to another part of the Antarctic continent than before – why? ‘We’re going to West Antarctica – that is, the region that is located below the southern tip of Chile. The same rapid climate changes are visible here as those around the Arctic, while the eastern parts of Antarctica are not affected as much yet. This means that the climate, both on land and in the surrounding sea, is changing faster than the global average, and this in turn affects both animal and plant life.’ You’re going to examine something that is sometimes referred to as ‘icefish’ – what is an icefish? ‘It’s a group of fish, 23 species, that is unique because some of them lack red blood cells and therefore haemoglobin (Hb). Some also lack myoglobin (Mb). Both haemoglobin and myoglobin are crucial for oxygen transport and storage among all other vertebrates, and even many invertebrates, so the ability of these fish to manage without them is very interesting.’ What kind of research are you going to do? ‘In the part of the project for which I’m responsible, we are focusing on how the cardiovascular system of a number of selected fish species is regulated and influenced when temperatures rise, and how they can cope with the change. We‘ll measure blood pressure and try to find out how it is regulated. We will also measure blood flows, both total cardiac output and blood flow to the gastrointestinal tract, to see how these fish lacking haemoglobin supply the gastrointestinal tract with oxygen. We will also measure total oxygen demand to see how this is affected by temperature increases. The results from our part of the project

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

AWARDS

2017 ALEXANDRE ANTONELLI,

will then be tied together with the results of the other groups to increase our overall knowledge about these unique fish and try to understand how they will be affected by climate changes.’ What are you most looking forward to on the trip? ‘Above all, that I, for the first time, will have the opportunity to work with these unique fish species. And getting down to Antarctica by boat across the Drake passage between Chile and Antarctica will also be exciting. To get to Palmer Station, where we’re going, you first make your way down to Punta Arenas in Chile, and then it’s a five-day boat trip down to the station. There’s an expression, ‘Screaming Sixties and Roaring Forties’, which is about the wind conditions at these latitudes. It’s very windy, and that will make the journey interesting, to say the least. We all have been advised to take seasickness medication from the beginning because one thing is clear: there’s going to be rocking; it’s just a question of how much.’ TEXT ROBERT KARLSSON PHOTO MICHAEL AXELSSON

a professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, has been named a Future Research Leader by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. BJÖRN BURMANN, a doctor

at the University of Basel in Switzerland, has been named a Wallenberg Academy Fellow at the University of Gothenburg. Burmann conducts research to increase our knowledge of how cells repair DNA that has been damaged by the sun. MARIJA CVIJOVIC, assis-

tant senior lecturer at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, has been named a Future Research Leader by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. ANNIKA EKDAHL has been appointed an honorary doctor at the Faculty of Science. She works as a textile artist with tapestry fabrics in large formats as her artistic form of expression.

Don’t miss the travelogue by Michael Axelsson (left) from this year’s expedition to Antarctica! The images on the spread come from the first travelogue and the trip down to the station. The travelogue can be found at science.gu.se/expedition (in Swedish)

TANDONG YAO has been appointed an honorary doctor at the Faculty of Science. He is a professor and director of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

SCIENCE FACULTY MAGAZINE JUNE 2017

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Acidification rising in the Arctic Ocean Decades of global warming have acidified seawater and affected the ecosystem in the western part of the Arctic Ocean. That has been demonstrated by an international team of researchers in a new study published in Nature Climate Change. The Arctic Ocean is the world’s northernmost ocean. Global warming there has caused major and rapid changes. Specimens taken by international researchers between 1990 and 2010 show increasing areas of acidification in the western part of

the Arctic Ocean. Lime shell, calcium carbonate, is a building block for some marine species. Aragonite, which some marine organisms produce, is the most soluble crystalline form of calcium carbonate. ‘When the ocean becomes more acidic, lime shells are affected and run the risk of being dissolved’, says Leif Anderson, who is a marine chemist at the University of Gothenburg and the only Swedish participant in the international research group that is behind this report.

Indeed, the more acidic the Arctic Ocean becomes, the more difficult it will be for marine organisms that produce lime shells to survive. The degree of calcium carbonate solubility, or saturation, is one measure of how severe the marine environment in the Arctic Ocean is. Measurements show that areas that are undersaturated in calcium carbonate have increased in size.  Link to the article: bit.ly/2m5Vq6D

Structural studies – a step in developing a new antibiotic? Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest problems facing the world. Now researchers at the University of Gothenburg and AstraZeneca have taken another step in developing new antibiotics. Gisela Brändén at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg, and researchers at AstraZeneca are conducting a project through which they are trying to develop new candidates for

medications to combat bacterial infections. The goal is to avoid antibiotic resistance. Researchers are studying a membrane-bound protein called MraY that is involved in the formation of bacterial cell walls. The idea is to find a drug that can block the activity of the MraY protein, thereby preventing bacteria from dividing. The research team has now managed to determine the structure of MraY with a

naturally occurring inhibitor, tunicamycin, bound to the protein. It is hoped that the structure will provide ideas on how to design new molecules that inhibit MraY, which can eventually be developed into a new antibiotic. Results from the study have recently been published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.  Link to the article: www. nature.com/nchembio/journal/ v13/n3/full/nchembio.2270.html