New Method of Producing Hydrogen Energy

A new method for efficient hydrogen production that separates oxygen and hydrogen generation, developed by researchers in Sweden, eliminates explosion risks and the need for rare Earth metals, with a 99 percent efficiency rate. This innovation promises easier integration with renewable energies and has significant potential for commercial application.


Scientists in Sweden have developed an innovative method for generating hydrogen energy with enhanced efficiency. This process separates water into oxygen and hydrogen, eliminating the hazardous possibility of the two gases combining.


Developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the new method decouples the standard electrolysis process for producing hydrogen gas, which splits water molecules by applying an electric current. In contrast with prevailing systems, it produces the resulting oxygen and hydrogen gases separately rather than simultaneously in the same cell, where they need to be separated by membrane barriers.     READ MORE...

New Data Transfer Record

A team of researchers has reportedly set a new data transmission world record.

The international group from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden used a single light source to transmit 1.8 petabits per second.

In a release, DTU said that they were the first in the world to transmit more than 1 petabit per second – corresponding to 1 million gigabits – using only a single laser and a single optical chip called a "frequency comb."

"In the experiment, the researchers succeeded in transmitting 1.8 Pbit/s, which corresponds to twice the total global Internet traffic," they wrote. "And only carried by the light from one optical source. The light source is a custom-designed optical chip, which can use the light from a single infrared laser to create a rainbow spectrum of many colors, i.e. many frequencies. Thus, the one frequency (color) of a single laser can be multiplied into hundreds of frequencies (colors) in a single chip."

The colors are fixed at a specific frequency distance from each other like the teeth on a comb, which is why it is called a frequency comb.

"Each color (or frequency) can then be isolated and used to imprint data. The frequencies can then be reassembled and sent over an optical fibre, thus transmitting data. Even a huge volume of data, as the researchers have discovered," DTU explained.

Victor Torres Company, a professor at Chalmers University of Technology, said that the chip has ideal characteristics for fiber-optical communications, with "high optical power" and covering a "broad bandwidth within the spectral region that is interesting for advanced optical communications."  READ MORE...

Just Another New Drug

Tirzepatide, a new diabetes drug administered weekly through injection, helped those with type 2 diabetes meet blood glucose goals 4 to 12 weeks earlier than those receiving conventional diabetic drugs.

The phase 3 SURPASS trials, which were published in 2021, proved that tirzepatide reduces blood sugar and promotes weight reduction better than other type 2 diabetes (T2D) drugs. 

Now, a new study evaluating the time required to achieve blood glucose goals shows that tirzepatide meets blood sugar control and weight reduction goals quicker than existing diabetes drugs.

The latest analyses of the SURPASS-2 and SURPASS-3 trials, which were presented at 2022’s European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, discovered that adults treated with various doses of injectable tirzepatide (5, 10, and 15 mg) reached blood glucose targets about four weeks sooner than those treated with injectable semaglutide (1 mg), and between four and 12 weeks sooner than those treated with once-daily insulin (degludec; iDeg), along with diet and exercise and oral glucose-lowering medications.

“Tirzepatide is unique because it mimics two natural insulin-releasing and appetite-suppressing hormones in one injection”, says lead author Dr. Adie Viljoen, a Consultant Metabolic Physician and Chemical Pathologist from the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, UK.

“The speed we are seeing in glucose-lowering and weight loss is beyond anything else we have available right now and it may put adults with type 2 diabetes in a better position for preventing long-term complications. But it is important to remember that these medications should be used in addition to diet and exercise.”  READ MORE...

Being Sleep Deprived

Scientists continue to discover ways in which a lack of sleep affects our mental and physical health – now a new study reveals that a serious lack of shut-eye can even influence the way we see other people.

When we've gone without sleep, we spend less time fixing our gaze on other people's faces, the study shows. As that's a crucial part of reading social cues from those around us, our relationships could potentially suffer.

What's more, after sleep loss, angry faces appear to us to be less trustworthy and less healthy, while neutral or fearful faces come across as less attractive, compared to when we've had a full night's sleep.

"Since facial expressions are crucial to understanding the emotional state of others, spending less time fixating on faces after acute sleep loss may increase the risk that you interpret the emotional state of others inaccurately or too late," says sleep researcher Lieve van Egmond from Uppsala University in Sweden.

The study authors recruited 45 participants who went through a night without sleep, and another with 8 hours of slumber, separated by at least a week. In each case, eye-tracking sensors were used the morning after to monitor the gaze of the subjects as they looked at images of faces.

A mix of expressions were shown on the faces: happy, angry, fearful, and neutral. Participants were also asked to rate the attractiveness, trustworthiness and healthiness of the faces they saw.  READ MORE...

Sweden - 4th Covid Shot

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK -- Sweden recommended a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose to people 65 and over as well as those living in nursing homes or getting home care, authorities said Monday.

The new guideline drops the age from an earlier recommendation for a fourth shot to people 80 and older.

The recommendation also includes fourth shots for those between 18 and 64 years of age, with moderate to severe immune deficiency, Sweden's Public Health Agency said in a statement.

“The goal is just as before to prevent serious illness and death from COVID-19,” Agency chief Karin Tegmark Wisell said.

Tegmark Wisell added that it's “justified" to provide a second booster shot to a wider age range because infections in Sweden and other countries continue to significantly multiply and vaccine protection is starting to decline for older age groups.

“For people aged 65 and over, it is now four months since the previous vaccine dose, and the vaccine’s protective effect diminishes over time,” she said.

For most of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response. It never went into lockdown or closed businesses, largely relying instead on individual responsibility to control infections.  READ MORE...

A Stoneage Woman

Oscar Nilsson, a forensic artist based in Sweden, spent 350 hours reconstructing the Stone Age woman's likeness. (Image credit: Oscar Nilsson )



A Stone Age woman who lived 4,000 years ago is leaning on her walking stick and looking ahead as a spirited young boy bursts into a run, in a stunning life-size reconstruction now on display in Sweden.


Although her likeness is new — it debuted last month in an exhibit about ancient people at Västernorrlands Museum — researchers have known about this woman's existence for nearly a century. During the construction of a road in the hamlet of Lagmansören in 1923, workers found her skeletal remains buried next to the remains of a child, likely a 7-year-old boy.


"With our eyes and perhaps in all times, you tend to think that this is a mother and son," said Oscar Nilsson, the Sweden-based forensic artist who spent 350 hours creating the lifelike model. "They could be. Or they could be siblings: sister and brother. They could be relatives, or they could just be tribe friends. We don't know, because the DNA was not that well preserved to establish this relationship."


But as Nilsson molded the woman's posture and sculpted her face, he pretended that she was near her son who was scampering ahead of her. "She's looking with the mother's eyes — both with love and a bit of discipline," Nilsson told Live Science. This stern but tender gaze looks as if she's on the cusp of calling out to the boy, telling him to be careful.  READ MORE...

Closing Air Space to Russian Airplanes

Feb 27 (Reuters) - Sweden, Finland and Denmark said they were preparing to close their airspace to Russian planes on Sunday, joining a string of European countries taking this measure after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The moves follow similar closures of airspace of Britain, Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Romania to Russia's aircraft. Baltic countries Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are also closing their airspace to Russian airliners, while Germany said it was preparing to do so. 

Iceland has also decided to shut its airspace to Russian air traffic, Icelandic Foreign Minister Thordis Kolbrun Gylfadottir tweeted on Sunday.

"It is now absolutely necessary to proceed with further touch measures to isolate Russia," Swedish EU Minister Hans Dahlgren told public service radio SR.

A European Union-wide ban for Russian flights could be part of a fresh package of sanctions on Moscow to be discussed later on Sunday by the bloc's foreign ministers, an EU official said separately. 

Dahlgren said such a ban would be the most efficient way to pressure Moscow.

Denmark would also support a cross-EU ban to Russian aircraft, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said in a tweet.

Finnish Minister of Transport and Communications Timo Harakka said in a tweet late on Saturday that Finland, which shares a long land border with Russia, was preparing a similar closure.

Russia's likely countermeasure will heavily hurt Finland's state carrier Finnair .  READ MORE...

Female Prime Minister Returns

SOURCE,REUTERS...MPs voted again to elect Swedish Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson on Monday


Sweden's first female prime minister has been reappointed to the top job after political turmoil forced her to resign within hours of taking the post last week.


MPs backed Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson by a narrow margin in a new vote on Monday.


She will attempt to lead a one-party government until an election in September next year.


She stood down as PM last Wednesday after her coalition collapsed.


Just hours earlier, Ms Andersson had been elected as Sweden's first female prime minister by a single vote in parliament.


But the 54-year-old economist's plan for forming a new coalition government with the Green Party was thrown into disarray when her budget proposal failed to pass.


Sweden's first female PM resigns hours after appointment


Instead, parliament voted for a budget drawn up by a group of opposition parties, including the far-right Sweden Democrats.


The Green Party said it would not accept a budget drafted by the far-right and walked away from the government, leading to its demise.


By convention, the prime minister in Sweden is expected to resign if a coalition party leaves government.  READ MORE...

Space Missions Cause Brain Damage

Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov holds the record for the longest spaceflight. Polyakov spent 438 days in space, returning to Earth on March 22, 1995. (Image credit: NASA)


Staying in space for a long time can cause brain damage, according to a new study.

Being in space has well-documented negative effects on the body. But the effect of being in space on the brain has been studied less. A recent study examined five Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station for about five and a half months. The researchers found elevated levels of proteins in the blood that serve as biomarkers of brain damage.

The study, which was detailed Oct.11 in JAMA Neurology, was small, and the effects on the cosmonauts' brains did not seem to be major. Still, the research could lead to further examination of the effect of being in space on the brain, especially as people begin to spend even longer amounts of time in space.


"It's not like major traumatic brain injury or anything like that," Henrik Zetterberg, a neurochemist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and one the study's authors, told Space.com, adding that the damage was comparable to suffering a concussion. "But still, all of the cosmonauts have this pattern of biomarker change."  READ MORE...

SWEDEN: Falling Crime

According to Breitbart writer Chris Tomlinson:

Police in the multicultural southern Swedish city of Malmö say that the murder rate has fallen since 2018 because many gang leaders are behind bars.

In 2020, the city saw five murders, a major drop from the 13 that took place in 2018 and eight in 2019.

Mattias Sigfridsson, deputy police area manager in Malmö, told broadcaster SVT that the hacking of an encrypted app used by criminals called EncroChat has helped police prevent murders and violent crimes.

“[W]e believe we have prevented murder and serious violent crimes. That has been our goal all along – to lock up those who are responsible for the violence. We have also received valuable information from EncroChat, the encrypted chat we have taken part in. This has, of course, affected our ability to prevent crime,” Sigfridsson said.

EncroChat was breached last year by investigators and led to the arrest of more than 700 organised criminals linked to drug trafficking, gun smuggling, and money laundering in the United Kingdom alone. As of December 2020, more than a thousand criminals who used the service had been arrested.

While Malmö has seen a reduction in murders last year, just one of the five cases has actually been solved. Two others await trial and the remaining two cases have no suspects at all. Several murders from previous years also remain unsolved.

2020 was also a high year for fatal shootings across Sweden, with 47 people killed in shootings compared to 42 in 2019 and 45 in 2018. The number of overall shootings also increased from 2019.

In Stockholm, 2020 saw a record number of explosions and bombings despite the Wuhan virus pandemic, but explosions and bombings across the entire country were down to 107 from 133 in 2019.

Robert Karlsson, deputy regional police chief in Stockholm, said that while he was not satisfied with the number of explosions last year, police had managed to develop tools to better investigate bombing cases.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...