In Sweden we talk about having a migration crisis. However the crisis is not here, but in the temporary refugee camps in the Middle East region where hundreds of thousands refugees, and potential migrants, currently live. In these camps people suffer and even die because of inadequate shelters. The architect...
In order to survive and breed, most wild animals need to migrate between different areas. Many characteristics and abilities have to synchronise if the animal is to survive. One such ability is navigation. There are many animals that have an impressive ability to navigate, i.e. to understand where they are...
The earth’s magnetic field, the stars, the sun or the pattern of polarised light that is especially clear in the sky at dawn and dusk – these are compasses that birds use for orientation. Researchers at CAnMove exposed birds from North America and southern Scandinavia to contradictory sensory impressions to see...
The long-distance navigation undertaken by sea turtles and albatrosses is one of the animal world’s most fascinating navigational feats. First-time migrators are presumed to rely on a genetic programme inherited from their parents, whereas older animals seem to use various sensorial abilities supplemented with information gathered during their journey. In...
Is the immune system of small birds better than that of humans and other mammals? And if so, why? One idea is that small birds have a particularly good immune system because of seasonal migration, which means having to resist many different diseases at breeding, stopover and wintering sites. Is...
Nanotechnology an be used to create a biological computer that can solve certain mathematical problems far faster and more energy-efficiently than conventional electrical computers. Conventional computers have contributed to major advances for society over the past few decades, but have a weakness: they can only do one thing at a...
After studying how insects navigate through dense vegetation, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have come up with a system that can be applied to flying robots. By adapting the system to drones, they can be made to adjust their speed to their surroundings and fly on their own– completely...
Bacteria as an organism All things now living on Earth belong to one of the three main groups called Bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryotes (all plants and animals are included here). The organisms we commonly call bacteria belong to the group bacteria or archaea. Bacteria are usually small, approximately one micrometre,...
Researchers have discovered that our drinking water to a large extent seems to be purified by ‘good bacteria’ in pipes and not only in the water purification plants as was previously believed. Do you think that our drinking water is sterile? It’s not. One glass of clean drinking water contains...
