Sveriges Lichenologiska Förening (SLF) gör årligen två exkursioner, där den höstliga ofta går till den norra halvan av landet. Den 12-13 september 2015 exkurerade vi längs den jämtländska delen av Indals-älven.

I april 2016 gick föreningens vårexkursion till trakterna runt Växjö, med några helt skilda miljöer som mål. Här redogör Emil Persson och Ulf Arup för exkursionen som innebar deltagarrekord med god marginal. Första dagen deltog hela 56 personer.

Increasing evidence supports the benefit of identifying BRCA1 and BRCA2 germline mutations in early breast cancer. Selection of patients for genetic testing is based on defined criteria taking individual and family history related factors into account. It is important to make a distinction between efficacy and effectiveness of BRCA testing criteria. Efficacy can be defined as the performance under

Background: Staphylococcus aureus (SA) is an important human pathogen that causes both superficial and invasive infections. Penicillin is now rarely used in the treatment of SA infections due to widespread resistance and a concern about the accuracy of existing methods for penicillin susceptibility testing. The aims of the present study were to determine the frequency of penicillin-susceptible SA

The catastrophic disruption of the L chondrite parent body in the asteroid belt c. 470 Ma initiated a prolonged meteorite bombardment of Earth that started in the Ordovician and continues today. Abundant L chondrite meteorites in Middle Ordovician strata have been interpreted to be the consequence of the asteroid breakup event. Here we report a zircon U-Pb date of 467.50±0.28 Ma from a distinct be

The power of visual imagery is well known, enshrined in such familiar sayings as "seeing is believing" and "a picture is worth a thousand words." Iconic photos stir our emotions and transform our perspectives about life and the world in which we live. On September 2, 2015, photographs of a young Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, lying face-down on a Turkish beach, filled the front pages of newspapers wor

Should an inflation-targeting central bank have an explicit tolerance band around its inflation target? This paper provides an answer derived from the Swedish experience. The Riksbank is exceptional in the sense that it first adopted and later abolished an explicit band and is currently considering bringing it back. We conclude that the band should be explicit for several reasons. Most important, Should an inflation-targeting central bank have an explicit tolerance band around its inflation target? This paper provides an answer derived from the Swedish experience. The Riksbank is exceptional in the sense that it first adopted and later abolished an explicit band and is currently considering bringing it back. We conclude that the band should be explicit for several reasons. Most important,

Background: Chronic non-healing wounds present a substantial economic burden to healthcare system; significant reductions in quality of life for those affected, and precede often serious events such as limp amputations or even premature deaths. This burden is also likely to increase with a larger proportion of elderly and increasing prevalence of life-style diseases such as obesity and diabetes. R

Using a standard model where the individual consumption path is computed solving an optimal control problem, we investigate central claims of Piketty (2014) Rather than r>g (confirmed in the data) r-s>g - with s being the rate of time preference - matters. If this condition holds and the elasticity of substitution in the production function is larger than one, the capital share converges to one in

Good communication is of utmost importance in all forms of cancer care and especially so in the palliative context. To render the ungraspable graspable, metaphors are frequently used drawing on their capacity to capture the intangible in terms of more familiar experiences. For instance, to die from cancer can be described as ’coming to the end of a life journey’ or ’losing a battle’. Metaphors are

In Parkinson’s disease, long-term dopamine replacement therapy is complicated by the appearance of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia (LID). One major hypothesis is that LID results from an aberrant transcriptional program in striatal neurons induced by l-DOPA and triggered by the activation of ERK. To identify these genes, we performed transcriptome analyses in the striatum in 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned m

In advanced Parkinson's disease, l-DOPA treatment causes the appearance of abnormal involuntary movements or l-DOPA-induced dyskinesia (LID). LID results in part from l-DOPA-induced activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in the dopamine-denervated striatum. Activated ERK triggers nuclear responses, including phosphorylation of mitogen- and stress-activated protein kinase 1 (MSK1

Although l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (l-DOPA) remains the reference treatment of Parkinson's disease, its long-term beneficial effects are hindered by l-DOPA-induced dyskinesia (LID). In the dopamine (DA)-denervated striatum, l-DOPA activates DA D1 receptor (D1R) signaling, including cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), two responses associated wi

Activation of dopamine D1 receptors (D1Rs) has been shown to induce epileptiform activity. We studied the molecular changes occurring in the hippocampus in response to the administration of the D1-type receptor agonist, SKF 81297. SKF 81297 at 2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg induced behavioural seizures. Electrophysiological recordings in the dentate gyrus revealed the presence of epileptiform discharges peakin

Aquaporin-mediated water transport across cellular membranes is an ancient, ubiquitous mechanism within cell biology. This family of integral membrane proteins includes both water selective pores (aquaporins) and transport facilitators of other small molecules such as glycerol and urea (aquaglyceroporins). Eukaryotic aquaporins are frequently regulated post-translationally by gating, whereby the r

The ability to form long-term memories exists very early during ontogeny; however, the properties of early memory processes, brain structures involved and underlying cellular mechanisms are poorly defined. Here, we examine the role of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), a member of the mitogen-activated protein kinase/ERK signaling cascade, which is crucial for adult memory, in the consol

In the dopamine-depleted striatum, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling is implicated in the development of l-DOPA-induced dyskinesia. To gain insights on its role in this disorder, we examined the effects of l-DOPA on the state of phosphorylation of ERK and downstream target proteins in striatopallidal and striatonigral medium spiny neurons (MSNs). For this purpose, we employed m

The staphylococcal enterotoxin H (SEH; 217 aa, 25 kD) belongs to a family of superantigens that cause a massive immune response upon simultaneous binding to the T cell receptor (TCR) and the major histocompatibility complex class II. The SEH-TCR interaction is weak and amenable to studies using NMR methodology. Essentially, 2 mg of U{2H, 13C,15N}-labeled SEH was used for the complete sequential ba