“I believe deeply in universal health care. But universal care must also mean universal safety and accountability, not merely universal access.”
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Den 5 juni beslutade universitetsstyrelsen att föreslå Erik Renström som rektor för Lunds universitet den kommande treårsperioden.
När universitetsstyrelsen sammanträdde den 5 juni beslutade den att föreslå Erik Renström som rektor för Lunds universitet för den kommande treårsperioden, 2027–2029.
– Jag är glad att Erik Renström fick ett starkt stöd av universitetskollegiet och att styrelsen enhälligt har beslutat att föreslå honom till regeringen för den kommande treårsperioden, säger Ingrid Petersson, universitetsstyrelsens ordförande och rekryteringsgruppens ordförande.
Beslutet sker efter en process som inleddes tidigt hösten 2025. En rekryteringsgrupp har under ledning av styrelsens ordförande tagit fram en kravprofil, gått igenom ansökningar och nomineringar samt genomfört intervjuer.
Slutligen var Erik Renström den kandidat som presenterades för universitetskollegiet, som består av representanter för universitetets medarbetare och studenter. Efter att universitetskollegiet förordat Erik Renström var han även rekryteringsgruppens förslag, vilket styrelsen nu har tagit ställning till.
Fortfarande återstår ett steg. Det är nämligen regeringen som formellt utser rektor.
Även prorektors mandat löper ut vid årsskiftet. Processen att utse prorektor inleds den 10 augusti då möjligheten att söka eller nominera till tjänsten öppnar. Sista dag att söka eller nominera är den 14 september.
Läs mer om processen att utse rektor och prorektor: Rektorsrekrytering .
Regeringen utser rektor efter förslag från universitetsstyrelsen. En rektor kan tillsättas i upp till sex år, med möjlighet till förlängning två gånger i högst tre år per gång.
Läs mer: Högskoleförordningen | Riksdagen.se.
Erik Renström är professor i experimentell endokrinologi och nuvarande rektor för Lunds universitet. Erik Renström är född 1963 i Göteborg och bosatt i Landskrona. Han blev läkare 1992 och arbetade kliniskt i sjukvården innan han 1997 doktorerade i membranfysiologi vid Göteborgs unive…
Lunds universitet kommer att delta i och samordna två forskningsprojekt som rör den europeiska demokratins framtid. Det ena projektet ska undersöka extremism och polarisering, medan det andra ska granska EU:s utvidgning.
– Detta visar på Lunds universitets förmåga att både leda och bidra till stora internationella forskningssamarbeten kring frågor som har direkt relevans för Europas demokratiska framtid, säger Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, universitetslektor i europeiska studier vid Lunds universitet och koordinator för ett av projekten.
Projektet DEEP DIALOGUE ( De-Escalating Extremism & Polarisation through Dialogue ) samordnas av Lunds universitet och ska undersöka hur polarisering, desinformation och extremism kan utvecklas till radikalisering bland unga. Forskarna kommer också att studera hur dialogbaserade insatser kan stärka förtroende, delaktighet och social sammanhållning.
OWN-EU ( Enhancing the Success of Enlargement through the Political Ownership–Territorial Capital Nexus ), deltar Lunds universitet som partner. Projektet analyserar hur politiskt ägarskap, territoriellt kapital och regionala skillnader påverkar möjligheterna till framgångsrika och långsiktigt hållbara EU-utvidgningar i unionens östra grannländer och på västra Balkan.
Gemensamt för båda projekten är ambitionen att bidra med mer än akademisk kunskap. Forskarna ska även utveckla verktyg, rekommendationer och underlag som kan användas av beslutsfattare, praktiker och det civila samhället.
– Denna forskning har stor potential att bidra till framtida politiska diskussioner och beslut, särskilt när det gäller hur Europa kan möta demokratisk sårbarhet och framtida EU-utvidgning, säger Anamaria Dutceac Segesten.
Både DEEP DIALOGUE och OWN-EU finansieras inom ramen för Horizon Europe Cluster 2: Kultur, kreativitet och ett inkluderande samhälle, inom området demokrati. Projekten har beviljats cirka 3,5 miljoner euro vardera i EU-finansiering och startar den 1 september 2026.
DEEP DIALOGUE sa…
A wild botanic garden in West Sussex is due to display a series of sculptures by Henry Moore, one of Britain's most influential artists.
Wakehurst said the four pieces would be featured alongside newly commissioned works by other contemporary artists who are part of the Henry Moore Institute.
A spokesperson for the botanic garden said the displays aimed to "continue the conversation of art and nature".
Eva Owen, programme manager at Wakehurst, said they were "delighted" to host the pieces which "evoke the themes of care, protection and conservation".
"This in turn reflects the vital work which we do at Wakehurst, including managing and researching an array of landscapes and natural habitats, as well as our Millennium Seed Bank ," she said.
Kew Gardens is also featuring a display of Moore's sculptures , which was unveiled on 9 May.
Moore created more than 1,100 sculptures in his lifetime. His famous works include the Reclining Figure series, Knife Edge Two Piece and Nuclear Energy.
Sebastiano Barassi, head of Henry Moore collections and programmes, said the artist's deep affinity with the natural world made Wakehurst and Kew "ideal settings" for his work.
"Throughout his career, he was inspired by organic forms such as bones, stones, trees, and landscape," he said.
Barassi said the sculptures at both Kew and Wakehurst aimed to offer a "fresh perspective" on Moore's legacy.
"It invites visitors to reflect on nature, humanity, and the environment at a time when those themes feel more urgent and relevant than ever," he added.
Wakehurst said the sculptures were due to be unveiled on Friday and remain in place until 27 September.
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It's been a happy ending for the eggs of an elusive bird that were just inches from the flames of a large wildfire earlier this year.
Saved by firefighters during the blaze in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, the four curlew eggs have now hatched.
The chicks will eventually be released into the wild, and conservationists are delighted.
The curlew was once a common sight, but numbers have fallen in recent years and there are now thought to be just 150 breeding pairs of curlews left in Northern Ireland.
Róisín Normanly of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) told BBC News NI that the curlew nest had been fenced off to protect it - but within 24 hours a wildfire had broken out.
At its height, 85 firefighters battled the blaze but despite challenging conditions, they were able to protect the nest.
Normanly said the fire crews "kept the fire back while we got into the eggs".
She said: "The fire was about a metre from the nest when we got there, so it was really close to the bone.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said it worked with the RSPB and the eggs were "safely removed for incubation" so they had "a chance of survival".
A host of agencies was involved in the conservation effort including the Forest Service, Conservation Detection Dogs NI and the Sliabh Beagh Curlew Conservation Trust.
Normanly explained that the eggs "were collected very carefully, wrapped up individually and packaged into a biscuit tin" to be transported to the incubation facility.
Chairman of the Sliabh Beagh Curlew Conservation Trust Dr John Cusack said the eggs were incubated for just under four weeks.
"All four [chicks] are happy and healthy and thriving and we're delighted about that," he said.
"We're going to release them and hopefully they'll do well after they are released back into the wild.
"Ideally, you want them to spend time with their parents, to be reared by their parents and learn the skills necessary. But it is still a very, v…
Americans who have high-risk exposures to Ebola in the current outbreak in Central Africa will have access to an experimental antibody treatment.
The world's coastal mangrove forests, which protect millions of people from storms - and soak up vast amounts of planet-warming gases - are staging an unexpected comeback, scientists find.
For decades these swampy trees had been declining rapidly as they were cleared for fish farms and housing.
But a new study shows that since 2010 the world has been gaining more mangroves than it has been losing - driven by stronger legal protections and increased public awareness of their importance, sparked by disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The researchers say the key factor though is the remarkable capacity of these forests to regenerate naturally once humans stop chopping them down.
Mangroves are one of the world's unsung environmental heroes.
Not only do they store up to five times more carbon dioxide than land-based forests, but their tangled roots can also slow down waves and protect coastal communities from storm surges and tsunamis.
These same roots provide a perfect nursery for many species of fish and other marine life - protecting them from predators and providing ample food.
These benefits, though, have come under serious threat over the past century as the rise of fish farming, agriculture and the expansion of coastal cities and towns have seen mangroves chopped down and rapidly removed.
From the 1980s to 2010, over 12,000 sq km (4,600 sq miles) of mangroves were cleared or destroyed across Asia, Africa and the Americas - an area the size of Jamaica.
However, the new study shows a real reversal of that trend, particularly over the last decade. The total net losses - the forest lost and not replaced - since the 1980s have now been reduced to around 849 sq km (328 sq miles).
Restoration efforts over decades have helped degraded forests to recover, but the big change has come from the natural expansion of mangroves in many parts of the world following drops in deforestation.
This has enabled forest levels to stabilise in Indonesia and grow…
Swampy mangrove forests are staging a surprise comeback - which is good news for coastal communities and the climate.
Warning: this article contains distressing images
Dumped dead animals are a "shameful, regular sight" in rural rivers and watercourses in parts of Northern Ireland.
Paddy Little, a litter picking officer for a waters sports club, said he has seen a number of carcasses in the Blackwater River that flows between counties Tyrone and Armagh.
He said members had pulled a bag from the water, only to find it stuffed with a sheep carcass. The agriculture minister has called for an end to the "veil of secrecy" surrounding animal dumping incidents.
Figures show there were almost 150 animal dumping incidents since 2020, but only 15 people have been convicted of wrongful disposal of animals offences in the last five years.
"A lot of the times we're out litter picking we would see some sort of dead animal in the water," Little from Blackwater Paddle Sports added.
"It's a biohazard and it's hugely unpleasant for the community that uses this river."
The tags which identify farm animals' owners are often removed when a carcass has been illegally dumped.
Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir has called for anybody with information on the illegal dumping of farm animals to contact authorities immediately.
"I'm aware the vast majority of farmers dispose of fallen livestock responsibly and many share my disgust, but this is wrong and we need to see people apprehended for it", he said.
Meanwhile the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) called on anyone illegally dumping farm animals to "stop it immediately" and follow proper procedures.
There are number of companies throughout Northern Ireland that will dispose of and process dead animals.
The carcass of one adult cow can cost on average between £80 to £100, this does not include any transportation charges.
UFU Deputy President Clement Lynch said: "Yes times are tight financially for farmers and dealing with dead livestock is an added cost, but that is no excuse for illegal dumping.
"It is probably a very small number carrying this o…
Trump invokes Defense Production Act to keep U.S. coal plants running
Coal is the most significant fossil fuel contributor to climate change
At a White House briefing on Thursday, President Donald Trump invoked a national defense law to steer nearly $700 million to support coal power plants and exports. Trump aims to use the 1950 Defense Production Act to refurbish 13 coal plants , build two new ones and establish a West Coast coal export facility in the U.S.—even as many coal plants around the country are retiring and the fossil fuel is in long-term decline.
“We’re into energy that really works,” Trump said at the briefing, claiming that coal firms would pay an additional $1.7 billion to support the new construction. The administration is also angling for existing coal plants in four states to remain operational past their retirement dates.
Coal and oil are already heavily subsidized , but the administration says that by reversing coal’s steady decline, it will create 14,000 new jobs. On Thursday the Environmental Protection Agency also announced it would reverse a 2014 regional haze ruling that was due to close a coal power plant in Wyoming.
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In 2025 Trump declared a National Energy Emergency aimed at bulwarking the coal industry. At the same time, the president has broadly opposed solar and wind power during his administration. Nevertheless, U.S. coal use has been in sharp retreat for almost two decades, accounting for only 8 percent of primary energy consumption nationwide in 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service . Its use is expected to decline further because of increased renewables and natural gas. Wind and solar produced a record 17 percent of U.S. energy in 2025 and are less expensive than fossi…
The White House has used the program to reward companies that help its political goals.
Why did a presentation on Revolution Medicines' pancreatic cancer drug get a standing ovation? Why did biotech stocks perform so badly this week? Find out on "The Readout LOUD."
What role will humans play in the future of scientific research?
Otsuka’s Voyxact slowed the loss of kidney function after one year in patients with a chronic autoimmune kidney disease, but the benefit was less than expected.
Making social connection part of job design, whether people work remotely, hybrid or in-person, is key to supporting employees‘ well-being.
Remote work is making Americans lonelier and sadder, new study suggests
Remote and hybrid work can have benefits, but a study involving more than 588,000 people suggest they may take a serious mental toll
By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron
When the pandemic hit, just like so many Americans, researcher Emma Harrington started working remotely . What shocked her most in those early days of COVID was how productive she was. Then a Ph.D. student at Harvard University, she found that she could still focus on her work despite being at home. But it wasn’t all positive: the “social ramifications” took a toll, particularly during periods when she lived alone. “I struggled with having just whole days where I couldn’t be sure that I would see people, even in brief ways,” she recalls.
It turns out that Harrington isn’t alone— new research by her and her colleagues suggests that the long-term shift to remote or hybrid work after the pandemic may have had an adverse effect on workers’ mental health. The study was published today in Science .
Importantly, the research compared workers’ mental health and alone time before and after the peak years of the pandemic in a bid to capture the effect of remote work outside of 2020 and 2021, when COVID was most acute and people were forced to isolate. Certainly, many workplaces have remained entirely remote or have a hybrid in-office policy. For example, a 2023 poll from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that as many as one in five people said they worked remotely.
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Harrington, now an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, and her co-authors analyzed the results of five surveys that were completed between 2011 and 2024 and included a total of 588,322 American…
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Hikma Pharmaceutical did not infringe patents held by Amarin in a decision with implications for lawsuits over so-called skinny labels.
Scientists in Finland found bees could solve an insect version of the classic "box-and-banana" problem.
<p>Insects join list of species capable of solving simple ‘box-and-banana’ problem that demonstrates basic intelligence</p><p>Bumblebees can use tools to solve a problem, according to experiments that demonstrate their remarkably advanced cognitive abilities.</p><p>The bees were given an adapted version of an experiment that, 100 years ago, first demonstrated chimpanzees could work out how to retrieve an out-of-reach banana by stacking boxes. Since then, various other primates, elephants and crows have joined an elite cohort of species known to be capable of this level of insight and spontaneous problem solving.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/04/bees-use-tools-to-solve-problems-study-finds">Continue reading...</a>
Bumblebees use tools to solve complex problems—despite not being trained to do so
Bumblebees appear to be capable of coming up with creative solutions to new problems to get a sugary reward—and their strategies include cheating
Contrary to their name, bumblebees are no bumbling oafs. A new study published in Science on Thursday found that these bees utilized tools to solve complex problems to win a sugary treat, even if they had never been trained to use the tools in any context. In fact, some of the bees even cheated—skipping the problem altogether—to reap the reward, the researchers found.
This isn’t the first time bumblebees have been seen to use tools to get what they want. A 2016 study, for example, found that such bees could learn to pull a string to receive a reward —and that untrained bees could learn this trick from their more educated peers. Still, it adds to the evidence that creative problem-solving and tool use aren’t just the domain of larger-brained animals, such as birds and apes. Bumblebees’ brains are relatively primitive—they have around one million neurons, compared with the 86 billion or so in human brains—yet the new experiment indicates that complex problem-solving doesn’t necessarily require complex gray matter.
“The number of neurons is not correlating with cognitive abilities,” says Olli Loukola, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Turku in Finland and a co-author of the new study. “It might be that animals with bigger bodies require bigger brains, or it could be that animals that need more long-term memory require bigger brains, whereas bees are living in rapidly changing environments.”
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In a series of experiments, bumblebees were divided into groups and put through a series of tests, …
With no training, bumblebees can work out how to use a ball like a ladder to feed on sugar from an out-of-reach flower.
The oldest hominin footprints ever found are at risk of destruction, researchers warn
A new investigation alleges that official organizations in Tanzania have imperiled the country's artifacts and remains at four critical human heritage sites they were supposed to protect
By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner
The oldest-known hominin footprints are in danger of being destroyed by state-backed tourism and other economic activity, a new investigation claims . The Laetoli site contains 3.66-million-year-old fossil footprints made by Australopithecus afarensis, the same species as the early human ancestor known as “Lucy.”
Laetoli is one of several archaeological sites that are under threat in Tanzania, according to the new report, which was published today in the journal Antiquity . The paper’s co-authors Elgidius Ichumbaki and Peter Schmidt argue that Tanzanian state groups charged with safeguarding Laetoli and three other sites that are critical to human history have dismissed the concerns of conservationists and local communities in the interests of tourism.
The Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, which has overall responsibility for the nation’s heritage sites, did not respond to a request for comment.
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The three other sites are ruins at Kilwa Kisiwani, an island and UNESCO World Heritage Site; rock art at Kondoa, also an UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Dodoma region of Tanzania; and the Kaiija shrine and early Iron Age metal works in Katuruka, west of Lake Victoria.
Ichumbaki, a former student of Schmidt’s and now an associate professor at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, points to a 2008 shift in government priorities to try to monetize these heritage sites by bringing in more tour…
For pancreatic cancer patients, the surge in interest for an exciting new drug is leaving them fearful about when they might get the treatment or if there will be enough…
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<p>Rester av mediciner och droger når naturen via avlopp. Forskare vid Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, SLU, har nu undersökt förekomsten av både läkemedelsrester och smittämnen i vilda råttor. De tittade särskilt på de infektioner som råttorna kan sprida till människor. – Vi har länge känt till att läkemedelsföroreningar påverkar arter som fiskar och fåglar. För första gången […]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://forskning.se/2026/06/04/lakemedel-i-rattor-kopplas-till-forandrad-smittrisk/">Läkemedel i råttor kopplas till förändrad smittrisk</a> appeared first on <a href="https://forskning.se">forskning.se</a>.</p>
It may feel like the exhaustion of caring for a newborn leaves little room for romance. Now, researchers have found that people really do seem to love their partner less in the first year of parenthood – but there are ways to buffer against this.
Prior studies suggest that relationship satisfaction tends to decline in the two years after having a baby, but these rarely account for the state of things before pregnancy. When Agnieszka Sorokowska at the University of Wrocław, Poland, started a family, she wanted to know how her relationship was set to change. “I got pregnant, and then I wrote the grant proposal to look at this,” she says.
Read more Should you have children? The true costs and benefits of parenthood
Should you have children? The true costs and benefits of parenthood
With her colleagues, Sorokowska recruited nearly 300 heterosexual couples without children who had been together for at least two years. Every six months, for at least two years, the participants completed surveys – independently of their partner – in which they ranked on a scale from 0 to 6 how much they loved their partner and how committed they were.
The researchers analysed results from 71 of these couples who had a baby during the study and found that pregnancy itself had no impact. But – in line with the prior evidence – the participants reported loving their partners less and being less committed to maintaining the relationship within one year after childbirth. There was no change in this time among the couples who remained without children.
Sorokowska – who presented the results at the Love, Actually and in Theory meeting in Edinburgh, UK, last month – plans to continue surveying these couples until their children reach adulthood, to determine whether the effects are long-lasting. But prior research suggests that things gradually improve . “There’s a steep decline in [relationship satisfaction] in the first year, only a small decline from year one to two, and then it seems t…