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Sunday, February 25, 2007
Gene responsible for.. depression...
Swedish scientists have discovered that a gene responsible for depression in girls can protect boys from depressive symptoms. The scientists at the University of Uppsala and the Centre for Clinical Research in Västerås studied two genes - 5-HTT and MAOA. Both genes play a role in how the brain handles signal substances including dopamine and serotonin. The study, carried out on people between the ages of 16 and 19, showed that boys with a short variant of MAOA were more likely to display anti-social behaviour and drink to excess if brought up in a poor psychosocial environment.
In girls, the long variant of the same gene was likely to increase the risks of poor behaviour, when combined with a poor environment. Results for the 5-HTT gene showed the opposite effect. The short variant of the gene affected girls negatively. In combination with a poor environment, the gene increased the risk of depressive symptoms in girls. For boys, the long variant increased the risk of depression.
The results surprised the researchers behind the study. They first thought that something had gone wrong, but continued research confirmed the link. There might never be an answer as to why the two genes and their variants affect men and women differently, but the results would enable improvements in psychiatric care.
Posted at 7:54:49 am by Sophie Cecilie
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Saturday, February 24, 2007
DNA tests.. either confirmed or allayed...
A Swedish company makes it possible for people who suspect their partners of being unfaithful to have their suspicions either confirmed or allayed. The website pappatest.se primarily offers DNA tests for potential fathers or family members. But if a sample is provided the company will also be happy to carry out an infidelity test. The technique gives customers the possiblity to find out if their partner has been unfaithful. The website has not yet been bombarded by hordes of jealous lovers. Any customers harbouring suspicions of infidelity on the home front must first be able to provide some form of evidence. There must be a reason, for example, a man might suspect that his wife is unfaithful. If he finds stains in her underwear he can send it in. The company can then determine if it is sperm and if it comes from another man or from himself.
The company then sends the sample to a lab in the USA and the hypothetic husband will know within two weeks whether or not he has been cuckolded. Regardless of whether the result gladdens or saddens him, it will cost him 2 590 kronor. The service is of course available to both sexes; the company also analyses stains believed to contain female DNA. A spokesman from the company points out that a saliva sample from a cigarette may be enough to find out if there have been unexpected visitors in a customer's home. It's suppose to be about 10% of all children in Sweden that have a different father than they expect or are told to have.
Posted at 4:35:29 am by Sophie Cecilie
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Swedish jobs.. increasing...
Last week the Swedish Employment Service received notification of over 24 000 new jobs, which is the highest ever figure for a single week. The record week followed a record month for job creation. In January the employment service took in 75 000 notices of new jobs, the largest number since the agency began measuring the flow of jobs in 1970. If job creation continues at the current pace the new record will be smashed again in February, with the number of new jobs potentially hitting 100 000.
The average for last year was 10 000 jobs per week. But official unemployment statistics are not dropping at the same pace, primarily because more and more people are seeking entry into an attractive labour market. People in this category include those who have left studies to seek work, or people formerly on various forms of sick pay. At the end of last week 207 747 people were openly unemployed, according to the Swedish Employment Service. This was 4 801 people fewer than the previous week, and 35 912 people fewer than the same period last year.
A total of 105 474 people were involved in labour market programmes, up 515 on the previous week but down 29 803 on the previous year. When the figures are combined the number of people either unemployed or involved in labour market programmes is 313 221. This is 4 286 fewer than the previous week and 65 715 fewer than the same week in 2006.
Posted at 7:40:43 pm by Sophie Cecilie
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Shrove Tuesday.. food tradition...
Posted at 7:10:09 pm by Sophie Cecilie
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Monday, February 19, 2007
The Sophie Prize.. goes to...
Former Swedish prime minister Göran Persson has been awarded a top environment prize in Norway for his efforts to get Swedes to reduce oil consumption and CO2 emissions. Accepting the Sophie Prize in Oslo, an unusually modest Persson said he was disappointed that his government had not done more. 'I feel honoured, but we did not do enough. We did too little, too late,' he said. 'We can turn things around, but if we wait for the market to solve the climate crisis, it could be too late. The market is an excellent servant but a terrible master,' he told at the press conference.
Under Persson's government, Sweden's greenhouse gas emissions fell 13.5 percent. Norway's emissions rose by 2.7 percent. Persson faced stiff competition for the $100,000 prize, with former US Vice President Al Gore chief among the other candidates. Others linked to this year's prize were California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and London mayor Ken Livingstone. Last year's prize was awarded to Argentinian human rights activist Romina Picolotti. Previous prizewinners have included France's Attac organization and journalist John Pilger. The Sophie Prize was founded in 1997 by Jostein Gaarder, the author of Sophie's Choice and his wife Siri Dannevig.
Posted at 8:12:51 pm by Sophie Cecilie
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Saturday, February 17, 2007
Sweden has scored highly in a UNICEF report on children's well-being in 21 of the world's richest countries. The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre examined six different aspects in an attempt to quantify children's well-being: material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviours and risks, and young people’s own subjective sense of well-being.
The Netherlands topped the survey, closely followed by Sweden. Completing the top five were Denmark, Finland and Spain. Sweden got top marks on three of the measures: material well-being, health and safety and behaviours and risks. The country lost ground however in the area of peer and family relationships, ranking in 15th position. Ireland and Canada both fared reasonably well, coming in at ninth and twelfth place respectively. Of the 21 countries studies, the United States scored second lowest, with the United Kingdom occupying the bottom berth. All countries have weaknesses to be addressed, said the Innocenti Director in a statement. No single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of children’s lives.
Posted at 5:38:09 am by Sophie Cecilie
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Parents wanting their children to stand out from the crowd would have done well to avoid the names Lukas and Emma in 2006. These were the most popular boys and girls names last year, according to name website svenskanamn.com. The year's highest climbers were Jack for boys and Freja for girls. Names that are really unpopular now are the ones that were popular in the 1940s and 1950s, like Bengt, Lennart, Margareta and Birgitta. Anybody who wants to ensure that their kids are the only ones at playschool with a certain name should choose one of those.
Göran is another name that has fallen out of favour. If it was a bad year for Sweden's former prime minister Persson it was an even worse one for his first name, with just two new Görans seeing the light of day last year. Football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson's former flame, television presenter Ulrika Jonsson, has also seen her name drop way down the rankings. Two baby Ulrikas have joined the nation. And speaking of Sven, whatever happened to that old reliable? Your average Joe Soap is known in Sweden as a Svensson. But soon there will be no more Svens to bear sons. The name is conspicuous by its absence in the top 100 for boys.
Actors and fictional characters are a source of inspiration for many a parent, with 2006 proving a very good year for Viggo and Leia. People who have just become parents are trying ever harder to find unique names for their children. But since everybody is inspired by the same television programmes, books, music and so on many choose the same names in the belief that they are unusual and new. To emphasize the point, 118 new Angelinas were born in Sweden in 2006.
There are some decidedly non-Swedish names in the boys' top 100 too. Mohamed has climbed a few spots to 68, while Eddie is holding firm at 96. And, many years after Britpop, Liam is still rolling with it, just slipping out of the top twenty to 21st place. Noel seems to have crashed into the wonderwall however and slumped to 59. The Pop Idol effect is clearly visible too. Agnes Carlsson, who won the competition in 2005 has seen her name climb 19 spots to number 4. 
Posted at 6:23:51 pm by Sophie Cecilie
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Sweden is to become the first country to establish diplomatic representation in the virtual reality world of Second Life. There are plans to establish a Swedish embassy in Second Life primarily as an information portal for Sweden, said the director of the Swedish Institute (SI). The embassy would not provide passports or visas but would instruct visitors how to obtain such documents in the real world and act as a link to web-based information about the Scandinavian country.
Second Life allows Sweden to inform foreign people about Sweden and broaden the opportunity for contact with Sweden easily and cheaply. The Swedish Institute is an agency of the Swedish foreign ministry tasked with informing the world about Sweden. The ministry fully backed the initiative. Second Life is a fantasy world inhabited by computer-generated residents created by San Francisco technology company Linden Lab and has attracted several real-world companies, including car manufacturers and sports clothing makers, which created 3-D stores. While there were individuals in Second Life calling themselves the 'Canadian Ambassador' and 'The United States Embassy to Second Life', the Swedish initiative would however be the first officially sanctioned embassy in Second Life.
The director of the Swedish Institute hopes the embassy would open soon. In the longer term the Swedish Institute envisaged buying an island in the virtual world to create a home for Swedish companies. In late January, according to the Second Life website, there were 2 938 247 inhabitants in its alternative reality, more than one third of them having signed up in the last 60 days. 
Posted at 7:31:13 pm by Sophie Cecilie
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Friday, February 09, 2007
Increasing healthcare costs.. due to depression...
The financial costs of depression have more than doubled in Sweden over the last eight years. As sick leave and early retirement brought about by depression have become more common, costs have shot up from 16.1 to 32.9 billion kronor, according to a new study. The calculations used in the study are based on direct healthcare costs and indirect costs in the form of reduced productivity resulting from absence due to sick leave.
The study shows the high price of depression in Sweden, as well as indicating the need for a real effort to slow down the spiralling societal costs of the illness, said one of the researchers behind the study. This is the first major study to look at the costs surrounding depression over a longer time period. The results of the study are to be publishing in a forthcoming magazine issue.. to read more about it, check out the next number of European Psychiatry...
Posted at 6:19:45 am by Sophie Cecilie
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007
It's unreal but.. I'm finally finished...
I forgot to mention in my last two entries.. that I received an e-mail from my professor late Monday evening... with happy news. I've passed and got the degree AB, which is the best one can get. Also, she told me she is giving me exemption from the disputation seminar even though I never applied for any exemption from the seminar. I was prepared to go down to Lund this month and defend my essay. But hey, I'm not unhappy about she letting me off and won't demand my right to participate as long as I will get my diploma. It feels a little unreal that I'm finally finished. I guess I can seek jobs and work as a lawyer now..
Posted at 9:13:44 pm by Sophie Cecilie
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Blog Owner » Sophie Cecilie
Yogini » Suryananda
Location » Sweden
Hobbies » Yoga, music, litterature, TV/Movies, blogging...
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All other love is like the moon,
Which grows and shrinks like flower on plain;
Like bud that blooms and withers soon;
Like passing day that ends in rain.
All other love begins in bliss,
And ends in tears and suffering:
No love can salve us all but this,
The love that rests in heaven's King.
For ever green, renewed again,
For ever full, it never pales.
It ever sweetens, free from pain,
Continues always, never fails.
'You can close your eyes to the things you don't wanna see, but you can't close your heart to the things you don't wanna feel...'
Sophie Cecilie © 2006
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