News 2009

December

• Five prominent researchers elected to the Academy

  2009-12-16 At the General Meeting on 11 November five Swedish researchers were elected to the Academy: Johan Åqvist and Lars Tranvik, Uppsala University, Klas Kärre, Karolinska Institutet, Juleen Zierath, Karolinska University Hospital and Peter Gärdenfors, Lund University.

October

• Message for the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

  2009-10-26 At the international symposium Energy 2050 a message for the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was discussed. It contains recommendations for the future global energy production and is based on analyses of different sources of energy made by the Energy Committee 2005-2009.

• Academy statement on climate change

  2009-10-16 The Academy has formulated a statement concerned with the scientific basis of climate change. It has not been an objective to deal with areas outside the natural sciences. However, it is clear that changes in climate require a response from society that involves a wide range of other disciplines, with development and application of new technologies.

• The Prize in Economic Sciences 2009

  2009-10-12 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2009 to Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA, “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”, and Oliver E. Williamson, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the...

• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009

  2009-10-07 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 jointly to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, Thomas A. Steitz, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA and Ada E. Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome”.

• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009

  2009-10-06 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 with one half to Charles K. Kao, Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication” , and the other half jointly to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, Bel...

September

• Where is the limit? Planetary Boundaries: a safe operating space for humanity

  2009-09-23 A new approach to sustainable development is conveyed in the coming issue of the scientific journal Nature. A group of 28 internationally renowned scientists, including the academy members Carl Folke and Henning Rodhe, have made a first attempt to identify and quantify a set of nine planetary boundaries. The group propose that global biophysical boundaries, identified on the basis of the...

• Master of the creation of protein crystals receives the Aminoff Prize 2010

  2009-09-10 The Gregori Aminoff prize in crystallography 2010 is awarded Prof. So Iwata, Imperial College, London, “for his seminal crystallographic studies of membrane proteins. Using state-of-the-art crystallographic methods, he has elucidated vital biological functions within the fields of cellular respiration, photosynthesis and molecular transport.”

• Royal Society highlights the dangers of tampering with the Earth's climate

  2009-09-01 The future of the Earth could rest on potentially dangerous and unproven geoengineering* technologies unless emissions of carbon dioxide can be greatly reduced, the latest Royal Society report has found. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has contributed to the conent.

July

• New web site

  2009-07-03 Welcome to the Academy's new web site! We hope that the new information structure and design will help you find what you're looking for.

June

• Two prominent researchers elected to the Academy's class for chemistry

  2009-06-30 On 10 June two new members were elected to the Academy’s class for chemistry: Reiko Kuroda, Professor at Department of Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan, and Pär Nordlund, Professor of biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden.

• Many new members elected to the Academy

  2009-06-24 At the General meeting on 11 February seven prominent researchers in mathematics, astronomy, physics and biology were elected members of the Academy. Their research reaches from geometry and systematic botany to stars and black holes.

May

• Serious assault on research freedom

  2009-05-07 The Israeli company Nemesysco has used threats of legal actions to prevent the publication of a scientific article in International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law that was critical of their products.

April

• The Crafoord Days in Stockholm and Lund 11–13 May 2009

  2009-04-23 Meet the Crafoord Prize laureates, awarded “for their pioneering work to isolate interleukins, determine their properties and explore their role in the onset of inflammatory diseases”. The three Crafoord Days will begin in Stockholm and continue in Lund.

January

• The Crafoord Prize in Polyarthritis 2009

  2009-01-15 The Crafoord Prize 2009 is awarded to Charles Dinarello, USA, Tadamitsu Kishimoto, Japan and Toshio Hirano, Japan, “for their pioneering work to isolate interleukins, determine their properties and explore their role in the onset of inflammatory diseases”