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birgitta bremer

"In ten years, the complete 'Tree of Life' will be finished and we'll have a complete map of life's family history. Then we can begin to understand why certain life forms died out while others went on evolving."  Read more

question 11: who cares about the swamps?

Wetlands are much more important than we used to think. They deserve a much better reputation! In the west, more than half of some kinds of wetland were destroyed in the 20th century, and countless species have died out. Who really cares about the swamps?  Read more

question 13: how sick is our planet really?

How's our planet doing actually? To find out, the Earth has been subjected to a thorough health examination of a kind never undertaken before. The first results arrived a couple of years ago.  Read more

question 20: when will we start treating mother earth better?

Were our planet a doctor's patient, the diagnosis wouldn't be comforting: change your lifestyle or else! We've been mistreating the Earth for centuries now − how can we make amends? Maybe by strengthening her resilience? One thing's for certain: only we humans can help our planet.  Read more

question 22: who cares about species death?

The finest source of inspiration for the pharmaceuticals industry is neither costly chemistry laboratories nor scientific journals. It's actually Nature herself, in particular the wealth of species in the tropics, that gives scientists ideas for medicines and treatments.  Read more

question 28: how closely related are we to other organisms?

All living things are related – some more closely than others. You are actually closer to the mushrooms on your plate than to the lettuce! You can see this if you study the amount of difference and similarity in our genes. Just now, biologists are mapping a common family tree for all life on Earth.  Read more

question 40: can wood possibly replace oil in the future?

If oil belonged to the 20th century, it looks as if wood could be the raw material of the 21st century – as indeed it was in earlier times. Good news for a country that's more than half covered by forest. To get back to nature and replace plastics with paper and other wood-based materials we need a whole new kind of engineering. No wonder that protein engineering is a hot research field in a country like Sweden.  Read more

question 48: which species must we preserve for the future?

Is there any point in trying to preserve all the Earth's biological species? Or are some more valuable than others? How can we decide? Modern molecular biology is a big help.  Read more