Swedish News:

Spring has sprung! - First cranes at Lake Hornborga. Ballet students not allowed to yawn. Prime Minister and his wife separating. Training is good for your genes.  

  • Spring has sprung! - First cranes at Lake Hornborga
    Spring has sprung! At least at Lake Hornborga in Västergötland. Last Sunday the first cranes of the year were spotted at several sides of the lake. “Right before 3 pm, two cranes landed and walked around,” says photographer Torbjörn Skogedal. The first cranes came earlier this year than prior years, when the winters have been harsher. They usually stay around the lake to breed. The most cranes to be spotted at Lake Hornborga was in 2009, when there were 18 500 of them.

  • Ballet students not allowed to yawn
    We all know ballet is associated with strict discipline, but at the Svenska balettskolan in Göteborg that discipline simply went too far. When the students yawned during class, or when they couldn’t perform a particular exercise they got a flick at the head by the ballet mistress. After a warning that the students at the school were being subjected to humiliation, Skolinspektionen (the Swedish Schools Inspectorate) supervised the school, according to Sveriges Radio Göteborg. The director of the school’s argument is that the students are being subjected to hard discipline in order to be prepared for an elitist career, but that didn’t really move Skolinspektionen. All education in Sweden must be imbued with humanity.

  • Prime Minister and his wife separating
    Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and his wife Filippa are separating. That message was delivered by the Prime Minister’s press secretary Roberta Alenius in a mail. The Prime Minister will stay in the couple’s joint house in Täby. The couple has three children aged 18, 16, and 11. Filippa is also a successful politician of the Moderate party. The two married in 1992.

  • Training is good for your genes
    New research from the Karolinska Institute shows that working out can influence your DNA-molecules in the muscle cells in a positive way. In connection with physical activity, the DNA gets cleaned of the so-called methyl groups - something that in turn makes your genes work better and improves the muscle cells the next time you work or exercise.