scholarly journals History of Medicine in the Baltic Sea region: Introductory remarks by the Editor

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 7-9
Author(s):  
Nils Hanson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Life Science ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The World ◽  
Hanseatic League ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Large Research

A new “Hanseatic League”, “a global hotspot for health”, “one of the most innovative science macro-regions in the world”? In the fields of life science and technology, politicians and managers of current large research projects describe the Baltic Sea region as a hub of cutting-edge research. How did these images emerge?

Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea Region

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Cultural Goods ◽  
The Third ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic

Since prehistoric times, the Baltic Sea has functioned as a northern mare nostrum — a crucial nexus that has shaped the languages, folklore, religions, literature, technology, and identities of the Germanic, Finnic, Sámi, Baltic, and Slavic peoples. This anthology explores the networks among those peoples. The contributions to Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea Region: Austmarr as a Northern mare nostrum, ca. 500-1500 ad address different aspects of cultural contacts around and across the Baltic from the perspectives of history, archaeology, linguistics, literary studies, religious studies, and folklore. The introduction offers a general overview of crosscultural contacts in the Baltic Sea region as a framework for contextualizing the volume’s twelve chapters, organized in four sections. The first section concerns geographical conceptions as revealed in Old Norse and in classical texts through place names, terms of direction, and geographical descriptions. The second section discusses the movement of cultural goods and persons in connection with elite mobility, the slave trade, and rune-carving practice. The third section turns to the history of language contacts and influences, using examples of Finnic names in runic inscriptions and Low German loanwords in Finnish. The final section analyzes intercultural connections related to mythology and religion spanning Baltic, Finnic, Germanic, and Sámi cultures. Together these diverse articles present a dynamic picture of this distinctive part of the world.

scholarly journals Reconstructing N<sub>2</sub>-fixing cyanobacterial blooms in the Baltic Sea beyond observations using 6- and 7-methylheptadecanes in sediments as specific biomarkers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Kaiser ◽  
Norbert Wasmund ◽  
Mati Kahru ◽  
Anna K. Wittenborn ◽  
Regina Hansen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Time History ◽  
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation ◽  
Cyanobacterial Blooms ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diazotrophic Cyanobacteria ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Summer cyanobacterial blooms represent a threat for the Baltic Sea ecosystem, causing deoxygenation of the bottom water and the spread of the so-called dead zones. The time history of the Baltic Sea cyanobacterial blooms is known from in situ and satellite observations since the early 1980s, but still not well understood. By comparing both weekly-resolved trap sediments and a well-dated sediment core from the Eastern Gotland Basin with monitoring and satellite cyanobacterial data of the last ca. 35 years, it is shown here that 6- and 7-methylheptadecane lipids (expressed as 6+7Me-C17:0) are robust semi-quantitative biomarkers for diazotrophic cyanobacteria, and likely mainly for Nodularia spumigena. Using this organic proxy, it was thus possible to reconstruct the history of cyanobacterial blooms beyond the observational period with a resolution of 2–4 years since 1860. Cyanobacteria were constantly present, but in relatively low abundance until 1920, when they started to alternate between periods with high and low abundance. Interestingly, there seems to be no significant increase in cyanobacterial abundance in the 1950s, when eutrophication and deoxygenation of the Baltic Sea increased considerably. Decadal to multi-decadal fluctuations are likely rather related to variability in the Baltic Sea surface temperature and, ultimately, to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. A 7000 years long 6+7Me-C17:0 record from the Bothnian Sea also suggests a relationship with the mean summer temperature in the Baltic Sea region, but at a multi-centennial to multi-millennial timescale. The intensity of the cyanobacterial blooms in the Baltic Sea is thus likely mainly related to natural processes such as temperature variability, at least at a multi-decadal to multi-millennial timescale.

scholarly journals Reconstructing N<sub>2</sub>-fixing cyanobacterial blooms in the Baltic Sea beyond observations using 6- and 7-methylheptadecane in sediments as specific biomarkers

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 2579-2591
Author(s):  
Jérôme Kaiser ◽  
Norbert Wasmund ◽  
Mati Kahru ◽  
Anna K. Wittenborn ◽  
Regina Hansen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Cyanobacterial Blooms ◽  
Phosphorus Loading ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diazotrophic Cyanobacteria ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Summer cyanobacterial blooms represent a threat to the Baltic Sea ecosystem, causing deoxygenation of the bottom water and the spread of the so-called dead zones. The history of the Baltic Sea cyanobacterial blooms is known from in situ and satellite observations since the early 1980s but is still not well understood. By comparing both weekly resolved sediment trap material and a well-dated sediment core from the eastern Gotland Basin with monitoring and satellite cyanobacterial data of the last ca. 35 years, it is shown here that 6- and 7-methylheptadecane lipids (expressed as 6+7Me-C17 : 0) may be potentially considered semiquantitative biomarkers for diazotrophic cyanobacteria, and more specifically for Nodularia spumigena. Using this organic proxy, it was thus possible to reconstruct the history of cyanobacterial blooms beyond the observational period with a resolution of 2–4 years since 1860. Cyanobacteria were constantly present but in relatively low abundance until 1920, when they started to alternate between periods with high and low abundance. Interestingly, there seems to be no significant increase in cyanobacterial abundance in the 1950s, when eutrophication and deoxygenation of the Baltic Sea increased considerably. While the early increase in cyanobacteria may be related to a small increase in phosphorus loading, decadal to multi-decadal fluctuations are likely related to variability in the Baltic Sea surface temperature and, ultimately, to the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation. A 7000-year 6+7Me-C17 : 0 record from the Bothnian Sea also suggests a relationship with the mean summer temperature in the Baltic Sea region but at a multi-centennial to multi-millennial timescale. The intensity of the cyanobacterial blooms in the Baltic Sea is thus likely mainly related to natural processes such as temperature variability, at least at a multi-decadal to multi-millennial timescale.

scholarly journals Region-Building in the Baltic Region: Legacy of the Inter-War Period and Modern Dynamics

2019 ◽  
pp. 52-64
Author(s):  
Vladislav Vorotnikov ◽  
Alexander Chekov ◽  
Ul’yana Yakutova
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Multilateral Cooperation ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
Hanseatic League ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Eu

The article is devoted to the analysis of historical retrospective and modern dynamics of region-building in the Baltic region. The cultural and historical foundation of regionalization processes in this area was laid over the centuries, although the framework was finally shaped in the 20th century: the Hanseatic League, the first attempts to create regional unions during the interwar period, the “northern cooperation” and the signing of the Helsinki Convention during the Cold War. In the post-bipolar period, the Baltic region continues to maintain its political and socio economic heterogeneity. Today, the key institution of multilateral cooperation uniting all countries of the region is the Council of the Baltic Sea States, whereas, from the EU perspective, the main self-sufficient instrument of regionalization is the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. At the same time, both formats rely in specific projects implementation on “horizontal actions” and network cooperation on the grass-roots level, which makes regional interaction practical to the greatest possible extent, largely depoliticized and stable in the long run.

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