Neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, are characterised by aggregates of protein in the brain. The connection of these aggregates to the disease itself is unclear. Martina Huber, Enrico Zurlo and colleagues published a new method to monitor the formation of these aggregates.

Jaap Kautz and Johannes Jobst have won the NeVac prize for developing a completely new method for studying electrical conductivity. The article they and their team leader Sense Jan van der Molen wrote about this subject was praised by the jury for its clarity. The prize will be presented to them on…

Physicist Martin van Hecke receives a 2.5 million euro ERC research grant for research into information processing materials. Starting out with a piece of rubber that can count to ten.

Goldband, Skrillex, Róisín Murphy and... quantum: the latter may not be a band but is part of the Lowlands line-up nonetheless. Scientists from Leiden University are using the festival for research on the very smallest particles.

Optical detection of a single electron using a single molecule has never been done. Leiden physicist Michel Orrit and his team have now identified a molecule that is sensitive enough to detect an electron at a distance of hundreds of nanometers. The results are published as a cover article in ChemPh…

Leiden emeritus professor George Miley receives an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin on 8 December. ‘I never dreamed that I would receive an honorary doctorate somewhere, and this is all the more emotional because it's in the city where I spent the first 21 years of my life.’

On Thursday 9 November, Leiden University organized its annual Physics Ladies Day for female high school students. To mark this festive day, we put the spotlight on two female researchers, who talk about their experiences in physics.

How can a single origami crease pattern be folded into two precisely defined target shapes? Researchers at AMOLF and Leiden University have created an ‘alphabet’ of 140 origami ‘puzzle pieces’ that allows them to do just that, as described today in Nature Physics. This discovery could help in the construction…

Koen Bastiaans and his colleagues discovered a new quantum liquid unlike anything ever seen. They did it by using a technique that can be compared to listening to the sound of raindrops falling on a roof. Publication in Science 29 October.

Leiden physicists have created a light source that emits individual particles in an identical state through optical fibers. Using this setup, their measurements can last longer and are more efficient, meaning they can perform more in-depth research on bizarre quantum effects, such as interference and…

Leiden physicists and chemists have managed to bring two graphene layers so close together that an electric current spontaneously jumps across. In the future this could enable scientists to study the edges of graphene and use them for sequencing DNA with a precision beyond existing technologies. Publication…

Ionic liquids are important in scientific research because they can apply a lot of charge over a surface. Leiden physicists have now found that the charging process of ionic liquids purely depends on opposite charges attracting each other. Chemical reactions are sometimes involved, but not essential.…

For the first time, physicists have visualized the ‘melting’ of electrons inside a special class of insulators. It allows electrons to move freely and turns the insulator into a metal and possibly later into a superconductor. Publication in Nature Physics.

The more complex the object, the harder it is to fold up. Space satellites often need many small motors to fold up an instrument, and people have difficulty simply folding up a roadmap. Physicists from Leiden and Amsterdam have now designed a structure that folds itself up in several steps. Publication…

Water droplets float in a hot pan because of the so-called Leidenfrost effect. Now physicists have discovered a variation: the Elastic Leidenfrost effect. It explains why hydrogel balls jump around on a hot plate making high pitched sounds. Publication in Nature Physics on July 24.

Are Weyl particles the ideal conductors? Do cells without a cell wall play a role in chronic Tuberculosis infections? Carlo Beenakker and Dennis Claessen want to answer these questions. They both received a KLEIN grant from the NWO. With these grants, NWO wants to stimulate innovative, fundamental r…

From lectures by Robbert Dijkgraaf to a telescope on the ocean floor: during his double bachelor’s in Physics and Astronomy, Jelle Oonk discovered that the path to big cosmic answers sometimes runs through the smallest, hardest-to-catch particles—neutrinos.

To understand how the brain works, it is essential to map it out in detail. This appears to be possible with a microscopy technique in which Leiden physicists excel. This breakthrough could significantly advance the human quest to understand brain functions.

Soft structures that can take on different shapes without any external drive. Leiden physicists Daniela Kraft and Julio Melio created them in their lab. They present their groundbreaking research on microscale metamaterials in Nature - a breakthrough that opens the door to smart, reconfigurable materials…

In his research, he uses the tools and methods of physics and applies these to today’s most important challenges in electrochemistry. Now, he brings his internationally recognized expertise in nanoscale electrochemistry to Leiden University, where he contributes to pioneering solutions for the energy…

Photonics, quantum research and semiconductor technology: Leiden University welcomed a high-level international delegation from Taiwan, to explore new opportunities for working together on innovations for future photonic quantum computers.

They are only a few tens of micrometres long — far smaller than the width of a human hair – yet these robots can swim, sense, navigate and adapt in ways that look surprisingly life-like. And all this without having a brain.

A world-famous light experiment from 1801 has now been carried out with sound for the first time. Research by physicists in Leiden has produced new insights that could be applied in 5G devices and the emerging field of quantum acoustics.

Science journalist Anna Gimbrère and physicist Julia Cramer will open the Quantum Escape Room in Eindhoven on Wednesday, 17th of December. Researchers from Leiden worked closely with the designers to make sure the escape room is not only exciting, but also truly quantum.

Lecture

Japanese was not always the language spoken in Japan. Researchers link the arrival of the language in Japan with the migration of farmers around 400 BC. Linguist Elisabeth de Boer has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to carry out research on the further spread of the language in Japan.

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting Mexico from 21 to 25 October. The visit aims to strengthen the ties between Mexican universities and Leiden University.

The president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has personally invited Jan Slikkeveer, professor of Ethnobotanical Knowledge Systems in Developing Countries, to give a lecture during the World Culture Forum. The Forum will be hosted in Indonesia from 24 to 27 November.

Every year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant is awarded to a prospective PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology. This year, the grant went to Maia Casna, enabling her to study respiratory disease in the past. ‘My hypothesis is that the rapid formation of cities in the medieval Netherlands, must…

From video glasses for the deaf to protecting endangered languages. The Taalmuseum's new exhibition in the hall of the University's former library demonstrates how language research contributes to societal issues such as health care and disappearing cultures. The exhibition is open from 14 September…

Archaeologist Jason Laffoon was awarded an NWO Vidi grant for an innovative investigation into ancient migrations in the western Caribbean. The innovative character of this research project lies in the wide-scale application of isotope analysis and isotope mapping. ‘We aim at further developing methods…

Interdependence, cooperation and strategic autonomy: A (legal) view from the EU

An international team with researchers from Leiden revealed how a bacterium repurposed an internal system to control its movements. Movement control is very important in host invasion, which can lead to disease. Publication on 27 April in Nature Communications.

Didi van Trijp started her PhD project at LUCAS in October 2015. Her PhD project is part of A New History of Fishes. A long-term approach to fishes in science and culture, 1550-1880, a project directed by prof. dr. Paul Smith.

Native women are invisible in Mexican society. This is the conclusion Barbara Ortiz draws in her dissertation. PhD defence on 23 February.

Last year the research program Teaching and Teacher Learning of ICLON Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching had its recurrent external review.

Over the centuries painters and photographers have depicted students at study in Leiden. An exhibition at the Hortus botanicus reveals the similarities and differences in 450 years of student life.

PhD student Wen Yang discovered how certain cell receptors in E. coli bacteria signal 'smells'. With the use of ice-cold electron microscopy microbiologists from Leiden gain more insight into how bacteria respond to their environment. Publication in mBio.

If you had something important to write down in ancient times, you would usually write in Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. University lecturer Joanne Stolk has been awarded an ERC grant to explore the kinds of spelling mistakes that were made in these scripts. And, more importantly, what improvements…

Cancer treatments often have an impact on people’s sexual health, but doctors and nurses do not discuss topics such as sexuality and intimacy with patients as a matter of course. This is what Esmée Krouwel, a physician-researcher at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), has discovered. With her research…

The La Galigo manuscript at Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been digitized. The manuscript, which was inscribed in 2011 on UNESCO's ‘Memory of the World’ Register, is now freely available online and can be used for teaching and research. La Galigo is the world's longest epic, written in the Buginese…

For some devout Muslims, going to the cinema or viewing certain images is provocative and problematic. Ahmad Nuril Huda investigated the development Santri (young, pious Muslims) have undergone in this field over the past ten years. The Cinematic Santri is the result of his PhD research.

Tell Balata Archaeological Park project On January 15th the cooperation project of the Faculty of Archaeology with the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage) and the Ramallah office of UNESCO was officially closed. At the same time the Archaeological…

On Thursday 11 December 2025, Daan Roovers, the philosopher and former Denker des Vaderlands (Philosopher Laureate), will give the 54th Huizinga Lecture at the Stadsgehoorzaal in Leiden. Under the title What’s at stake: The boundaries of politics and fair play, she will reinterpret Johan Huizinga’s…

Monday 25 May saw the visit to Leiden of President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, accompanied by Queen Beatrix and Princess Máxima. Following a talk in the Academy Building on strengthening democracy in Latin America, the President signed a number of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs).

How did Scottish speakers sound hundreds of years ago? University lecturer Mo Gordon thinks the answer to that question can be found in church archives. 'It can be a boost to your identity to know the history of your language.'

Where does Dutch come from? Newly appointed Professor Alwin Kloekhorst looks for an answer to that question in millennia-old languages from Anatolia, the Asian part of present-day Turkey. 'A new interpretation in one of the Anatolian languages can have consequences for dozens of other languages.'

What do climate change and traditional Japanese music have to do with each other? A great deal, university lecturer Andrea Giolai suspects. He has been awarded an NWO grant to study the relationship in more depth.

On Wednesday, 21 February, a diverse group of students, staff, and representatives from 21 embassies gathered in The Hague for International Mother Language Day. Under the banner of 'a bit of fun and many serious topics,' language took centre stage.

The European Research Council had awarded a Starting Independent Researcher Grant to Bleda Düring for the project Consolidating Empire.Reconstructing Hegemonic Practices of the Middle Assyrian Empire at the Late Bronze Age Fortified Estate of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, ca. 1230 – 1180 BC.