Looking for a different approach in the ongoing discussions on the ethereal matter of Romanisation, Ana Zora Maspoli joined Miguel John Versluys’ research group as a postdoc guest researcher. While she has been active in our Faculty since February 2022, you may not have met her yet due to the Covid-19…

Always wanted to find out what zero gravity is like? Now's your chance! In December 2017 a Dutch student team will be conducting experiments during a parabolic flight, and they're looking for healthy volunteers. You do have to meet a number of strict conditions, says the team leader.

Fish populations in lakes and rivers have declined in recent decades. This is probably due to light and noise pollution. The Horizon Europe grant enables ecologist Hans Slabbekoorn to investigate this and improve the situation for migrating fish. In order to do so, a seven-metre-long swimming tunnel…

Over the past months regular updates have been provided on the work of the Leiden Turnaround, Rescue & Insolvency team (TRI Leiden) in creating EU Cross-Border Insolvency Court-to-Court Cooperation Principles. During the last week of January this project was finalised, resulting in 26 EU Cross-Border…

Explaining your PhD research to others can be quite difficult, especially without talking! PhD student Annebelle Kok of the Institute of Biology Leiden was one of the finalists of the 'Dance Your PhD' competition of scientific journal Science. ‘You have to understand your own research well if you are…

An international team of scientists including Leiden's Joe Callingham has discovered nineteen red dwarf stars that unexpectedly emit radio waves. The outbursts possibly originate from interaction with exoplanets. The results of the research appear in two scientific publications.

The rare Ethiopian wolf is increasingly coming into contact with local cattle farmers. PhD candidate Girma Eshete explored ways of saving this elegant animal from being wiped out. Phd-defense on 5 September.

For the first time, astronomers have observed in three dimensions that gas from spiral galaxies is blown upwards and downwards at high speed, far out of the galaxy. They thereby confirm the theory of galaxy evolution: that star-forming galaxies create intergalactic gas flows by discharging gas along…

Some thirty Leiden students balanced on SUP boards for the Supping for Sustainability Lustrum activity. Together with alumnus Merijn Tinga, better known as the Plastic Soup Surfer, they paddled their boards through the Leiden canals and waterways, fishing plastic waste out of the water.

The Defence White Paper, titled ‘Strong, smart and together’, is debated in the House of Representatives along with the Defence Budget and raises concerns especially in uncertain times.

Our solar system probably evolved in the same way as most of the other planetary systems around us. This has been shown by German-Austrian-Dutch research on more than 870 planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud A. The five researchers, including three from the Leiden Observatory, published their findings…

Scientists have developed a material that breaks one of the fundamental principles governing many physical systems. Ordinary materials transmit external forces equally, no matter where the pressure comes from. The newly developed material breaks this rule and could potentially be of interest in soft-robotics…

For already two years, Vincent Niochet has been affiliated with the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology as an external PhD candidate. Now, he has been awarded an NWO PhDs in the Humanities grant, allowing him to continue his research as a paid PhD staff member. ‘The past two years have been quite challenging,…

Cut marks on the bones of bears show that people in North-West Europe used bearskins to keep warm 300,000 years ago.

If you look closely, you may recognise the metal beams from the skeleton of the Circular Pavilion near Leiden Central Station: they come from the demolished Gorlaeus Highrise. The same beams have also been used for the circular construction of BioPartner 5 at the Leiden Bio Science Park, which will…

Whales in the vicinity of the city of Auckland, New Zealand consume large amounts of microplastics every day. A team of international researchers reached this conclusion after carefully examining whale poop. The team included Thijs Bosker, Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences at Leiden University…

With support of several publishers and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guests per year to consult and research materials from our Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received applications this year from domestic…

As the father of a family with four children, he already visited the Hortus regularly. Now Tom Schreuder also comes there for his work. Every day he travels from Lisse by bike. The new Director Operations calls it a ‘perfect match’.

CERN has approved the construction and operation of SND@LHC, a neutrino detector at the Large Hadron Collider. It's a precursor for SHiP, a detector meant to detect dark matter. Leiden physicist Alexey Boyarsky is one of the initiators of both SHiP and SND@LHC.

This academic year, researchers from both inside and outside of Leiden Law School took the opportunity to inform the interested public about their ongoing research during the monthly ILS Lunch Seminars. On Thursday 14 June, the last lunch seminar before the summer break took place. The festive ending…

An international team of astronomers that includes researchers from Leiden has discovered the most distant galaxy yet. The galaxy, called EGS8p7, is 13.23 billion light years away from Earth and already existed when the universe was only 550 million years old.

Dutch people are proud of the fact that genever, their national drink, was the prototype for gin, the now so fashionable British spirit. And Leiden people are proud of their Professor Sylvius, who invented genever in the seventeenth century. But is this really true?

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book Leiden researchers take stock.

As climate change and ecological degradation’s effects on our mental health becomes more severe, we must all do our best to protect not just the environment, but also our mental well-being. Therefore, on this Sustainability Day, we have collaborated with Healthy University Leiden to focus on the relationship…

More and more people worldwide have infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to many types of antibiotic. Why is this and how big of a problem is it?

Aqueous solutions of proteins and carbohydrates separate into two parts with an extremely ‘soft’ boundary surface. The surface tension between these two parts can be manipulated, for example by adjusting the pH balance. This can be used to develop emulsions of a water-based solution in another aqueous…

Athletes always strive for the top. How can data scientists assist them in improving their performance? During the seminar Data Science and Sports, the possibilities and challenges of collaboration between these two worlds were discussed.

Cars, wind turbines, solar panels and smartphones. ‘Critical’ raw materials like platinum or cobalt are used in all the technologies that are essential for the energy and digital transition. But we should be aware of the scarceness of these materials, a new campaign warns.

Neanderthals at Pech-de-l'Azé I in South Western France had a striking use for manganese dioxide 50,000 years ago.

PhD student Robbin Bastiaansen applies mathematics to get insight in practical problems. By comparing mathematical models with developments in existing ecosystems, he hopes to demystify the process of desertification. His research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

An organized overview of the current global fungal diversity, that is what Irene Martorelli and colleagues try to achieve with the new MycoDiversity Database (MDDB) she builds in collaboration with Naturalis Biodiversity Center. The new database will make it easier and quicker to observe which fungi…

Below we present our past and future events of the Multigreen project

The Vrouw Vennepolder near Oud Ade has been transformed into the Polderlab. Scientists and students from Leiden University, together with farmers and citizens, investigate how to manage peatland in a sustainable and profitable manner. A great opportunity for students to experience how scientific knowledge…

How is it that the internet works so well, with billions of users sending millions of gigabytes all together every day? That's because the foundation of the internet is solidly set up. Yet sometimes there are problems on the internet. For example, when certain systems misbehave and disrupt the routing…

As Director-General of the ESO for the past ten years, Leiden University astronomer Tim de Zeeuw had ‘the best astronomy job in the world’. Back at the Leiden Observatory, he is focusing on the first 3D map of the Milky Way.

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

Explore the One Among Zeroes |0100| project and its role in shaping the future of the digital economy, human-environment dynamics, and urban heritage in Indonesia's cities.

A diverse team of Leiden archaeologists applied for, and was awarded, the KNAW ‘Appreciated!’ grant, meant to further their science communication endeavours. We speak with Dr Maikel Kuijpers, who is the main contact person of the application.

Is it possible to measure subtle oscillations caused by dark matter moving through the earth? A Dutch-American physicist team have discovered a new route toward what could be the first-ever measurement of ultralight dark matter. They suspended a microscopic magnet inside a superconducting enclosure,…

Detecting molecules with temperature instead of chemical reactions: that’s what scientists from the Leiden Institute of Physics want to do. They are developing a sensor that utilizes special nanoparticles to keep track of certain molecules. In this way, they can for example see how well new drugs do…

Recognition for an unprecedented career of more than forty years: Professor of Applied Statistics Jacqueline Meulman of the Mathematical Institute receives the Career Award of the Psychometric Society. ‘A fantastic surprise.’

This week Dr. Lara Weiss (of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden), who together with Dr Christian Greco (of the Museo Egizio in Turin) heads the project "The Walking Dead: The Making of a Cultural Geography in Saqqara", was visited by the NVIC team. During the visit she introduced them to the…

The METIS instrument that’s being built for ESO's future Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in Northern Chile under the leadership of the Dutch Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) has reached an important milestone: the preliminary design has been approved.

Microscopic swimmers such as bacteria do not always swim alone. There are advantages to exchanging information and cooperating. Stefania Ketzetzi and colleagues now show in Nature Communications that human-made microswimmers, too, can cooperate.

Eight major scientific consortia are to receive research investment funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO. Leiden University is involved in all these project and is the lead applicant for four of the awards.

Thanks in part to the persistence of a Leiden research group, cancer could be detected in the near future with just a single drop of blood. Not only can the diagnosis be determined at an earlier stage, but the blood test is also cheap, fast and patient friendly. The first results of this method seem…

17 November is International Student’s Day, dedicated to showcasing the international experience of international students in the Netherlands.

After three (or four) years of hard study, there are every year a lot of Bachelor students that say goodbye to go and explore the wide world. Where are they going next? And what will they miss most about our beautiful city? For the coming weeks, we will tell the stories of 6 recent Bachelor graduates…

The objectives of the 2011 campaign Tell Balata Archaeological Park are to carry out excavations, promotion and awareness, community involvement, gathering oral histories and educating children. The objectives are described in a handout produced for the opening ceremony on June 21st 2011.

To generate renewable energy takes more space than one might think. New research by environmental scientist Paul Behrens and master's student John van Zalk shows how much space is needed for nine specific types of energy. Biomass, hydro and wind, while vital, take up the most space. Natural gas and…