1,836 search results for “physics” in the Public website
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Executive Board column: interdisciplinary collaboration, from suspicion to snowball effect
How is interdisciplinary collaboration faring at Leiden University? And has disciplinarity been completely abandoned? I’d like to reflect on some concerns among colleagues and on our plans for the future.
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‘We’re undermining science and that’s a great shame’
Kerstin Perez has reached the position of Assistant Professor of Particle Physics at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). For people from minority groups this is by no means a common experience. Perez will explain how improvements can be made at the annual Diversity and Inclusion…
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High-tech imaging reveals rare precolonial Mexican manuscript hidden from view for 500 years
Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries and from universities in the Netherlands have used high-tech imaging to uncover the details of a rare Mexican codex dating from before the colonisation of America.
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Annual report for 2019 published
Leiden University has published its annual report for 2019. The report is a testament to everyone’s hard work and creativity and shows just how much we have achieved together: students, lecturers, researchers, support staff, administrators and supervisors alike.
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The golden braid of AI and (company) law: JURIX 2018
Between 12 to 14 December 2018, the University of Groningen hosted JURIX 2018 – The 31st International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems. A number of us at the Company Law department (Iris Wuisman, Thy Pham, Morshed Mannan and Sjoerd Yntema) attended the conference to learn about…
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Comenius grant for Designing Your Life: ‘Potential for the entire university’
How to deal with the most challenging design question of your life: what do I want to be when I grow up? The ‘Designing Your Life’ method teaches students how to craft their own future. The project will start next academic year, thanks to a Comenius grant. ‘Everyone interested should be able to borrow…
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‘Make science communication more work and less hobby’
Young researchers met this month for the fifth Science Communication Summer School. ‘This is the first time some participants get to meet other researchers who also enjoy science communication. It’s great to see’, says Julia Cramer, one of the coordinators.
- Teacher of the Year 2017 throws students in at the deep end with supervision
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Using gold particles to make the invisible visible
Gold nanoparticles give us a better understanding of enzymes and other molecules. Biswajit Pradhan, PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute of Physics, uses gold nanorods to study individual molecules that would be challenging to detect otherwise. Resulting knowledge can be applied to many research fields,…
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Hebben reumapatiënten met hulp van placebotechnieken minder medicatie nodig?
From painful joints to intense fatigue: a third of rheumatism patients suffer serious effects from this chronic condition and rely long-term on medication. Leiden psychologists are to receive a subsidy from the Netherlands Arthritis Foundation to investigate whether placebo techniques can help patients…
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Fake or real? What children think of dinosaur fossils and replicas
Children find that both dinosaur fossils and replicas belong in a museum, but they appreciate the real objects more. This is shown by research from Leiden University and Naturalis Biodiversity Center. 'Children look beyond superficial looks and attach great value to less obvious characteristics, such…
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ZonMw grant for research on domestic violence family treatment
Although domestic violence often affects multiple family members, parents and children are usually treated separately for their traumatic experiences. In collaboration with women's shelter Rosa Manus, forensic partner the Waag, the municipality of Leiden and their colleagues from LUBEC (Leiden University…
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Delve into Sanskrit or Amsterdam Pride
It's the middle of summer and the lecture halls are full. Students from all parts of the world have come to Leiden and The Hague for a summer school, on subjects varying from linguistics to international criminal law and from physics to biopharmaceutical sciences. Lecturers and students talk about what…
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‘We should help nature to help us’
Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems continue to decline in Europe, which has serious consequences for human welfare. These are findings of a report that was formally approved by delegates from 127 governments during a UN plenary in Medellin, Colombia. Leiden researcher Alexander van Oudenhoven was one…
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Sustainable Tuesday: 4 questions for environmental scientist Ranran Wang
On Sustainable Tuesday, two weeks before Dutch Budget Day, the Dutch cabinet receives a suitcase full of sustainable ideas and initiatives. The initiators' aim: to make the government plans for the upcoming year a little more sustainable. At the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), assistant…
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Finding unique drug structures with artificial intelligence and chemistry
In the search for new medicines against diseases such as cancer, a Leiden team has developed a new workflow. This approach combines artificial intelligence (AI) with molecular modelling and is suitable for finding unknown and innovative drug structures, the researchers proved.
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How AI can help to understand the earth faster
AI can help scientists to collect data about the earth faster. This saves them a lot of time on trying to figure out how to analyze all the data they collect. Julia Wasala, PhD student at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Sciences(LIACS), tells us how AI can be used to save time.
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Veni grant for ten Leiden researchers
Ten Leiden researchers have been awarded a Veni grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant, of up to 280,000 euros, will enable them to elaborate their ideas over a period of three years.
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Multimessenger astronomy to study the structure of Milky Way
For centuries, astronomers have studied the universe by collecting light signals. Since 2015, the confirmation of an important prediction of Einstein allows us to explore the universe in a new way: through gravitational wave radiation. Astronomy PhD candidate Valeriya Korol proposes to use these gravitational…
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Two Leiden astronomers awarded with prestigious IAU PhD Prize
Two Leiden astronomers will receive the prestigious IAU PhD Prize. Both Jorryt Mathee and Niels Ligterink of the Leiden Observatory won a prize. Scientific director Huub Röttgering: We are proud that this year two of our PhD students receive an IAU prize for the best thesis in their field of researc…
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Vidi grants for eight researchers from Leiden University
Eight scientists from Leiden University have been awarded a grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). With this Vidi funding, the researchers can set up an innovative line of research and further expand their own research group over the next five years.
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DNA folded in compliant helix
In an Advance Online Publication biophysicist John van Noort and others show using magnetic tweezers that DNA is folded in compliant helices of chromatin. This allows enzymes access to the DNA needed for gene expression. Van Noort's research group made the discovery in close partnership with researchers…
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Close contact between women and dogs in prehistoric times
Close contact between women and dogs in prehistoric times Women and dogs were in close contact in the neolithic age of hunters-fishers-gatherers. This has been suggested by Leiden osteoarchaeologist Dr Andrea Waters-Rist and fellow researchers who have studied a tiny biological fossil. The fossil was…
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‘War history of Eduard Meijers warrants place in memorial culture’
A group of confidants including a former student of Meijers managed to avert his deportation to a death camp. In her lecture on 27 November, Cleveringa Professor Marjan Schwegman revealed the history of the persecution of the Jewish Professor Eduard Meijers.
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In memoriam: Maolin Zhang
We are grief-stricken that our PhD student Maolin Zhang passed away during the early morning of January 17th 2019. He died during a terrible fire that took place at his house in Hillegom.
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Leiden researchers depict the formation of galaxies
An international team of astronomers, with researchers at Leiden Observatory playing a leading role, has mapped the fuel for galaxy formation in the iconic Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The results of the research have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
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Photosynthesis works with valves
Photosynthesis is the origin of life on earth, but it is a phenomenon that is still barely understood. Take, for example, the extremely efficient mechanism of electron transport. Leiden researchers demonstrate for the first time where one particular cause of this might be found.
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Searching for the origins of life in space with 8.9 million euros
With 8.9 million euros from the Danish National Research Foundation, Aarhus University and Leiden Observatory will establish the Center for Interstellar Catalysis. The centre is led by Aarhus professor Liv Hornekær and aims to find out how and when the building blocks of life formed in the Universe.…
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Light particles lined up one after the other
In Leiden, light particles march into Wolfgang Löffler’s experiments one by one. His research focuses on acquiring the fundamental knowledge needed to develop quantum computers and networks.
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Are humans the robots of the future?
Whether you want to repair a car or you’ve simply lost your keys: there’s a good chance that in the future there will be an augmented reality (AR) application that can help you. A recent event looking at AR in the workplace (AR op de werkvloer) brought together professionals and students to explore…
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An EU with a higher EQ
How do you increase the EU’s EQ so that citizens and countries feel a greater sense of belonging and safety in the EU, and the countries work better together? To answer this question, Professor of European Law Armin Cuyvers works, among others, with social psychologists. Inaugural lecture on 9 Decem…
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Multiple star systems: how they got here and why it matters
Disk formation around stars is an important factor in determining whether one or multiple stars evolve. But the big picture of star formation is still far from complete, says PhD researcher Nadia Murillo.
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Lorentz Center brings together researchers from all disciplines
For nearly twenty years the Lorentz Center has been a unique venue where researchers from all over the world work in intense collaboration. In an inspiring academic climate, researchers are free to organise specialised workshops within and across disciplines, be it humanities, social sciences or sci…
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ERC Consolidator Grants for six Leiden researchers
From the effects of hormone fluctuations in women via the interior structure of giant planets to the prehistory of the languages: six Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council.
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Discoverer of the Year Paul Behrens: ‘We’re running out of time’
Earlier this year, the public voted environmental scientist Paul Behrens Discoverer of the Year 2018. Behrens is an interdisciplinary scientist who wants to understand our impact on the planet. ‘Unfortunately, we are not doing enough. Huge changes are underway and we’re running out of time to avoid…
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Gravitation funding for five projects with Leiden researchers
The Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute Of the Netherlands (ANION) consortium will receive 23.6m euros in Gravitation funding for research on important electrochemical processes for energy transition. An additional four consortia with members from Leiden have also been awarded funding.
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‘Internationalise universities, but preserve European values’
European higher education may benefit from becoming even more international, but universities should protect European values such as participation and freedom of thought. This was the position taken by European Commissioner Navracsics on 10 November in a debate with Minister Bussemaker and students…
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How the ‘English disease’ turned out to be not so very English after all
A vitamin D deficiency is often associated with smoggy English industrial cities during the Industrial Revolution, but research carried out on skeletons now suggests that the ‘English disease’ was also prevalent in rural areas of the Netherlands. Doctoral defence on 29 January.
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‘There couldn’t be a better time to launch EUniWell’
On 17 November, the European academic community will be a partnership richer, when EUniWell, the European University of Well-Being, is launched. Within EUniWell, Leiden University and six other universities are working together on well-being challenge. Four Leiden researchers explain the benefits of…
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Live long and healthy
Leiden University will be 444 years old this year and is still very much alive and kicking. But how can we humans grow old healthily? Hanno Pijl at LUMC is the grand master of lifestyle medicine. He explains how we can all benefit from a sensible - but still enjoyable - lifestyle.
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Flurry of new discoveries as incredible new image revealing 4.4 million galaxies is made public
Over a seven year period an international team of scientists has mapped more than a quarter of the northern sky using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a pan-European radio telescope. From Leiden, Astronomer Timothy Shimwell and Huub Röttgering, among others, are involved. It reveals an astonishingly…
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Leiden Classics: Leiden University’s first women students
It was not until 1878 that the first female students enrolled at Leiden University, but the discussion on whether women were suited to study was by no means over. 8 March is International Women's Day. BBC correspondente Kim Ghattas will deliver a lecture on 6 March on the struggle by Arabic women for…
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Gravitation grants for three major research programmes
Three major research projects involving Leiden scientists have been awarded a grant from NWO’s Gravitation Programme. The projects are on innovation processes, organs-on-chips and quantum software.
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The scent of the universe
Former PhD student Cameron Mackie will been awarded not one, but two dissertation prizes for his thesis on the aromatic universe. His work could provide us with a virtual sniff of space. ‘These molecules in space likely smell like a big charcoal grill!’
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Gravitational Lenses measure Universe Expansion
It's one of the big cosmology debates: the universe is expanding, but how fast exactly? Two available measurements yield different results. Leiden physicist David Harvey adapted an independent third measurement method, using the light warping properties of galaxies predicted by Einstein. He published…
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‘The COVID-19 crisis just goes to show how things can go wrong’
Ijeoma Uchegbu is Professor of Pharmacy at University College London (UCL). As a female scientist of colour, she was initially reluctant to play an active role in the university’s diversity policy. Until, that is, she had a radical change of heart: ‘I knew it; I had to become an evangelist.'
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Lowlands as lab: virtual trips in the name of science
While tens of thousands of visitors dance to deafening music, a team of Leiden psychologists are trying to collect data for their research at Lowlands. How do festivalgoers experience a virtual trip? And what role do factors such as too little sleep and whether they have experience with psychedelics…
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Naomi Ellemers: ‘Now I have the opportunity to do something truly innovative.'
Naomi Ellemers, Professor of Social Psychology of Organisations, is one of the four winners of the Spinoza Prize for 2010. ‘This is absolutely fantastic – something that as a researcher you hardly dare to dream of!’
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Donation of microfilms gives new access to Syrian manuscripts
Due to the unrest in the Middle East, many ancient Syrian manuscripts are no longer available or have even been destroyed. Professor of Old Testament Bas ter Haar Romeny received 77 microfilms of Syrian manuscripts, enabling him and his PhD students to research these ‘lost’ manuscripts.
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Joining hands to advance Dutch microscopy
Advanced microscopy to understand life and fight disease: that’s the goal of the new NL-BioImaging network that will develop and integrate state-of-the-art microscopy technologies and services. Researchers from all Dutch universities, including Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Centre,…