A new way to decipher the light from distant worlds could give us unmistakable evidence of extraterrestrial photosynthesis, and maybe alien plants, finds astronomy author Colin Stuart in the New Scientist. In his article, he describes the work of the group led by Leiden astronomer Rob van Holstein.…

Indo-European is the name of the language family to which English belongs, along with many sub-families such as Germanic languages and Romance languages. In this course, you will delve into the structure and origins of these branches, the oldest languages belonging to the language family, linguistic…

The policies relating to language pursued by European monarchies and states have been widely studied, but far less attention has been given to their linguistic and cultural policies in territories outside their own borders.

This project investigates the capacities of EU institutions to coordinate the responses of member states to critical events.

This edited volume offers a critical discussion of the trade-offs between transparency and secrecy in the actual political practice of democratic states in Europe. As such, it answers to a growing need to systematically analyse the problem of secrecy in governance in this political and geographical…

The handbook is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterise the period, and of the specific developments that took…

This thesis describes the implementation and on-sky demonstration of high-resolution integral-field spectroscopy for extreme adaptive optics systems that are used to find and characterize exoplanets.

Course, Summer School

Large telescopes can look so deep into the Universe that they can also look back billions of years in time. From 2018, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to see the period just after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies formed. Astronomers…

This August, the second edition of the Advanced Summer Programme

For over a year now, the James Webb Telescope has been sending stunning images that exceed astronomers’ expectations. The photos are fascinating to see, but what exactly are we looking at? Assistant professor Melissa McClure explains.

Astronomers at ASTRON and Leiden University have used the LOFAR radio telescope to discover a 'brown dwarf' – a faint object more massive than Jupiter, but significantly less massive than the Sun. The discovery of the object dubbed Elegast, opens up a new path that uses radio telescopes to discover…

Which factors (human-dimension and carnivore related) shape human tolerance of large carnivore and large carnivore survival in multiple use forests?

In this article, Isabelle Frens, Jelle van Buuren and Edwin Bakker aim to understand anti-government protests by focusing on empty signifiers.

Developing robust algorithms and theory for establishing cause-effect relationships from observational data that scale up to large data sets

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…

Where and how are critical materials currently used and how can this information be used to develop scenarios about their future demand.

What are the environmental trade-offs for SMEs considering moving from monoculture aquaculture practice towards IMTA? What are the environmental trade-offs comparing IMTA species with their conventional monoculture alternatives?

This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian communities in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918-1948) through the lens of the birth of cultural diplomacy.

In this thesis, I study the formation of large-scale structure and the physics of particle acceleration at large scales (~Mpc).

Astronomer Ignas Snellen studies exoplanets using telescope observations. But how is that possible when all the big telescopes are more or less at a standstill? Luckily, he has contact from home with a robot telescope in Mexico and his WIFI is finally working well.

This research paper was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. It was published by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague. Leiden University is one of the participating institutes in this publication and our researcher…

Are there other planets like the earth, and will there also be life? Astronomers study planets around stars other than the sun, with the aim to find out what kind of gasses their atmospheres are made up with.

When EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, they did not anticipate the manifold crises in store for them over the following years. Instead of the intended consolidation of a Union which had just gone through its most profound modernisation and biggest round of enlargements, the EU has…

Doctors and pharmacists should take greater account of obesity when dosing medicines. The distribution in the body and the breakdown of a medicine can vary considerably in obese patients. This is stated by clinical pharmacologist Catherijne Knibbe in the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology.

The large-scale project NanoInformatics will assess the risks associated with nanoparticles. The project will be funded by the EU with 6.8 million euros and was launched at the beginning of this year. Three scientists from Leiden are involved. 'For the first time, this project combines the various experts…

Our project focuses on the analysis of decision-making processes in the European Union (EU) and explores how approaches and tools to understand decision-making found in both the Natural and the Social Sciences can be linked, knowledge between these traditions exchanged and synergies utilized. To explore…

This handbook is aimed at a wide readership interested in developing an understanding of the political, economic, and social complexity of Eastern Europe. It covers Central Europe, the Baltic republics, South Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans, as well as all the countries of the former Soviet…

Latest technological developments in data mining and profiling.

I have studied the hot, diffuse gas around and between galaxies. Specifically, I have used the EAGLE numerical simulations of galaxy formation to predict the properties of this gas, and I have used those properties to predict specific observables: soft X-ray absorption and emission lines.

PhD-student Nikki Sterkenburg studies far-right extremist groups. But how does she get in touch with these groups? And what do you do if you stumble upon illegal activities? She explains in our podcast series (in Dutch).

At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars (exoplanets). They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems. This way they address…

Introducing five papers about of the impact of crises on the governance, decision-making, and institutional design of the Euro Area, political scientists Valerie D'Erman (University of Victoria, Canada), Paul Schure (University of Victoria, Canada) and Amy Verdun (Leiden University) summarise the 'lessons…

Intergenerational transmission refers to the complex and dynamic process with which values, ideas and behaviors are transmitted across generations. We are specifically interested in the intergenerational transmission of behaviors and beliefs that might result in harm to the individuals involved or society…

This study is a critical discourse analysis of the misogynistic narratives shared by three incel violent extremists.

Three major cosmology-focused missions are planned for the next decade: the Euclid space telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

Franx

Joseph Callingham from the Leiden Observatory receives the Louise Webster Prize for outstanding post-doctoral research. The prize is awarded by the Astronomical Society of Australia for Callingham’s search for the most extreme object in the Universe.

Astronomer Alexander Mushtukov, currently working at the University of Amsterdam, received a Veni grant of 250,000 euro’s which he will execute in Leiden. Supervised by Simon Portegies Zwart, Mushtukov will use advanced simulations to understand the unknown physics in extremely bright neutron stars.

Just published: United in incoherence – Private law concepts under pressure from European financial law (in Dutch), in: Tijdschift voor privaatrecht 2017-4

The drafting of a handbook that serves as the first guide to European law in the area of children's rights, taking into account the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as well as the decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights…

Matthias Haentjens, Jouke Tegelaar and Dorine Verheij have recently published the chapter Financial Market Regulation and Supervision in the new volume of the prestigious The Law of the European Union (previously Kapteyn and VerLoren van Themaat).

Analytical tools for environmental design and management in a systems perspective. The combined use of analytical tools.