Nanoplastics can accumulate in developing hearts, according to a study by biologist Meiru Wang from Leiden University. Her research on chicken embryos sheds new light on how these tiny plastic particles pose a threat to our health.

One discovered that arteriosclerosis resembles an autoimmune disease, while the other developed a system to aid in the search for new medications. For these achievements, Marie Depuydt and Jurren de Groot were awarded the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award on the evening of Tuesday 4 June.

Online services are stored on servers in data centres. Remko Fermin researched methods to make the memory in data centres more energy efficient.

Autistic people have problems communicating their borders towards the non-autistic community and often do not feel respected. To not only change daily life for autistic people, but also the scientific community from within Carolien Rieffe (Developmental Psychology) addresses this issue in her research…

The Phase 3 clinical trial results of the promising Covid-19 vaccine of Johnson & Johnson are expected this month. The Dutch electron microscopy facility NeCEN helped develop the company’s vaccine, and they have now published their scientific findings in Nature Communications.

Dutch mosquitos are more resilient to saltwater than previously thought. Environmental scientist Sam Boerlijst discovered this during his PhD research at the Hortus botanicus. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how mosquito-borne disease transmission might change in the future.

Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.

Workshops, tours, talks, music, an AI photobooth, interviews, a special poem and the launch of the LUF Children’s Fund. Alumni celebrated their alma mater’s 450th birthday in style on Saturday at the massively oversubscribed Dies Natalis Festival.

For the first time, an international group of astronomers have seen the heat glow of two ice giant planets colliding. They could also observe the resultant dust cloud move in front of the parent star several years later. Led by Leiden astronomer Matthew Kenworthy, they monitored the star's brightness…

‘What I find most alluring about soil life is that you can steer it,’ researcher Martijn Bezemer of the Institute Biology Leiden (IBL) reveals. ‘You can ask: What do you want? And then I can transform the soil into something you need. At least, that is what we thought.’

Doing a PhD on the side? External PhD candidates, like Joost Van der Helm, just get on and ‘do it’. Besides his hectic job as a justice at the Court of Appeal in The Hague, Van der Helm managed to still find time to write a PhD dissertation.

An atomic vandal has finally been caught! Scientists from Leiden University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Laboratory have uncovered the mysterious cause behind the rapid corrosion of platinum electrodes. This breakthrough paves the way for more affordable green hydrogen production and…

From Persia and Arabia to North Africa: as early as the nineteenth century, there were Dutch people who used the camera themselves in various regions of the Middle East.

Many protoplanetary discs in which new planets are formed are much smaller than thought. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) scientists of the Leiden Observatory looked at 73 protoplanetary discs in the Lupus region.

An international team of astronomers, led by Will Rocha of Leiden Observatory, using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that the key ingredients for making potentially habitable worlds are present in early-stage protostars, where planets have not yet formed.

Give organisms like plants and animals the freedom to move, interact and meet their own needs, and they will thrive on their own, says Professor Geert de Snoo. Our interference often ends up doing more harm than good.

International researchers have, for the first time, pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star beyond the Sun. Using the ALMA telescope, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and the James Webb Space Telescope, they have observed the creation of the first…

Plants can’t run away from enemies. Still, it would like to keep life-threatening herbivores at a distance. This can be done with odours. Klaas Vrieling of the Institute of Biology Leiden found out with his team how plants change odour production to keep the munchers at a distance.

Building more in urban areas is, in most places in the Netherlands, the smartest way to tackle the housing crisis. This is evident from research conducted by Janneke van Oorschot, published in a partner journal of Nature. Remarkably, this does not have to come at the expense of green spaces in cities.…

The nominees for the IRO Thesis Prize 2024 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2024. Who authored the best thesis in Leiden University’s bachelor’s programme in Political Science?

Organs and tissues grown in the lab may in the future be able to cure people with organ failures. Micha Drukker, professor of Stem Cells, Developmental Biology and Technology for Innovative Drug Research, is convinced that the use of stem cells will make this possible. He will deliver his inaugural…

From Soledad Acosta de Samper and Albalucía Angel to Hazel Robinson Abrahams and Amalialú Posso Figueroa. During the Symposium & Workshop Experience and Voice: Library of Colombian Women Writers, we focus on books written by Colombian women writers from different historical periods. The symposium and…

Lecture, NGL-lezing

PhD defence

Lecture, Histories Connected: Work-in-Progress

Many an archaeologist, at some point in their career, is asked what type of dinosaur they discovered. Instead of once again patiently explaining that we do not do dinosaurs, the Faculty Board has now decided to listen to society’s call. ‘It is clear that the general public feels that dinosaurs are relevant…

In November 2023, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) underwent its first full external research evaluation for the period from 2016 to 2021 with outstanding results. In its final assessment report, the independent external evaluation committee underlines that ‘the committee is impressed…

Festival

The Caribbean as we know it today is fundamentally a product of colonial activity and globalisation. Practically everyone that inhabits the Caribbean has ancestors from different continents due to colonial activity, which profoundly affects the area to this day. Caribbean writers, both in the Caribbean…

The people who lived in Saqqara, City of the Dead in Egypt, died thousands of years ago, but they are not all that different from us. This is what a study by the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, The Netherlands concludes. If you wanted to prove that you had good taste in ancient Egypt then…

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

As University historian, Pieter Slaman researches the University’s past, but he’s equally interested in its present. ‘It’s useful to be familiar with issues from the past. Not to be rooted in the past because some developments from history are things you definitely don’t want to repeat.’

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

Personal development, Working effectively

Here you will find questions and answers about GROW, the types of interviews, the GROW tile and more.

Lecture, Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

Lecture, Lunch Research Seminar

Exhibition

The rise of authoritarianism, the strengthening of the radical right, and the role of the EU in defending democracy—these are just a few of the issues causing concern today. Is the EU capable of defending democratic values within the Union and beyond its borders? In an interview from the Lithuanian…

The experiential expertise of people with a disability needs to be integrated in diversity & inclusion policy. This message was the common thread at the annual Diversity & Inclusion symposium. Students and staff members engaged in conversation about how the university can become more accessible.

A million people in the Netherlands attempt to quit smoking each year, often without lasting success. Health psychologist Kristell Penfornis carried out doctoral research into the role of self-image in smoking cessation. “If smoking is normal in your social circle, it more easily becomes part of your…

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar system.

As a professor, Natasha Appelman-Dijkstra understands better than anyone how important it is to recognise bone and mineral conditions at an early stage. She emphasises the importance of flexibility and collaboration for better care, groundbreaking research and strong education.

A new collaborative monograph of democratic theory, The Sciences of the Democracies, was released by UCL Press on August 7. The book, in the style of a democratic manifesto, is written by a large number of co-authors in a bold attempt to expand and deepen how democracy is studied and understood. Among…

A variety of age checks are required, both in order to protect children and to ensure that they can participate online, a new study funded by the European Commission finds. The article on the study, co-authored by Simone van der Hof, Professor of Law and Digital Technologies at eLaw, was published in…

The digital age offers unprecedented opportunities: information is always accessible, systems are interconnected, and processes are automated. However, these developments also give rise to new threats. During the Night of Digital Security on 26 May at the Wijnhaven building, more than experts shared…

The orbits of 27 stars orbiting closely around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way are very chaotic. As a result, researchers cannot predict with confidence where they will be in about 462 years. ‘That is astonishingly short,’ says astronomer Simon Portegies Zwart who collaborated on the r…

They are responsible for a wide range of bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes but have more than enough in common to discuss: the programme directors and chairs. They met for the second time on 25 April to share knowledge and experiences and receive an update from Hester Bijl on strategic developments…