What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

Stress and overwork are massive problems today, but relatively little is known about stress factors in the past. With a look at the deep history of stress, Sarah Schrader hopes to get a better understanding of the human stress experience. Her project application received an NWO XS grant.

The new book of Professor of Character evolution and biodiversity Menno Schilthuizen gained a lot of media attention. ‘Darwin comes to town – how the urban jungles drives evolution’ was published in English in February and will be available in Dutch soon.

To design the ideal water oxidation catalyst, understanding of the catalytic mechanism and decomposition pathways is essential.

This thesis presents pioneering work on the panchromatic emission of some of the most luminous galaxies in the early Universe: star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei.

We will study how inoculation of former arable land with soil (including the microbiome, soil fauna and seeds/rhizomes of ground flora) from old forests along with planting targeted tree species mixtures will improve productivity and more rapidly restore forest-adapted communities and ulttimately result…

Saskia Gras, PhD graduate from the Dual PhD Center, presents her book on Wednesday 6 June:

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Franx, Co-Promotor: Rychard Bouwens

Exoplanets close in to their host star receive high levels of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiation, capable of heating and ultimately driving the hydrodynamic escape of their atmospheres.

Six professors and one lecturer from Leiden University have officially been appointed Medical Delta professors or lecturers.

The project Deconstructing Stability aims to improve reconstructions of late prehistoric landscapes and predictive models for the purpose of archaeological heritage management.

This project explores how changes in diet helped early hominins expand from Africa into the colder and more seasonal environments of Europe.

This thesis investigates the evolution and fate of gaseous exoplanets, which are continuously shaped by stellar activity across both short and long timescales.

Hunter-gatherers acquire their food through complex gender-specific foraging techniques for a relatively stable and diverse supply of energy. New research indicates that this specialisation by boys and girls starts at a very young age. Most likely, this enabled the human species to evolve much larger…

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

On Thursday 11 November, Women in International Security Netherlands (WIIS-NL) held its inaugural webinar event on 11 November with four speakers in conjunction with the International Centre for Terrorism (ICCT) and the Chair UN Studies in Peace and Justice at Leiden University.

Within the field of astronomy, understanding how galaxies grow and evolve from the Big Bang to the present day is a challenging and complex question.

Voltammetry plays a crucial role in modern scientific research by offering valuable insights into the electrochemical properties of materials, with wide-ranging applications in fields such as materials science, energy storage, corrosion studies, and sensor development.

Understanding how galaxies form, interact, and evolve comes largely from comparing theory predictions with observational data. Numerical simulations of galaxies provide the most accurate approach to testing the theory, as they follow the non-linear evolution of gas and dark matter in great detail and…

When observing star-forming galaxies, we are not only seeing stellar light, but we also see how this interacts with galactic gas and dust. This thesis contains studies of the stellar, nebular and dust properties of low mass star-forming galaxies.

Promotor: Prof.dr. K.H. Kuijken, Co-Promotor: Dr. H.Hoekstra

In this dissertation, the synthesis and characterization of a series of iron complexes based on different ligand platforms are described.

One of the key quests in astronomy is to study the growth and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Radio observations provide a powerful means of studying the formation of stars and subsequent buildup of distant galaxies, in a way that is unbiased by the presence of dust.

Professional courses, master’s programmes and a dual PhD programme.

The European Union has awarded a COFUND grant to a consortium of researchers from the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Eindhoven for a collective fellowship programme called ‘oLife’. The 6 M€ programme, which is co-financed by the participating universities, will recruit and train 18 post-doctoral…

The formation and evolution of galaxies is fundamentally driven by the formation of new stars out of cold gas.

Human language is constantly evolving with its linguistic structure being shaped by language users at both individual and population levels. Focusing on the interplay between processes of language acquisition and communicative need in shaping human languages, this thesis introduces a novel computational…

More and more companies are watching while you surf the internet. Robbert van Eijk, dual PhD student on the program of Leiden University Dual PhD Centre, wrote his dissertation on this subject. On 29 January, 2019, Van Eijk obtained his doctorate for his research on online privacy.

Festschrift for Prof. Dr Raymond H.A. Corbey in celebration of his 70th birthday

BlaC is the β-lactamase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We show that it can recover from inhibition by clavulanic acid and that phosphate helps it do so.

Humans share meaning through language. Over time, repeated interactions have shaped languages into forms that match our cognitive preferences, making them structured, expressive, easy to learn, and ultimately, meaningful.

Does a snake die when it bites its lip? Why will a mongoose survive a scorpion’s sting, but we humans perish? These questions occupied the minds of toxin-enthusiasts and Master’s students Biology Jory van Thiel and Roel Wouters. They collected information from many sources and published their findings…

Four green research institutes in Leiden are joining forces to integrate evolution and biodiversity research, at local and at the national level. Pivot in this collaboration is Frederic Lens.

I think we should go this way. This way! THIS! WAY!! Making yourself heard in a city can be difficult. That is not only the case for humans, but birds seem to be hindered by urban noise as well. Researcher Hans Slabbekoorn of Leiden University already showed that great tits in Leiden communicate differently…

Ben Wielstra studies balanced lethal systems, in which half of the offspring die before birth. In the journal Current Biology, he explains in an accessible way how such a disadvantage can originate in nature.

On 22 January, Annemarie Madani-Abbing will defend her dissertation 'Art therapy and anxiety' regarding her research into the effectiveness of anthroposophic art therapy in treating anxiety in women. We asked her about her research and what it was like to combine a job outside academia with studying…