2,158 search results for “this week s discoveries” in the Public website
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Tom Lubensky appointed 2018 Lorentz Professor
Coming spring, Professor Tom Lubensky from the University of Pennsylvania will be the 64th Lorentz Professor at the department of Theoretical Physics. He is a pioneer in the field of theoretical soft matter physics and winner of the prestigious Buckley Condensed Matter Prize. During his stay in Leiden…
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The kick of citizen science: ‘It's a kind of addiction’
Leiden archaeologists appealed for help from volunteers to search for archaeological remains on satellite images of Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a national park close to Utrecht. The outbreak of the corona virus made the project a resounding success: in a single month, all 300,971 maps had been examined. 'That's…
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concrete subject: On the epistemic role of lived-experience in Paul Natorp's critical epistemology
The following dissertation reconstructs Paul Natorp's philosophical psychology. It argues that psychology's main object is the lived experience of concrete subjects, understood as a transcendental structure of logical-reflexive conditions for the recognition, appropriation, and evaluation of objective…
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Teacher identity and teacher’s professional development in an intercultural context
The present project aims to provide valuable insights for the professional development of international teachers, and also for improving the quality of foreign language education.
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Veenendaal, Does Smallness Enhance Power-Sharing? Explaining Suriname’s Multiethnic Democracy
The smallness of Suriname, according to political scientist Wouter Veenendaal (Leiden University), strongly affects and shapes the nature of democracy in the country. On the one hand, clientelism ensures that members of each ethnic group included in power-sharing arrangements have access to state resources…
- Open Science Coffee in International Data Week: pilots for preparing, publishing and monitoring Leiden research data
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The EU’s Conceptualisation of the Rule of Law in its External Relations: Case Studies on Development Cooperation and Enlargement
On 26 June 2019, Lisa Louwerse defended her thesis 'The EU’s Conceptualisation of the Rule of Law in its External Relations: Case Studies on Development Cooperation and Enlargement'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C.A.P. Hillion.
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Fertility and fontanels: women’s knowledge of medicinal plants for reproductive health and childcare in western Africa
Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: T.R. van Andel
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How can we increase the financial sector’s resilience to cyber attacks? Get inside the mind of a hacker!
The financial sector is an appealing target for hackers. For that reason, lawmakers and regulators are going to great lengths to make the sector more resilient to cyber attacks. One recent measure was the introduction of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). This new EU regulation is extremely…
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Is it possible to avoid dehydration? Gene promotes wood formation
‘It was a discovery we did not expect,’ says Remko Offringa, professor of Plant developmental genetics. Today he publishes a new trait of a versatile gene in Current Biology: it makes the difference in plants between herbaceous and woody stem growth. A useful feature to prevent dehydration.
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New force measured between proteins
Proteins organize themselves around our body cells through a self-induced force. They indent the cell membrane, which makes them roll towards each other. This discovery provides new insights into processes like nutritional uptake and brain signaling, as well as into such diseases as Alzheimer’s. Publication…
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Translating science into treatments of rare metabolic disorders
Leiden biotech startup Azafaros has successfully completed a funding round, raising 25 million euros of investments for developing treatments of rare metabolic disorders. The company holds exclusive license to a library of novel patented compounds discovered by experts from Leiden University.
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Angkor region was actually a large Medieval city
The Greater Angkor Region in contemporary Cambodia was dramatically more urbanized in the 13th century than previously thought, and home to 700.000 to 900.000 people. These discoveries were made by a research team led by Sarah Klassen. Their findings are published in Science Advances.
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Smart chemistry rids anti-cancer drugs of serious side effects
Researchers of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry have made an important discovery about the commonly used anti-cancer drug doxorubicin. They have found a way to reduce its side effects without sacrificing the effectiveness of the medication. This is encouraging…
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China’s industrial carbon emissions: Historical drivers at the regional and sectoral levels and projections in light of policy targets
Has the industrial sector in China effectively been decarbonizing in recent years, across different regions and subsectors, and is it plausible that it will reduce its CO2 emissions in conformity with national and internationally pledged emission goals?
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Words and Laments: A Narratological Analysis of Esmāʻil Fasih’s War Novel, The Winter of 1983 (Zemestān-e 62)
Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.
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Archaeologist Andy Sorensen in National Geographic Magazine about ancient fire use
When and how commenced the use of fire by early humans? Armed with stones, peat moss, and fungi, archaeologist Andy Sorensen tries to answer that question. In the February edition of the Dutch language version of National Geographic Magazine his research features in the section The Discovery.
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Leiden archaeologists in international media on early form of money in the Bronze Age
People in the Early Bonze Age used bronze artefacts as a means of payment. This is the conclusion reached by archaeologists Maikel Kuijpers and Catalin Popa in a PLOS ONE article published on 20 January. The discovery led to a surge of media reports.
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Milan Allan wins Bryan R. Coles Prize
Milan Allan has received the Bryan R. Coles Prize at the International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems (SCES) in Prague.
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Women as Agents of Change: How has Women’s Political Mobilization Restructured Political Networks and Changed Local Governance?
Will women’s increasing electoral participation in rural India improve governance? On what terms are women being incorporated into politics – through existing patriarchal and clientelist relationships, or through collective action against the patriarchal and clientelist system?
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The UN’s Summit of the Future: Advancing Multilateralism in an Age of Hypercompetitive Geopolitics
In this article, Joris Larik and Richard Ponzio grasp the importance of the Summit of the Future to overhaul and strengthen multilateral cooperation in an age of deepening rifts and increasing competition between the great powers. This article argues that a failure to convene a meaningful and ambitious…
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What’s CLIL about bilingual education? A window on Content and Language Integrated Learning pedagogies
In the Netherlands approximately 130 out of 700 secondary schools offer a bilingual stream. However, research about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is limited. With her dissertation Evelyn van Kampen (PhD student at ICLON) wants to contribute to the understanding of the nature and range…
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Comparing Husserl’s Phenomenology and Chinese Yogacara in a Multicultural World
While phenomenology and Yogacara Buddhism are both known for their investigations of consciousness, there exists a core tension between them: phenomenology affirms the existence of essence, whereas Yogacara Buddhism argues that everything is empty of essence (svabhava). How is constructive cultural…
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Shaping the global: knowledge, experts, and U.S. universities in the emergence of global health
In this article, Lydie Cabane, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses the emergence and diffusion of ‘global health’ as a concept. In addition to bringing a fresh perspective on the origins of global health, the paper contributes to the globalization debates by…
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Stop! Hey, what's that sound? the representation and realization of Danish stops
On the 11th of January, Rasmus Puggaard-Rode successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Rasmus on this achievement!
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The rebound effect through industrial ecology’s eyes : the case of transport eco-innovation
Promotor: Prof. dr. Arnold Tukker & Prof. dr. René Kemp (Maastricht University)
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historisch perspectief. ‘Ge-+werkwoordstam’-afleidingen in grammatica’s, woordenboeken en teksten
The Dutch prefix ge- in historical perspective gives first of all a general account of the development of the word formation processes involving ge- in which special attention is paid to the participial ge-.
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Social network and radical innovation: evidence from the U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry
Innovation plays an essential role in firms' competitiveness and long-term success. It varies from different types, ranging from run-of-the-mill innovation that brings incremental changes to existing technologies to radical innovation that breaks from existing trajectories.
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Early Childhood Community Practitioners’ analyses of new mother’s challenges in Alexandra Township South Africa
Early Childhood Community Practitioners’ analyses of new mother’s challenges in Alexandra Township South Africa: a collaboration between academics and practitioners
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Open Science Coffee in International Data Week: pilots for preparing, publishing and monitoring Leiden research data
Lecture
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Glycine in space produced by dark chemistry
An international team of laboratory astrophysicists and astrochemical modellers has shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. The results have been published this week in Nature Astronomy and…
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The whole world comes together in Leiden
Under a typically grey sky, more than 1,300 international students gather around the mentors with their numbered signposts. It is the start of the Orientation Week Leiden: the introduction week specially for international students at Leiden University.
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Clean diesel and dirty scandal: The echo of Volkswagen’s dieselgate in an intra-industry setting
In 2015 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed that German car manufacturer Volkswagen had illegally installed software to produce fake NOx-emissions results. This study aims to analyze how the German news media framed VW’s role.
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Technical Reason, and Living Beings: The Role of Analogy in Representing Kant's Concept of Naturzweck
This dissertation concerns the role of analogy in Kant’s “Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment”, especially the role of analogy for the formation of the concept of a natural end (Naturzweck). A ‘natural end’ is a ‘regulative concept’ of the reflective power of judgment, that is, a heuristic…
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Prohibition: Time, Education, and the War on Drugs in Rio de Janeiro’s Zona Norte
Benjamin Fogarty-Valenzuela published the article 'Pedagogies of Prohibition: Time, Education, and the War on Drugs in Rio de Janeiro’s Zona Norte' in Cultural Anthropology 37. The article’s three sections focus on three forms of temporal control—busyness, punctuality, and rhythm—and each demonstrates…
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MicroRNA: so small but so very important
The discovery in 2001 of the importance of microRNAs turned the world of molecular biology upside down. The small particles of RNA also attracted the attention of university lecturer Erno Vreugdenhil. Vreugdenhil: ‘Within five to ten years the first microRNA-directed medicines will come onto the mar…
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Scientific breakthrough: evidence that Neanderthals hunted giant elephants
Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal.
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Looking at the big world of microbiology through the smallest lenses
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the father of microbiology, died 300 years ago. 2023 has therefore been designated the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek year. The new Unimaginable exhibition in Rijksmuseum Boerhaave is about the amazing world that Van Leeuwenhoek made visible. What was so special about the way he worked?…
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Dead elephant was a feast for the entire neighbourhood
Former archaeology student Ivo Verheijen made a unique discovery in Schöningen in Germany: the almost complete skeleton of an extinct Eurasian straight-tusked elephant. The remains show that our ancestors enjoyed the odd elephant steak. But they weren’t the only ones…
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Prominent physicist Maldacena gives Ehrenfest Colloquium
On November 21, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena gives the Ehrenfest Colloquium. Maldacena is known worldwide as the inventor of AdS/CFT correspondence, which might be key to a theory of quantum gravity. Maldacena is winner of the prestigious Dirac Prize and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental…
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From the Rule of Law to a Culture of Justice: a Practitioner’s Challenge to Policy Thinkers
The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Development and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies organised the Van Vollenhoven Lecture 2013.
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How personnel allocation affects performance:Evidence from Brazil's federal protected areasagency
This paper addresses the gap that explores how agencies might allocate their personnel so as to maximise performance with the personnel they have.
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Towards a single-molecule FRET study of Frauenfelder's nonexponential rebinding of CO in myoglobin
Early time-resolved experiments by Frauenfelder on the ensemble of the kinetic rebinding of CO to myoglobin molecules resulted in a stretched exponential relaxa-tion due to a very large spread of the reaction rates of individual molecules.
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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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Brand-new professor Gerard van Westen wants to cross boundaries
Brand-new professor Gerard van Westen works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and drug development. For the new chair in Artificial Intelligence and Medicinal Chemistry, he uses computer models to make drug development more efficient. Our ultimate goal is a virtual human which allows you…
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Earliest known alphabetic word list discovered
A flake of limestone (ostracon) inscribed with an ancient Egyptian word list of the fifteenth century BC turns out to be the world’s oldest known abecedary. The words have been arranged according to their initial sounds, and the order followed here is one that is still known today. This discovery has…
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A chemical connection that affects your immune system
A group of chemists, that includes Sander van Kasteren and Hermen Overkleeft, has discovered that azides, a certain type of chemical compound, can determine whether or not T cells respond to or ignore a vaccine. Their discovery is set to be published in Angewandte Chemie.
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King opens new wing of Leiden Instrumentmakers School
King Willem-Alexander visited Leiden on 6 December to open the new wing of the Leiden Instrumentmakers School. Students of this vocational programme make instruments needed for scientific research.
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New light on dark matter
An international team of astronomers has found an unexpected link between dark matter and visible stars in stellar systems. This discovery may even cause us to reconsider our understanding of gravity. They published on their discovery in 'Nature' on 1 October.
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Unique mosaic floor discovered in Israel
A marvelous mosaic synagogue floor has been discovered at the Israeli excavation site of Horvat Kur. The timeworn stones of the mosaic clearly form the name ‘El’azar’. Leiden University researcher Jürgen Zangenberg and a group of Leiden students played a role in the excavation. ‘El’azar was likely an…