412 search results for “extremism” in the Staff website
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Healthy University Leiden reveals interim results of Ommetje walking challenge
In the space of seven weeks, the staff of the LUMC and Leiden University have left home more than 35,000 times for a short walk, or an Ommetje as it is known. Healthy University Leiden launched the Ommetje walking challenge to encourage its staff to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Thus far this has resulted…
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Growth differences during twin pregnancy have effect later in life
A child who receives fewer nutrients in the womb than their identical twin brother or sister is more likely to have developmental problems later in life. This is what researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) write in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. This study shows that unfavourable…
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In Memoriam: Katharine MacDonald (1976-2022)
Our dear colleague and friend Kathy MacDonald passed away unexpectedly on August 9th, 2022, a few days after her 46th birthday. Her sudden passing came as a tremendous shock to her colleagues and friends at the Faculty of Archaeology and to colleagues and former students both in The Netherlands and…
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Preventing heart attacks by earlier detection of cardiovascular disease
In the Netherlands, 1.55 million people suffer from cardiovascular diseases. Yet, acute cardiovascular events, such as a heart attack or stroke, often occur unexpectedly. That is because many people do not know they are at risk for such an event. Immunological researcher Amanda Foks and her colleagues…
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A first in the lab: a tiny network that is both strong and flexible
Daniela Kraft's group has succeeded in creating a network of microparticles that is both strong and completely flexible. This may sound simple, yet they are the first in the world to succeed in doing so. A real breakthrough in soft matter physics.
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Leiden researchers organise first Week of Ancient Writing
This month marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. NINO, the Language Museum, Things that Talk and the National Museum of Antiquities are seizing the opportunity to organise the first Week of Ancient Writing.
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Meet Foteini Tsigoni: ‘My role will be to help improve interactions between international and Dutch students’
Starting September 2022, Foteini Tsigoni is tasked by the Faculty of Archaeology to bring the different nationalities within the faculty community together. Herself an international student, she experienced culture shock wile adapting to the Dutch way of life, and is committed to help out new and current…
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City Photographer for a year: ‘Unfortunately, I found that I’m not really very visual’
Julia van Alem had never held a camera before, but she and her classmates were appointed as the City Photographer. ‘This project helped me learn how to create my own work better.’
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Digital guest lectures for high school students: 'Focus on what's really important'
Developing a digital guest lecture for high school students. Jan Sleutels was immediately enthusiastic when he got asked to do this. The end result? Together with his colleague Maarten Lamers, he created the guest lecture 'Thinking about Artificial Intelligence'.
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Cybersecurity Awareness Month: First aid for a ransomware attack
ICT, Security
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Five questions on why we are talking about academic freedom
On 14 February, we will discuss the role of academics in the public debate and how this relates to academic freedom. All students and staff of the university are cordially invited. Are you curious about this dialogue on issues such as Israel-Palestine, caps and gowns on the A12 and academic titles on…
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‘Value to society has our full attention’
Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl can see dilemmas but above all opportunities in the search to increase the societal value of research in Leiden.
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How ‘sleeping’ microorganisms can determine the fate of a population
Microorganisms that temporarily ‘go to sleep’ play an important role in the evolution and survival of a population. Mathematician Shubhamoy Nandan conducted research on the effect of this characteristic called ‘dormancy’ in a novel mathematical model.
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Executive Board column: My concerns about the increased harassment of academics
Academics increasingly face threats, intimidation and abuse. The WetenschapVeilig platform has been launched to address this. Academics who are being threatened or intimidated can seek help from the platform 24 hours a day. It’s good that we now have this platform. But at the same time, it’s awful that…
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Dutch armed forces were willing to accept high casualties in Indonesia
The decolonisation war in Indonesia was violent partly because the Dutch military operated on the conviction that ‘an uprising had to be forcibly suppressed.’ This what historian Christiaan Harinck from the KITLV discovered in his PhD research.
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Education and teaching: an exciting year at the faculty
There are lots of important items on the education and teaching agenda for 2024. Reaccreditation for the Law programmes including Notarial Law and Tax Law degree programmes, preparations for the implementation of the Kernvisie Bachelor, a new online teaching platform and a Teaching Fair, to name just…
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Archaeologists come up with a more precise estimate for how long modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed
Modern humans and Neanderthals may have co-existed in France and Northern Spain for up to 2,900 years until the Neanderthals disappeared. This is what archaeologists from Leiden University and Cambridge University write in a new publication in Scientific Reports.
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New board of directors for CWTS appointed
CWTS will get a new board of directors for the coming three years, starting on 1 January 2024. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Leiden University has appointed Ludo Waltman as scientific director and Tjitske Holtrop, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner and Clara Calero Medina as deputy directors.…
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Unique ‘penis plant’ flowers at Hortus
Amorphophallus decus-silvae, or the ‘penis plant’ as it is known, has just flowered at the Hortus botanicus. It flowered for two days, and then the pollen, which the male flowers produced was collected. As far as the plant experts at the Hortus can tell, this was just the third time that this species…
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Bombastic publications encouraged millions of Dutch people to emigrate
After the Second World War almost three million people emigrated from the Netherlands to countries such as Canada and Australia. The government information was anything but objective, Professor by Special Appointment of Dutch Studies/Dutch Literature Ton van Kalmthout concludes in his inaugural lect…
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Podcast: Social Anxiety Disorder
Have you ever experienced the feeling of awkwardness when attending a party where you didn’t know anybody? Ever felt shy at a party within the first few minutes? While this feeling is labelled loosely as feeling socially anxious, social anxiety disorder goes to a much further extent.
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Call for Papers: Localizing the Women Peace & Security Agenda Across Multiple Governance Challenges
Hybrid Workshop: In person and online on 26 – 27 January 2023.
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NWO Veni for Linda Geven for research into false confessions
An NWO Veni application by Linda Geven, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, has been honoured. She will spend the next three years conducting research into false confessions in police interrogations.
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Astronomers find missing link for origin of water in solar systems
An international team of astronomers, including astronomers from Leiden University, has found the missing link in the path taken by water through star-forming clouds and young stars to comets and planets. They did so with the help of the ALMA observatory in Chile. The researchers published their findings…
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Neandertal Legacy Scientific Reports’ article in the top 100 most downloaded
With an off-the-charts number of downloads, outstanding media coverage, and more than 300 tweets, a small team behind the Scientific Reports article led by a Leiden PhD Igor Djakovic is living every researcher’s dream.
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A quirky block of rubber as a calculator
PhD candidate Jiangnan Ding explores how you can design a thick slab of rubber in a way that it might act as a mechanical computer bit. This so-called mechanical metamaterial is pushed in a specific way to change its shape. ‘With a very simple material, we might be able to do simple calculations in…
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Robo-bird teaches young zebra finches to sing
How do young zebra finches learn to sing? A research team led by researcher Katharina Riebel has developed a ‘RoboFinch’ to study just that. She and colleagues in the 'Seeing voices' research consortium have spent the past four years designing the robotic bird. And with success: young zebra finches…
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The data doctor who wants to use artificial intelligence to improve healthcare
When can a patient be discharged from intensive care? Artificial intelligence can help answer this and other questions. But using such revolutionary technology in healthcare is not easy, as Anne de Hond has discovered.
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Supergenes make bizarre traits possible
Within the same species of butterfly many different wing patterns can occur. How is this possible? According to researchers Ben Wielstra and Emma Berdan, of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the answer lies within supergenes. A supergene is a part of a chromosome that contains many strongly linked…
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Hans Slabbekoorn appointed professor: 'There are still gaps in our knowledge'.
Hans Slabbekoorn is specialised in animal sounds. On 1 July, he was appointed professor of Acoustic ecology and behaviour. A great honour, according to the new professor. ‘This job never gets boring, whether I am investigating the urban jungle or marine noise.’
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Why avoid my gaze?
Individuals suffering from social anxiety disorder (SAD) consistently avoid eye contact. However, in a non-clinical population, gaze avoidance in socially anxious individuals depends on social situations, Jiemiao Chen saw in a series of experiments, for which she used wearable eye-trackers. On 25 April…
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A quick call with Petra Slabber about Emergency Response Day
Every year, the first Monday in November is Emergency Response Day: the opportunity to recognise the importance of emergency response officers. At Leiden University over 400 enthusiastic and dedicated emergency response officers make sure our students and staff are safe, says emergency response training…
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Developing drugs with artificial intelligence
Developing new drugs is a difficult process. With the aid of artificial intelligence, Pharmaceutical scientist Xuhan Liu has developed methods that can help make drug design cheaper and faster. PhD defence on 15 February.
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European grant to advance self-learning capabilities of quantum computers
A major grant for research into machine learning algorithms for quantum computers. With this ERC Consolidator grant, Vedran Dunjko and his colleagues hope to discover which real-world problems a quantum computer can solve faster than a normal one.
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How the speed demons of the universe tell us something about the Milky Way
They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into these elusive hypervelocity stars and discovered that they have a lot to teach us, about black holes and supernovae, for example.
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Carole Tiberius appointed professor of Computational Linguistics: 'If you know how systems work, you can better assess their limitations'
ChatGPT, translation machines and bots: for Carole Tiberius, they are a piece of cake. On 1 January, she was appointed professor of Computational Linguistics. 'There ae two elements to the field: computer science and linguistics.'
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Vici grant for research on the formation of galaxies
How do galaxies form? That is what astronomer Mariska Kriek will be researching in the coming years. She received an NWO Vici grant of 1.5 million euros to study galaxies in the early universe. ‘This research uses new and unprecedented observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These allow…
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Lifelong learning as the answer to huge labour shortage
Cancelled trains, massive queues at Schiphol Airport, nursery closures and long waiting times for health care. These are all the results of labour shortages. Economist Lars van Doorn can see some possible solutions but has some less optimistic news too.
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Back to Faculty with Nikie Veld
Nikie Veld is an education coordinator at Biology. Her job now mainly revolves around getting students back to the Faculty. ‘In the corona era, we were constantly rearranging the timetables.’
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How cool is LEGO®? Leiden physicists use it for ice cold research
Tjerk Oosterkamp's group is conducting what is perhaps the coldest research in the world. The researchers have cooled a sensor to below 2 millikelvin - almost as cold as absolute zero. This allows them to make extremely sensitive measurements. PhD candidate Jaimy Plugge helped build the setup: ‘We are…
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A special part-time job: Susanne is vice president of the Youth Parliament for Water
Student of International Studies Susanne Reitsma has a remarkable passion: water. In April 2015, she was elected vice president of the World Youth Parliament for Water, in which capacity she works for worldwide access to clean drinking water and sanitation. What does Suzanne find so special about water?…
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Neele Boelens: ‘I think it is important to get young people to vote’
Neele Boelens is a board member at DWARS, the youth organisation of political party GroenLinks. In addition, she is studying towards two degrees at Leiden University: Linguistics and Public Administration. A busy year, especially with the upcoming elections.
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Protests in China: Politicians afraid of not the population but colleagues
That it was students who started the protests in China against its zero Covid policy makes things more dangerous for politicians. China expert Frank Pieke explains the role of students in China, what makes the protests unique and what might happen next.
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The kick-off of the Ommetje app challenge during the Let's Walk Week
Today marks the start of the Healthy University - Let's Walk Week 2021, a week focused on the mental and physical health of our employees. Including an online program with interesting inspiration sessions, office workouts and sports lessons. And join our walking competition in the Ommetje app!
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A quick call with the education coaches: ‘Teachers could learn so much from each other’
In September, university lecturers Olga van Marion and Astrid Van Weyenberg started working as education coaches. How did their first semester of activities go and what is next on the horizon?
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Jasper Knoester new Dean of the Faculty of Science
Professor Jasper Knoester has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. He will take up the role on 1 January 2022. Knoester is currently Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the University of Groningen. He succeeds Paul Wouters (Dean of the Faculty of Social and…
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Specialising in quantum? New Leiden-Delft master's degree launched
Quantum technologies are in demand worldwide, but until now Leiden students could not specialise in them. The new master’s program QIST (Quantum Information Science and Technology) is going to change that. Researcher and professor Jordi Tura i Brugués: ‘We need to train the next generation of quantum…
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Benjamin Suchard: ‘The more you send out into the world, the more likely it will stick’
How do you make niche subjects interesting and accessible? Benjamin Suchard, historical linguist and researcher, seems to have created the perfect recipe, which consists of his various projects alongside his regular research, including a Twitter account and a major international film.
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New Cleveringa books donated to Leiden University
Two Cleveringa books from Theo ten Kate's law library were donated to Leiden University by grandson Sebastiaan ten Kate on 24 November. They are the dissertations of W. Hugenholtz and J.G.L Röder, both PhD students of Rudolph Cleveringa. Ten Kate: 'The University is the right place for the books. Here,…
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Professor bids farewell with roadshow in Indonesia: 'One big celebration of recognition'
Whereas most outgoing professors are offered a congress, Nico Kaptein's former students and PhD students took a bigger approach. They treated him not only to a farewell congress, but also to a two-week tour of Indonesia, filled with lectures, and trips.