The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) want to use private DNA databases for genealogical research in criminal investigations. The method could be used in serious criminal cases that have stalled and it is already being used in investigations abroad. Whether…

A global synthesis of the extent, diversity and patterns in off-site fire use by historically documented and current hunter-gatherers with the remit of this study in the deeper past.

Russian military concepts developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries still exist and have not lost their strategic relevance. The Russians used them to annex Crimea and are now applying them in the war in Ukraine. Although the concepts have been around for a long time, it does not mean they…

Scientists from Leiden and Delft recently discovered old texts using X-ray radiation. The subject was reported in the English newspaper The Guardian.

For hundreds of years, children in Ancient Egypt learned to read using The Satire of the Trades, a text in which a father gives advice to his son through descriptions of different professions. PhD candidate Judith Jurjens investigated how this worked in practice.

Current means of fighting bacteria are no longer as good as they used to be because of antibiotic resistance. These days, people are dying from bacterial infections that could have been cured fifty years ago.

Population growth, economic expansion and the associated land use caused an increase in the number of bird species facing extinction and a reduction in carbon storage worldwide. These are the findings of an international team of scientists, also from the Leiden University Institute of Environmental…

In health care, artificial intelligence is quite normal: it is used, for example, as an aid in making diagnoses. However, artificial intelligence is not yet used as much in drug development. A new prestigious partnership is therefore going to investigate how artificial intelligence can contribute to…

On February 24, 2017, the Institute of Biology Leiden organised the first edition of the Biology Career Event. The career event for third year bachelor and master students was well received by the attendants. ‘I felt that the presenters and people doing the workshops were really trying to help us get…

Self-directed learning is more suitable for intermediate and advanced language learners than for beginners.

The Leiden Centre of Science and Techonology Studies has developed 10 principles that are intended to guide the responsible use of university rankings.

Professor of Fungal Genetics and Biotechnology Arthur Ram explains how fungi can help us be more sustainable.

PhD students Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart are both doing a project within the university’s Data Science research programme. The are introducing terms like ‘text mining’ and ‘advanced machine learning’ into archaeology. ‘These techniques will make archaeology more efficient and ch…

The Sanquin blood bank gathers data on every donation. Around 720,000 donations are made every year. ‘That generates a mountain of highly valuable data,’ says Leiden PhD candidate Marieke Vinkenoog.

Neanderthals used careful techniques to hunt their prey at close range. This is the conclusion of an international team of archaeologists, including researchers, in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Publication 25 June.

Gold nanoparticles give us a better understanding of enzymes and other molecules. Biswajit Pradhan, PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute of Physics, uses gold nanorods to study individual molecules that would be challenging to detect otherwise. Resulting knowledge can be applied to many research fields,…

The International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme, with CML researcher Ester van der Voet as member, has prepared a report called Global Resources Outlook 2019: Natural Resources for the Future We Want. It examines the trends in natural resources and their corresponding consumption…

While health data is essential for scientific research, that data also needs to be protected. In her doctoral thesis, Irith Kist found a balance between protecting the individual and exchanging health data.

Movement behaviours, such as physical activity, sleep, and the amount of time we sit each day, impact our health. Recently, more researchers are looking at the influence of these behaviours combined, but this is a challenging task. For example, it is difficult to monitor in what way movement behaviours…

Cut marks on the bones of bears show that people in North-West Europe used bearskins to keep warm 300,000 years ago.

A consortium of researchers from the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION), the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) received a FOM program grant to develop a novel way of studying individual proteins inside a cell using gold nanorods.

LIACS assistant professor Ben van Werkhoven leads the development of software for optimising graphics processing units. By now, version 1.0 of 'Kernel Tuner' is just around the corner. This milestone shows that the software is ready for serious use.

The energy transition is already a huge challenge for society, but sustainable use of resources is even more complicated. Yet it is at least as urgent. Ester van der Voet has been working on it for decades, for example within the United Nations. Since February, she is a professor at the Centre for Environmental…

According to Russian propaganda Ukrainians are Nazis and people from the West are Satanists. Egbert Fortuin thinks we should take this propaganda seriously.

Mia Thomaïdou wants to investigate how criminal courts understand and use the increased knowledge of human behavior. Her Rubicon grant allows for two years of research at the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. Leiden behavioral scientist Thomaïdou will be living in New York, where as part…

For years, the Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) has collected and shared privacy-sensitive information about citizens. Experts say this is in breach of the law.

Petr Steindl works on quantum dots in microcavities for his PhD research. He manipulates single-photons to create complex structures of light. Applications could include quantum communication and gates for quantum computers.

Three quantum-safe cryptography methods have been standardised for worldwide use since this week. Léo Ducas co-designed the two primary PQC methods selected for this standardisation. Ducas is part of the Cryptology group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and is also professor of Mathematical cryptology…

International experts from several academic disciplines came to Leiden on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December 2017 to participate in the international conference 'The

Leiden biophysicists have found a new possible way to attack cancer cells. They have located ‘sinkholes’ on the cells where receptor proteins disappear from the surface. If a drug could push these proteins towards those areas, it would kill the cancer cell.

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

On 16 May 2022, Professor Michel Wouters from the Department of Biomedical Data Sciences at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), will deliver his inaugural lecture titled ‘Quality of Cancer Care: why the real world matters’. Wouters will use the opportunity to describe how quality registries…

How do you progress from an immense gas cloud somewhere in the universe to a star with planets? Research by Astronomy PhD student Martijn van Gelder sheds more light on the earliest phases of this process. He will receive his doctorate on November 24th.

The book ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science’ by Paul Behrens has been launched in the US, a year after its original release in Europe. In his book, Behrens describes both hopeful and pessimistic scenarios for our planet.

If European countries rely solely on technological advances, they won't be able to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees. Households will also need to change their lifestyles. This 'inconvenient truth' is the result of calculations done by industrial ecologist Stephanie Cap. ‘It's not a popular message,…

Archaeologist Fulco Scherjon has used computer simulations to identify where and how Neanderthals lived in West Europe. What stood out was that they probably had lots of children and lived in smaller groups than was previously thought. PhD defence on 28 May.

Using biologically inspired algorithms on 'edge devices', such as cameras and mobile phones, is what Svetlana Minakova's PhD research was all about. She conducted research on Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN). Making these algorithms work in different situations is a complicated task. 'Most design…

A permanent exhibition on the place of humans in the cosmos. This is something Franx wants to use his Spinoza Prize for. ‘So much progress has been made that we are still trying to define the questions. In finding the answers we are constantly coming up against surprises.’

Two things are needed to produce fuel from sunlight: an antenna that harvests light, and a light-driven catalyst. The most efficient antennae contain bacteria. An international team headed by Huub de Groot imitated them and discovered how they function.

Marlien van Mever delved into the analysis of tiny samples, cerebrospinal fluid from transgenic mouse models for example. She validated methods that can now be used to study brain diseases such as migraine and epilepsy. Van Mever will receive her PhD on 14 June.

Just about everything that's known about Charles Darwin has already been said or written. Even so, Norbert Peeters – together with Tessa van Dijk – has managed to write an original book about the great English scholar. In the run-up to Darwin Day (12 February) he tells us about his new book.

In the past decades terrorists have regularly surprised us with unexpected and spectacular attacks, such as the one on the World Trade Centre in New York. How can intelligence services stay one step ahead of them? Consult Charles Darwin and Steven Spielberg is the advice of terrorism expert Yannick…

From a catastrophic fire to a flood that engulfs the earth. Mineke Schipper, Professor Emeritus of Literary Studies, has collected myths from the four corners of the earth about the end of humanity. These have inspired 30 striking paintings by Japanese artist Yuriko Yamaguchi. The Dutch premiere of…

Leiden physicists have managed to detect a single molecule called dibenzoterrylene in a new crystal, and found that it is a candidate component for a quantum network. Future quantum computers will need such a network to work together while maintaining their advantages. Publication in ChemPhysChem jo…

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

Researchers at Leiden University have demonstrated that tumours can apply mechanical means to attract the blood vessels they need to be able to grow. The team published this discovery on 2 March in Nature Scientific Reports.

With a wall full of people who preceded them as a backdrop, the (bachelor) Science graduates will receive their diplomas this autumn. Send in your photo and help the Faculty of Science create a great experience for the new graduates in this time of 1.5m distancing.

CADS lecturer Sander Hölsgens is one of the initiators of the NWO Smart Culture Project Documenting Complexity (project number CISC.KC.212). This project investigates how and why engaged documentary filmmakers use new technologies in their work. One of the outputs of this project is the series ‘In Whose…

Turbulent times in Italy: Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini wants new elections so that he can become prime minister himself. He is campaigning on social media, including photos of himself posing in his swimming trunks.

New technological applications which the government wants to use need to be thoroughly examined to prevent them causing problems for citizens. Currently, things often go wrong – the childcare benefit affair being an extreme example – says Anne Meuwese, Professor of Public Law and Governance of AI, in…