The University believes it is important to provide you with a satisfying work environment. How do you feel about your career opportunities, the interaction with your colleagues and supervisors, and the work facilities at your disposal? We ask for your opinion via the personnel monitor. This survey guarantees…

Hoping to learn something about the human brain, Leiden researchers are creating a setup to shoot single photons, particles of light, into someone’s eye. ‘The eye is a passageway to the brain.’

PhD defence

Fish populations in lakes and rivers have declined in recent decades. This is probably due to light and noise pollution. The Horizon Europe grant enables ecologist Hans Slabbekoorn to investigate this and improve the situation for migrating fish. In order to do so, a seven-metre-long swimming tunnel…

Rather than one key and one strong lock, biology often uses tens or hundreds of weaker links to bind parts together, such as cells membranes. This allows for selectivity and also reversibility: the binding can also be undone. Researchers first caught this phenomenon using spheres or colloids, and published…

2022/2023

‘What if we switch off all the lights one evening? That idea crossed my mind from time to time. And when I mentioned it to a taxi driver one day, he said: “Oh, you mean: lights out, stars on!” That’s not completely true, of course, because the stars are always on, but his phrase summed up the idea n…

Nausea, neurologic pain and hair loss: some of the severe side effects of chemotherapy. Not necessary, biochemist Liyan Zhang showed. Together with Leiden biologists and others, she achieved great results with a drug that is only active in combination with light. Zhang will defend her PhD on 4 July.

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.

A suitcase covered with stickers from various universities, containing a quantum light source. Since April 2024, this suitcase has been visiting scientists in Europe researching single photons: the smallest possible quantity of light. The suitcase, also called ‘Q-torch’, travels from lab to lab like…

Research to experiment with bacteria that grow like plants has been granted the NWO XS grant. These bacteria use light and carbon dioxide to grow, and will be designed especially for use in the biotechnological field. Tijn Delzenne and his supervisor Dennis Claessen can spend 50.000 euros on the exp…

New archaeological research into grave goods and skeletal material from the oldest grave field in the Netherlands shows that male-female roles 7,000 words ago were less traditional than was thought. The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by Archol, the National Museum…

In 2011, the Udhruh Archaeological Project was launched, bringing together teams of Jordanian and Dutch archaeologists to investigate the region and reconstruct ancient water harvesting techniques in the extremely arid landscape of Udhruh. Access to fresh water remains one of the most pressing global…

This September, Adina Akbik received the Political Science Teaching Award at Leiden University. Created by student members of the Bachelor's and Master's Programme Committees (OLC), the award recognises remarkable teaching at the Institute. Akbik was chosen from five finalists after receiving several…

Writing with Light Magazine. Issue no.1 is now available for download as a open access pdf/interactive edition or purchase as limited-run print edition. The magazine builds on our prior work with the journals Cultural Anthropology and Visual Anthropology Review and the editorial collective consists…

Packages of DNA strands containing silver, measuring just two or three nanometres in size. Leiden physicists Donny de Bruin and Dirk Bouwmeester create these packages, which can enter living cells on their own. They then activate the silver with light, causing the cells to break down. This could, in…

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…

Ecologist Sebastiaan Grosscurt became a successful wildlife journalist after graduating. But he decided to focus on science instead. He started his PhD research this year on the cumulative effect of light and noise pollution on animal behaviour.

On 25 September, lights throughout Leiden will be turned off for the Seeing Stars event. What makes the urban night so special? We asked university lecturer Sara Brandellero, who researches cities, night and migration.

Archaeologist Bjørn Peare Barthold suspected farmers in a doctorless 19th century Dutch village may have been self-medicating to manage pain and disease. By examining the skeletons' dental calculus this hypothesis could be tested. Science Magazine interviewed him about this new technique.

'Education has always been something I am very interested in,' says the passionate Michiel Hogerheijde. He was already chairman of the astronomy programme committee and has been teaching for many years. Since 1 October, he is also the new Programme Director of the astronomy bachelor. 'I really enjoy…

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

December 2020 saw the crowning publication of the Landscapes of Survival project by Professor Peter Akkermans. Its main topic is human habitation in marginal environments like the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. ‘The people living here built their own society, and they would not have viewed it as…

Cosmologists can measure with increasing precision how the universe is expanding and changing. This is producing unexpected results and causing cracks in our picture of the universe. At the ESOF session The Dark Side of our Mysterious Universe, cosmologists, astronomers and philosophers will discuss…

After many years of preparations, CERN has approved a groundbreaking new experiment: the Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP). Physicist Alexey Boyarsky was involved from the start. ‘We know there is physics that’s missing and we aim to find it.’

Over the past few months, Urban Studies students have been helping to think about the realisation of the Humanities Campus. To test their knowledge in practice, the future urban specialists gave advice on several different aspects, including thermal energy storage and the new central campus building…

Leiden physicists Alexandre Morin and Samadarshi Maity study self-organisation and flocking phenomena. They shed light on flocking, which helps to understand how it is possible that birds in a flock don't collide. With plastic microbeads, they create an experimental setup and they developed a mathematical…

Last month (February 5-8 2024), the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, hosted a workshop entitled ‘Caribbean World Heritage Sites in the light of today’s global challenges: the case of Historic Bridgetown and Its Garrison’.

Veel mensen denken dat zware metalen giftig zijn en mens en natuur altijd schade aanbrengen. Dat beeld moet genuanceerd worden, vindt hoogleraar Sylvestre Bonnet.

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

PhD defence

After months of preparation, the moment of truth had arrived: would the skies above Leiden clear for the promised glitzy planet-and-star show? The people of Leiden turned out in their hundreds to go star-hunting on 25 September. They became more aware than ever of the effects of light pollution.

PhD student and research journalist Sebastiaan Grosscurt won a Tegel in May. In the data category, Grosscurt and his colleagues won the prestigious Dutch journalism award. 'For me, ecological research and journalism are two ways of achieving the same thing.'

PhD defence

Debate

PhD defence

PhD defence

Lecture

The rising energy prices cannot have escaped anyone’s notice. They have dominated the news in recent months. As a university, we too face a big challenge as the prices continue to rise. We will all have to do our bit in the coming months, also in view of the climate crisis that we want to help resol…

Five Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of up to two million euros will enable them to continue and expand their scientific research.

Sustainability, health and wellbeing are key factors during the coming renovation of the iconic South Cluster of the Humanities Campus. The conversion of the original seven ‘houses’ to create a single spacious, light and attractive environment under a glass roof will earn an Excellent Level qualification…

Physicist Remko Fermin from Leiden University was awarded a Rubicon grant from NWO. He will use it to study superconducting diodes that could contribute to reducing the CO2 emission of data centres.

You might take photos and selfies with your phone's camera, or scan a QR code. But there is much more you can do with it. Astronomer Olivier Burggraaff developed a phone attachment that allows you to take measurements of surface water with your smartphone. He will receive his PhD on 13 December.