When the immune system attacks cancer, the tumour modifies itself to escape the immune reaction. Researchers at LUMC published on this subject in Nature on 28 June.

Astronomers from the Leiden Observatory and from the University of Rochester (in the US) have discovered that the planetary ring system that covered the very young sun-like star J1407 is actually of enormous proportions. In fact, it’s much larger and heavier than the ring system surrounding Saturn.…

Scientists of Leiden University and Technical University Delft are going to predict how and where defects in sewer systems arise. They are working with light sensitive camera’s, based on new automated multi-sensor inspection with stereo vision and laser range scanning. Their models are going to process…

On 28 June 2017 the Department of Child Law and the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden Law School organized the colloquium ‘Minorities and The Criminal Justice System’, with James Bell as the keynote speaker.

All the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun in an ecliptical plane. This is to be expected because our solar system was formed from a so-called protoplanetary disc. PhD candidate Anna Miotello has studied these kinds of discs and how they influence the formation of stars and planets. PhD…

Artificial intelligence systems are smart. They can recognize patterns better than humans, for example. Yet humans are still very much needed. How can you better steer those AI systems? LIACS lecturer Jan van Rijn wrote a book about this together with a number of colleagues. We asked him a few quest…

Design of a Linguistic System for Interstellar Communication Based on Logic

Binary systems, consists of five electronic compositions, in each of which Richard Barrett worked with a specially made recording from an improvising instrumentalist to produce a new kind of compositional collaboration: Daryl Buckley (electric lap steel guitar), Ivana Grahovac (cello), Lori Freedman…

On Thursday the 3rd of March 2016, Professor Bruning welcomed a delegation from the government of the Republic of Kosovo, within the framework of the Matra-project ‘Protecting Children in Kosovo: from Policy to Practice’.

Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

Cardiovascular syndromes are the major cause of death in Western societies.

The solar system was formed approximately 4.56 billion years ago. Despite the numerous theories that have been developed over the years, the formation and evolution of the solar system still remain unclear.

The research report by the independent committee on the future of the work disability system in the Netherlands ('Onafhankelijke Commissie Toekomst Arbeidsongeschiktheidsstelsel' (Octas)) was published this week. While the number of people unable to work has dropped considerably, the system is still…

A lot of municipalities work with a points system to encourage construction projects to take biodiversity and creating green areas into account. But this way of working also benefits local neighbourhoods and residents, master's student Marije Sesink discovered. She based her study on The Hague.

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 Thursday 24 of June, GTGC’s Assistant Professor Valentina Carraro, presented her work on regime complexity during the Conference of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS).

Knowledge and culture subproject 4:

Barend Barentsen, Professor of Labour Law, recently spoke at a meeting of experts in Amsterdam on the future of the Dutch incapacity benefit system.

On 16-17 June 2022, Valentina Carraro presented a paper on ‘Overlapping Institutions in the United Nations human rights system’ at the Politicologenetmaal conference, Radboud University, Nijmegen.

This project aims to explore and examine the factors that impact upon the efficacy of information disclosure duties pertaining to customer data use in online business.

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disc surrounding a young star. The discovery reaffirms that the conditions that spawned the Earth and Sun are not unique in the Universe. The results are published…

About 15 km to the south of the ancient city of Petra, archaeologists from the University of Leiden have discovered an impressive network of ancient water conservation measures and irrigated field systems.

At an international high-level conference, Valentina Carraro, Deputy Coordinator of the interdisciplinary programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) presented her research on human rights in the UN Human Rights Council and Treaty body systems. One of the most practical recommendations…

Joost Grootens contributes the introductory essay ‘Charles Joseph Minard: Critical Practice’ to the book ‘Le Système Minard’ on the French pioneer in the representation of statistical data in the 19th century.

On 15-16 December, Simona Demková participated in a Closing conference and a Book launch event of the University of Luxembourg doctoral training programme on the Enforcement Challenges in Multilevel Regulatory Systems – DTU REMS.

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

The immune system plays a paradoxical role in the spread of breast cancer. Some immune cells contribute to metastasis, while other cells can be activated to strengthen the effect of chemotherapy. Kelly Kersten made this discovery in her PhD research. PhD defence 7 February.

On Tuesday December 19, Museum Boerhaave, the Lorentz Center and eLaw organize a public lecture on ‘Fairness and Accountability of Sociotechnical Algorithmic Systems’.

In this thesis, we extend the concept of null models as canonical ensembles of multi-graphs with given constraints and present new metrics able to characterize real-world layered systems based on their correlation patterns.

When stars are born, large clouds of gas and dust form that are known as circumstellar discs. Research by PhD candidate Francisca Concha-Ramírez shows that strong radiation from neighbouring stars soon evaporates the dust in these discs, which can prevent planet formation at an early stage. PhD defence…

In September 2023, we started transforming a under-utilised outdoor space into a greener and more biodiverse garden in which all students and staff of the Schouwburgstraat can relax and enjoy.

Prof. Ton Liefaard and dr. Stephanie Rap (together with Apollonia Bolscher LL.M.) are involved in developing a training Toolkit and Manual for the project Improving Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe: Training for Professionals (JUST/2013/FRC/AG).

The project concerns the nature, the usages and functions of pictographic systems in relation to writing in societies with (restricted) literacy.

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.

Source: Biochem Pharmacol, Volume 95, Issue 4, pp. 290-300 (2015)

NWO-ALW has funded the project Climate impact on human evolution: age calibration of the ICDP Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP), led by PIs Cor Langereis and Guillaume Dupont-Nivet (Utrecht University).