223 search results for “animal” in the Student website
-
No hunger, and not too much global warming? Current UN plan misses opportunities
The United Nations fall short in their recently published guide to address hunger without surpassing the 1.5-degree climate threshold. This initial version is a significant step, according to a group of researchers including those of Leiden University. However, they miss an essential topic: reducing…
-
Student discovers new shrimp species by chance
When biology student Mike Groenhof was making a phylogenetic tree of fifty shrimp species for his internship, one specimen turned out to be an undescribed species. The animal was collected by Naturalis scientist 18 years ago, and had been under the radar ever since.
-
During the next pandemic, this mathematical model will speed up the search for treatment
Do you recall all those drugs that were hastily proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19? In the event of a future pandemic, the goal is to offer an effective treatment more quickly and efficiently. To achieve this, a team led by Coen van Hasselt is developing a platform that can speed up the process…
-
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.’
-
From politics to psychology: the power of games and play
The Bachelor Honours Class 'Homo Ludens: Why We Play' combines games, theory, and practice. Students dive into all aspects of humanity in which games play a part and discuss them, both on a theoretical an experiential level: 'Occasionally, you touch upon what play is, but then it eludes you.'
-
CML talents receive Stans Award 2024
CML grants three Stans Awards each year, known as the best student thesis, best PhD paper and best outreach from the past year. The CML staff nominated students and colleagues and this year’s jury Prof.dr.ing. Jan Willem Erisman and Prof.dr.ir Willie Peijnenburg made the final decision.
-
Archaeology student Anne Wagemakers wins LISF prize for report on research in Spain
With the help of a LUF grant, archaeology student Anne Wagemakers investigated an archaeological assemblage in Spain. Now her research report has won the annual LISF prize.
-
Neanderthals changed ecosystems 125,000 years ago
Hunter-gatherers caused ecosystems to change 125,000 years ago. These are the findings of an interdisciplinary study by archaeologists from Leiden University in collaboration with other researchers. Neanderthals used fire to keep the landscape open and thus had a big impact on their local environment.…
-
Beaver exploitation testifies to prey choice diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominins
Exploitation of smaller game is rarely documented before the latest phases of the Pleistocene, which is often taken to imply narrow diets for earlier hominins. In a study now published in Scientific Reports, a team of German and Dutch archaeologists present new data that contradict this view of Lower…
-
Biology students expose exotic amphibians in the dunes
During the spring of 2021, a group of eight biology students from Leiden set out into the dunes in search of amphibians. Using DNA, they determined the geographic origin of the animals. And guess what? In many cases they discovered exotic populations of animals that do not naturally belong in The Netherlands.…
-
Striking similarities in how humans and other primates search for food
How unique is the human capacity for learning and adapting to an environment? In field research – in the rainforest and Artis Zoo – primatologist Karline Janmaat is studying how humans and other primates adapt to their environment in their search for food. She will give her inaugural lecture as Professor…
-
People used bearskins to keep warm 300,000 years ago
Cut marks on the bones of bears show that people in North-West Europe used bearskins to keep warm 300,000 years ago.
-
Climate and elections: these were your top stories from 2023
The year 2023 saw the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Wagner Group rebellion and wildfires and floods as all the weather records were smashed. Our most-read stories were about the climate crisis and the elections: here’s the list.
-
Five tips for The Night of Discoveries
Discover budding creators, artists and researchers at the Night of Discoveries art and knowledge festival. And many researchers from Leiden University are taking part.
-
PhD candidate Didi van Trijp researches: When is a fish a fish?
Bird, butterfly, fish: when you look through a children’s book, you usually don’t think about the fact that humans divided these animals, depicted in bright colours, into categories. Yet, this division has been discussed for centuries. In her PhD dissertation, Didi van Trijp shows how natural scientists…
-
Biology brothers write book about nature and adventure in Eastern Europe: 'I didn't know there live pelicans in Romania'
With a self-converted red camper van, biologists and twin brothers Kevin and Marvin Groen go on a nature adventure in Eastern Europe. Together, they search for wild animals, beautiful nature and places to sport. From a long search for a bear in the Slovakian wilderness to the discovery that pelicans…
-
Travel reveals the mind
Exploring the minds of our primate cousins in the wild, using under-exploited observations of their travel paths. A large set of observations of the travel paths of wild primates provides new opportunities for in-depth insights in the evolution of the mental abilities that primates, including ourselves,…
-
’Society would flourish with new farming styles’
‘The climate crisis is the greatest threat we face,’ says Leiden University environmental scientist Paul Behrens. ‘And yet, there is hope. In the near future, I think we will wonder why we didn’t make these changes earlier.’
-
Wat is er te doen op de Leidse Museumnacht?
Op zaterdag 3 juni vindt de Museumnacht Leiden plaats. Ook dit jaar zijn Leidse wetenschappers en studenten onderdeel van de programmering.
-
Liever een verre vreemde dan een valse buur
Mensen werken niet alleen liever samen met leden van hun eigen ingroup, ze concurreren er ook liever mee, lieten Leidse onderzoekers in een sociaalpsychologische studie in 51 landen zien. Dit ‘nasty neighbor’- effect was een grote verrassing voor de onderzoekers, totdat ze in studies over dieren doken.…
-
Bonobos, unlike humans, are more interested in the emotions of strangers than acquaintances
Humans and bonobos show striking similarities as well as differences when they see pictures of conspecifics. Both are more interested in photos of conspecifics that show emotion. But while our human attention is more easily drawn to photos of family members and friends that express certain emotions,…
-
New technology could prevent the mass cull of male chicks
A staggering 6.5 billion chicks are killed worldwide every year. These are generally male chicks that are of no economic value. In Ovo has developed technology that can quickly determine the sex of a chick, to ensure that only female chicks are hatched. The first 150,000 chicks have now hatched in this…
-
New eDNA method opens doors for environmental research
With a single sample of water or soil, researches can analyse the DNA of everything that is living in that environment. During her research, PhD candidate Beilun Zhao discovered a way to analyse not only the kind of species, but also the age of the species in a water sample. The method showed its first…
-
Night of Discoveries: 3D-printed paintings and the effects of psychedelics
Come to the Night of Discoveries art and science festival on 16 September. Various researchers from the university are speaking at the festival.
-
Researchers from Leiden make Ted Ed videos: ‘We want to integrate Islamic history into world history’
What are the origins of the Islamic Empire? And what was daily life like there? Two new Ted Ed animations answer these questions in simple language. Arabists Petra Sijpesteijn and Birte Kristiansen explain what the process of developing the videos was like.
-
Scouring the brain for causes of psychiatric illnesses
What happens in the brains of people with psychiatric illnesses? With a €23.23 million gravity grant, scientists from different fields will search for biological causes over the next decade. ‘By joining forces, we hope to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with these diseases.’
-
Artificial intelligence as the co-pilot for drug discovery
There are more molecules that could conceivably be candidate drugs than there are stars in the universe. How can we ever efficiently identify those molecules? Professor of AI and Medicinal Chemistry, Gerard van Westen: ‘I’m going to use artificial intelligence as the co-pilot to make an automated search.’…
-
Promising new technique to treat cancer receives NWO grant
Biological chemist Nathaniel Martin and his team received an NWO grant to examine how blocking a specific enzyme in our body, NNMT, could be helpful in the treatment of some cancers. Trials with mice have been promising, and together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Martin wants to take the next…
-
Anne Urai on her Veni subsidy and open science
Neuroscientist Anne Urai has been awarded a Veni subsidy to further develop her ideas over the coming four years on how the brain makes choices. Why did she receive the award? Urai answers five questions about her Veni grant for young researchers.
-
New research indicates Hunter-Gatherer impact on prehistoric European landscapes
The starting point of human-induced landscape changes has been under permanent debate. It is widely accepted that the emergence of agriculture strongly increased human impact on their environments. However, foragers can and do actively transform land cover and ecosystems. Ethnographic observations,…
-
Hunting of European straight-tusked elephants was widespread among Neanderthals 125,000 years ago
Finds uncovered in the east of Germany show that Neanderthals stored and preserved vast amounts of meat and/or temporarily aggregated in larger groups to exploit the spoils
-
Join the Palloures 2023 excavations on Cyprus
Education
-
Leiden archaeologists repatriate human remains to St. Eustatius
Representatives of the Faculty of Archaeology recently traveled to the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius to repatriate human remains. The remains, originally excavated in the 1980s, will eventually be reinterred on the island.
-
Bas van Rijn wins Fritz Stolz-Preis 2024
LUCSoR alumnus Bas van Rijn was awarded the Fritz Stolz-Preis on 7 June 2024 for his PhD Dissertation “The Experimental Culture of Afterlife Research: Attempts by Spiritual Animal Magnetizers to Prove Life after Death”.
-
The Camel’s Hobble: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on the Practical Intellect
Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series
-
How to keep a forest happy? A study on singing behaviour in BaYaka hunter gatherers in Congo
For the first time, a group of international and interdisciplinary researchers led by Karline Janmaat and her former MSc Student Chirag Chittar, have tested the several hypotheses on music simultaneously in a modern foraging society during their daily search for tubers – their staple food.
-
Start lemonade pilot in restaurant Pieter de la Court
Facility
- duurzaamheid campus, bin your butt
-
Apply now for the Una Europa One Health Summer School!
Education
-
What Darwin couldn’t see: Expedition to uncover invisible life in Galápagos
An international research team is to search for invisible life in the Galápagos Islands. The diversity of bacteria and other microscopic organisms may not be evident to the naked eye, but it is essential to nature. To the islands' giant daisies, for instance: unique endemic plants that are currently…
-
The future of the past is enough to make you feel down
The slogan of the Faculty of Archaeology, ‘The Future of the Past starts at Leiden University’, might sound like empty marketing speak. But there is something to it. The past can teach us a lot about climate change and that could make us fear the worst for our future. Archaeologist Gerrit Dusseldorp…
-
With 30 million dollars, this consortium aims to tackle tuberculosis
Thanks to a clever research method, progress is being made in the quest for better tuberculosis medications. Within an American consortium that received a 30 million dollars grant, Leiden researcher Rob van Wijk plays a significant role. ‘The next breakthrough in tuberculosis research will come much…
-
‘Our students are role models for young children in The Hague’
What better way is there for an alderman to find out where best to put his efforts than to pay a working visit to the university? Hilbert Bredemeijer, Alderman in The Hague for Education, Sport and the Outdoor Space, paid a visit to Campus The Hague on Wednesday 6 October 2021.
-
Aitor Burguet-Coca studied fire-use from Palaeolithic to Bronze Age: ‘This gives us an image on different uses of fire across prehistory’
For the following years, Dr Aitor Burguet-Coca will be a returning face at the Faculty of Archaeology. He will join Dr Amanda Henry’s team with his expertise on prehistoric fire use and the methodologies that studying ancient hearths requires.
-
'This is the very best course there is'
Martina Vijver has been nominated as Teacher of the Year of the Faculty of Science. She gets this nomination for the course Ecotoxicology she taught in 2022. The 52 students who took the course were hugely enthusiastic, as can be read in their positive reviews. What is so great about this course then?…
-
LIFF director Ratna Lachmansingh: ‘Writing my thesis was so much fun!’
As a student, Ratna Lachmansingh wrote her thesis on horror films. Now she is the director of Leiden International Film Festival.
-
Why do birds flock? Shedding light on collective motions in heterogeneous populations
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…
-
For LGBT+ migrants, dating apps are about much more than sex
When you think of migration, you probably won’t immediately think of dating apps. Yet such apps are important to many migrants, such as those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer or questioning (LGBT+). Researcher Andrew DJ Shield studied the role that dating apps play in the migration process,…
-
Gorillas abducting women leads to new art history
Two statues of gorillas abducting women: they were what led PhD candidate Dick van Broekhuizen to write a new type of history of nineteenth-century sculpture. ‘If you view nineteenth-century art history from a less narrow perspective, the narrative changes completely.’ PhD ceremony on 21 June.
-
Genetics proves it: Indo-European did not come to Europe on horseback
Horses were first domesticated in South-West Russia, is the conclusion drawn by an international team of researchers writing in the well-respected journal Nature. Their conclusion resolves a longstanding archaeological question. But, surprisingly enough, this domestication did not contribute to the…