700 search results for “liveable planet” in the Public website
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Sustainability firms on partnership LLP: ‘An opportunity for reflection’
A partnership with the Leiden Leadership Programme: what does it bring you? Two partner organisations in the field of sustainability, Arcadis and Bioto, share their experiences: “It's great to be surprised by new insights.”
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Leiden University Day in China
A Leiden University Day, new agreements on exchanging PhD students and a keynote speech by Geert de Snoo at a popular symposium. In November, a Faculty of Science delegation paid a fruitful visit to eight universities in China.
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Gaia data maps globular cluster, gravitational lensing and asteroids with great precision
The European Space Agency (ESA) has published an interim data release from Gaia, the space telescope mapping out the Milky Way in 3D. The first scientific papers published today reveal half a million stars in the Omega Centauri globular cluster, nearly 400 candidate gravitational lensers and the positions…
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Flurry of new discoveries as incredible new image revealing 4.4 million galaxies is made public
Over a seven year period an international team of scientists has mapped more than a quarter of the northern sky using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a pan-European radio telescope. From Leiden, Astronomer Timothy Shimwell and Huub Röttgering, among others, are involved. It reveals an astonishingly…
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Three new professors in Archaeology
At the Faculty of Archaeology, three new professors are appointed with effect from February 1, 2018. They are Ann Brysbaert, Marie Soressi, and Joanita Vroom. How do they react to their appointments, and what will be their foci in the following years?
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‘In Asia you are first and foremost Chinese or Indian’
‘There is often a strong emphasis on the differences with Asia when actually there are so many similarities on all sorts of levels. Parents in Asia deliberate just as much about which school they should send their child to,’ says Frank Pieke, Professor of Modern China Studies. The opening conference…
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‘What is the value of the social sciences?’
At the Faculty's opening of the 2019-2020 academic year, the focus lay not just on the vision for the future of the social sciences, and the opening of the refurbished library, but above all on the government's plans for university financing. The speeches included an interview between Annemarie Samuels…
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Ewine van Dishoeck goes stargazing
From the birth of the universe to the molecules in a planet's atmosphere. The first five pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show the enormous range in which the space telescope can operate. Ewine van Dishoeck, professor of molecular astrophysics, took a look at the first images Tuesday…
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‘I want to work with Indonesia in the present day’
Alumnus Rennie Roos lives and works in Indonesia. What took him there, what does he do there and what inspires him?
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Football molecule explains 100-year-old astronomical problem
Exactly a century ago, astronomers observed the first two diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in space. A DIB manifests itself as a colour of light that is missing in the radiation from stars behind an interstellar cloud. Although about 500 DIBs are yet discovered, they remained inexplicable until recently.…
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Five ERC Starting Grants for young Leiden University researchers
The European Research Council has awarded a Starting Grant to five early career scientists from Leiden University. They received funding up to 1.5 million euros to further expand on their research subject.
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A summer filled with space exploration
This summer, Leiden, The Hague, Noordwijk and Delft will be hosting the ‘Sizzling Summer of Space’. To tie in with the international Space Studies Programme, all kinds of activities on space exploration are being organised, from a film evening to a Science Café and an exhibition of satellites to the…
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Motion of stars near Milky Way's central black hole is only predictable for few hundred years
The orbits of 27 stars orbiting closely around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way are very chaotic. As a result, researchers cannot predict with confidence where they will be in about 462 years. ‘That is astonishingly short,’ says astronomer Simon Portegies Zwart who collaborated on the r…
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Discoverer of the Year, Best Dissertation and Education prize 2015
During the Faculty of Science New Year's reception, Daniël Rozen was named Discoverer of the year 2015. Nienke van der Marel and Koen van der Maaden both won the prize for the best dissertation and Jeroen van Smeden was named Best Teacher of 2015.
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Omid Karami receives the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award during festive ceremony
In a festive and intimate award ceremony, plant scientist Omid Karami received the first edition of the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award out of the hands of Wim Klop, Director of the Biotechnology Center at DSM. Several speakers spoke about Krijn Rietveld and why Karami deserves the prize that…
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The James Webb Telescope takes stunning photos. But what exactly are we looking at?
For over a year now, the James Webb Telescope has been sending stunning images that exceed astronomers’ expectations. The photos are fascinating to see, but what exactly are we looking at? Assistant professor Melissa McClure explains.
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Working with datasets that are larger than the entire university
Radio telescope LOFAR maps the sky. It produces incredibly detailed images of the universe - and vast amounts of data. Huub Röttgering, director of the Leiden Observatory, talks about the challenges of working with those enormous datasets.
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Panel discussion "Nuclear Weapons in a New Geopolitical Reality"
On Tuesday 16 April, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) of Leiden University and the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) organised a panel discussion on the recommendations of the report: ‘Nuclear weapons in a new geopolitical reality’. In this report the AIV recommends…
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Leiden Classics: Einstein & Friends
Museum Boerhaave commemorated the hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity with the exhibition ‘Einstein & Friends’. The exhibition shined light on the famous physicist’s Dutch friends and his love for Leiden. A review featuring seven images can be found below.
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A multi-million grant to keep the biological clock healthy
Dutch researchers are joining forces to conduct research together with a series of societal partners to keep the biological clock healthy in our modern 24-hour society. The BioClock consortium will receive a research grant of no less than 9.7 million euros for this. It is one of the projects that receive…
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Europe to foster the Social-Economical Impact of Astronomy
The European Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (E-ROAD) has held its first conference session at the 2020 virtual Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS), the largest astronomy conference in Europe. The E-ROAD is an initiative of the International Astronomical Union, the…
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Seven Leiden professors elected new members of KNAW
Seven Leiden professors have been elected as members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In total 23 new members will be inaugurated on Monday 13 September.
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An ERC Grant to predict the toxicity of nanomaterials in the ecosystem
Environmental researcher Martina Vijver is over the moon with her ERC Consolidator Grant. This prestigious grant is recognition, she says, of the study of the behaviour and possible toxicity of new nanomaterials in ecosystems.
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Using an ERC grant to study languages with beans and millet
Japanologist and linguist Martine Robbeets is going to use her newly acquired ERC Consolidator Grant to study the origins and spread of Trans-Eurasian languages, which include Japanese and Turkish. With it, she’s tackling one of the most controversial subjects in language history.
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Child rights expert sounds the alarm: ‘Global crises are hitting children hardest’
Wars, climate change and the effects of covid have caused a global decline in children’s well-being. In her inaugural lecture Ann Skelton, Professor of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World, points to the disastrous effects of multiple interacting crises.
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Two Leiden astronomers awarded with prestigious IAU PhD Prize
Two Leiden astronomers will receive the prestigious IAU PhD Prize. Both Jorryt Mathee and Niels Ligterink of the Leiden Observatory won a prize. Scientific director Huub Röttgering: We are proud that this year two of our PhD students receive an IAU prize for the best thesis in their field of researc…
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Dialogue, collaboration and quantum: opening academic year Faculty of Science
With a call for dialogue and collaboration, vice dean Bart de Smit kicked off the new academic year for the Faculty of Science on Tuesday 3 September. Theoretical physicist Carlo Beenakker outlined the possibilities of quantum as a disruptive technology.
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‘All of Leiden will join in with the Seeing Stars experiment’
What will happen if the lights in a large part of the city are switched off? How many stars can you see without all that light pollution? This is what researchers, artists and the residents of Leiden are going to investigate during Seeing Stars Leiden on 25 September. ‘Leiden is the ideal place for…
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CML Stans Prize 2019
CML grants three Stans Awards each year, known as the best PhD paper, best student thesis and best outreach from the past year. The CML staff nominated students and colleagues and this year’s jury Helias Udo De Haes and Gjalt Huppes made the final decision.
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Leiden University College hosts first Live Webinar
Over the past few weeks the world has experienced unprecedented disruption, disorder and over all change. Leiden University was no exception. Not only did all in-person teaching get cancelled and substituted by online classes, the cancellation of open days, information sessions, experience evenings…
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Ultra-sensitive radio images reveal thousands of star-forming galaxies in early Universe
An international team of astronomers has published the most sensitive images of the Universe ever taken at low radio frequencies, using the International Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). ‘LOFAR is unique in its ability to make high-quality images of the sky at metre-wavelengths’, said Huub Röttgering, Leiden…
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Climate change: between hope and pessimism
In The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, environmental scientist Paul Behrens describes both hopeful and pessimistic scenarios for our future and that of our planet. With the book soon to be published, Behrens talks about its content and the writing process itself.
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Ronald Stark and Amina Helmi join the management of NOVA
The directorate of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) has two new members. Ronald Stark (currently at NWO) will be the new Executive Director of NOVA from 1 September. Amina Helmi (Professor of Dynamics, structure and formation of the Milky Way at the University of Groningen) will…
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‘We’re a spaceship with limited supplies’
From the discovery of exoplanets to the hunt for extraterrestrial life. At the Astronomy Gala on 17 December in the concert hall in Leiden, astronomers looked back, but above all ahead. With King Willem-Alexander as guest of honour.
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Spin-off from astronomy: measuring water pollution with your mobile
Leiden astronomers and ecologists are developing an instrument that lets people measure the quality of surface water with a smartphone.This international citizen science project, MONOCLE, is a collaboration between scientists and local people in Tanzania, Brazil and four European countries.
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'This course is a simulation of your professional work as an astronomer'
What if I completely changed everything? A subject without lectures or exams, where the right answer is not important and where students work with their hands. With this idea, Michiel Brentjens reformed the course Radioastronomy. His students are so enthusiastic about this approach that they nominated…
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New book by Lydie Cabane explores how the South African state bureaucracy reacts to disasters
Lydie Cabane, Assistant Professor in Governance of Crises at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs, recently published the book The Government of Disasters. In this book Lydie explores how the South African state bureaucracy reacts to disasters.
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Gaia sees strange stars in most detailed Milky Way survey to date
Today, ESA’s Gaia mission releases its new treasure trove of data about our home galaxy. Astronomers, led by the Leiden astronomer Anthony Brown, describe strange ‘starquakes’, stellar DNA, asymmetric motions and other fascinating insights in this most detailed Milky Way survey to date.
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Leiden University College The Hague Celebrates The Graduating Class of 2019 ½
On 5 February 2020, Leiden University College celebrated the graduation of its Class of 2019 ½. Referencing Aladdin’s ‘A Whole New World’, Dean Judi Mesman praised the graduates’ achievement and encouraged them to pursue new horizons on their journey that has just took off.
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A matter of dark matter
Is our universe built up out of warm or cold dark matter? The standard model assumes cold dark matter particles, but astronomer Sylvia Ploeckinger is now testing the possibility of a warm counterpart: sterile neutrino’s. For this project, she received an NWO Physics/F grant, a special grant for women…
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UN calls for urgent rethink as resource use skyrockets
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…
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New minor Sustainability, Climate Change and Food ‘A full spectrum analysis of global society’
In September 2023 the new minor Sustainability, Climate Change and Food starts. This minor critically examines the complexities of food sustainability through ecological, socio-economic, political, and cultural systems.
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New IB student member Pablo wants to engage students more closely with the institute
Pablo Pandocchi succeeds Thirza van ‘t Rood as the student member of the Institute Board for the next academic year. The Institute Board is responsible for all matters concerning the Institute, from education to research in the field of anthropology and sociology. Pablo and Thirza interviewed each other…
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Green Office chasing green ideas
‘A university is a slow-moving institution, which is in many ways a good thing,' commented student Josephine Rook at the opening of the Leiden University Green Office on 27 September in the Hortus botanicus. ‘Sustainability is not about following the latest trends, but about making structural improv…
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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…
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Astronomy in corona times: 'All the big telescopes were at a standstill.'
Astronomer Ignas Snellen studies exoplanets using telescope observations. But how is that possible when all the big telescopes are more or less at a standstill? Luckily, he has contact from home with a robot telescope in Mexico and his WIFI is finally working well.
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Laura Steenbergen and Christian Eistrup win Leiden FameLab
Which young scientists are best at explaining their research in three minutes and can take part in the national finals? These questions were answered on 14 February in the Academy Building. Researchers Laura Steenbergen (cognitive neurosciences) and Christian Eistrup (astronomy) impressed the judges…
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How a healing field trip inspired Alexia to take the stage at TEDxLeidenUniversity
One day you feel inspired by a field trip, the next you are a speaker at TEDxLeidenUniversity. It happened to International Relations student Alexia. How did she end up on stage – and why did she want to? Alexia shares her story with us. ‘I was given hope, and I wanted to share it with others.’
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Why vote in the upcoming European elections? European Law (LL.M.) students explain.
Between 6 and 9 June, you’ll be able to vote in the European elections. But what can you expect from these elections? What are the most important topics on the European agenda? And why should you even vote? Students from the European Law master’s specialisation explain.
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Managing humanity's insanity: Becoming truly human within planetary boundaries
Environmental Humanities LU Talk