The way genes are folded determines their activity in our body. Leiden biophysicists are now the first to unravel this structure molecule-by-molecule. Publication on December 1st in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

It was already known that social anxiety disorder often affects more than one person in the same family. But research by PhD student Janna Marie Bas-Hoogendam has now shown that there are genetic brain characteristics that are associated with social anxiety. The PhD ceremony will take place on 14 Ja…

In an Advance Online Publication biophysicist John van Noort and others show using magnetic tweezers that DNA is folded in compliant helices of chromatin. This allows enzymes access to the DNA needed for gene expression. Van Noort's research group made the discovery in close partnership with researchers…

Parents may pass anxiety onto their offspring by exposing them to anxious behaviors in novel situations. Just as the parents’ anxious signals lead to anxiety, parents’ confident signals can ward off anxiety in the offspring. This project is seeking a new way to break anxiety transmission in the family…

Biologists today have to be able to work with big data. Data analysis skills should be taught from the start of the degree programme, or - even better - in secondary school. This is the message of Vera van Noort, new Professor of Computational Biology. Inaugural lecture 22 January.

This article explores how to think about solidarity, considering the diverse stories, spaces, practices, bodies, and temporalities that shape a city.

Negative perceptions of ambiguous social cues, social performance and physical arousal in socially anxious youth

The interdisciplinary programme Social Resilience & Security is inviting proposals for seed funding. The programme aims to combine knowledge and expertise from five different faculties to study transgressive behaviours, its dimensions, aetiology, and effects of interventions with a multidisciplinary…

The call for a social media ban for children is louder than ever. Professor of Children's Rights Ton Liefaard argues in ‘Trouw’ newspaper that this would be unwise. 'For children, online and offline aren't different worlds'.

Here I propose to study the relationship between autonomic pupil-synchronisation and trust, at the behavioural and neural level, and examine a targeted set of possible contextual moderators.

Samir Negash, PhD candidate at Leiden University and Olaf van Vliet, Professor by special appointment Comparative Welfare State Analysis at Leiden University wrote a paper regarding the topic of immigration and the conditionality of unemployment benefits in OECD countries.

This project investigates which aspects of social media content adolescents attend to and how these relate to their credibility judgments, aiming to systematically understand their susceptibility to misinformation and inform effective educational programs that foster youth’s resilience to misinforma…

On the first day at a new job, you have sweaty palms, nerves race through your system, and you feel insecure. Now, a couple of months later these feelings have left. You know what to do in your new role and have become part of the organization. The process leading to this result is called organizational…

The Australian parliament passed a law banning social media for youth under sixteen in late November. This solves nothing, argues Simone van der Hof, Professor of Law and Digital Technologies, in NRC. ‘Services should be held to the law.’

Up to 50% of all children and adolescents growing up worldwide are exposed to at least one form of childhood adversity (CA), which is one of the strongest predictors for later-life psychopathology.

UnMiSSeD studies the interaction between misinformation and science in societal debates using a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach.

OSCL members, amongst which our representative in the Archaeology faculty, were part of Data Carpentry for Social Sciences. Here's what happened.

Our researcher and PhD candidate Helena Ursic was interviewed with Druzina, one of the biggest weekly newspapers in Slovenia.

From underground heat exchangers at the Bio Science Park to drinking taps to replace water coolers. With its new environmental policy plan, Leiden University will become greener in the coming years.

As part of Nexus 1492 Subproject 4: A Future for Diverse Caribbean Heritages, which seeks to shed light on how local communities interpret and engage with heritage in the present day, this doctoral study aims to gain insight into how indigenous heritage is represented in the school curriculum for social…

Jifeng Liu defended his thesis on 2 February 2017

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

With the emergence of online social networks (OSNs), the way people create and share information has changed, which becomes faster and broader than traditional social media.

Wenxin Wang defended her thesis on 26 October 2016

Why are not all children equally responsive to variations in the social environment?

Investigating neurobiological endophenotypes of Social Anxiety Disorder

From a successful April Fool’s prank and alumni love stories to a fabulous float on 3 Octobe: these were the highlights of our year on our social media channels. Hope you’re following us?

Receiving positive support and seeing yourself as being a quitter may help smokers quit, say Eline Meijer and colleagues. The health psychologists published their study in Social Science & Medicine.

Throughout the world fundamental labour rights in supply chains are being violated. Since the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh shook the world, we can no longer turn our heads away.

On the 1st of November 2017, Ingrid Leijten hosted an expert-seminar titled ‘Tailored Provisions, Social Rights Compliance?’ (‘Maatwerk als Mensenrecht?’).

Leiden psychologist Wilco van Dijk and communication scientist Jaap Ouwerkerk of VU University Amsterdam published a book about the emotion Schadenfreude. The authors describe what the emotion Schadenfreude really is, when people experience the emotion, and what role it plays in social relations.

On Thursday 28 September, the Committee on Social Minimum, of which Koen Caminada is a member, presented its second report to outgoing minister for poverty policy in the Netherlands, Carola Schouten. The Committee was established by the minister at the request of the House of Representatives.

Nowadays children grow up with social media. This may influence the development of brain regions involved in social interaction. In their review article in Nature Communications, Crone and Konijn illustrate how neuroscience can contribute to a better understanding of how media and peers influence adolescents'…

It’s been a turbulent, bizarre and extraordinary year, 2020. Coronavirus turned the lives of everyone at our University upside down. Out teaching, research and all the events that are held in a year: nothing was the same as before. That this affected all of us is clear from the highlights and many reactions…

Africa is online. Leiden Africa expert Mirjam de Bruijn is fascinated by the fast development of mobile telephony and social media in Africa. She maintains a website on the topic, focusing on isolated, marginalised and conflict-ridden areas in Middle Africa.