Tuesday 17 December 2024
We need cleaner ditches (and that requires a fact-based debate)
'We cannot survive without healthy aquatic life', warn environmental scientists from Leiden. With an update of their Pesticide Atlas, they hope for 'a transparent debate based on facts'.
Monday 25 November 2024
Are black holes the ‘vacuum cleaners of the of the universe’? They don’t suck!
Black holes sound like something out of science fiction, but studying them could help answer fundamental questions about the nature of the universe. ‘Black holes are really at the frontier of what pure science is.’
Friday 22 November 2024
AI in Academic Publishing: ‘We can’t just develop technology and hope it goes well’
How do scientific journals deal with artificial intelligence and automatically generated fake papers? “Language bots don't reason, they hallucinate.”
Friday 25 October 2024
Wanted: female role models. ‘We need stories to tell other girls’
Why are so few women studying computer science? Researchers at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science want to break stereotypes. ‘It is very important to show to young people that we all have struggled.’
Thursday 6 June 2024
The misconduct within archaeology is structural
Her reign of terror has been rightly condemned, but the dismissed professor of archaeology Corinne Hofman is certainly not the only one who is guilty of misconduct, writes a Leiden archaeologist. Misconduct has entrenched itself in the field and especially men act with impunity.
Tuesday 2 April 2024
Reimagining Dutch agriculture: What if we all go vegan?
What if everyone in the Netherlands stopped eating meat and animal products: what would change? That is the question Jan Willem Erisman, professor of environmental sustainability, decided to explore. ‘It only has advantages.’
Monday 11 March 2024
What Tinder can learn from Orang-utans
Behavioural biologist Tom Roth does research on orang-utans’ partner choice. This is useful for zoos, but also for developers of dating apps. ‘It’s just like with people: just because you’re genetically compatible doesn’t mean you find each other attractive.’
Wednesday 12 April 2023
How children find food in the Congolese jungle
Why do humans have such large brains? To answer that question, two biologists travelled to the Republic of Congo to see how children gather food in the jungle. ‘It’s impossible to survive on your own.’
Monday 12 December 2022
Tagging along with the climate activists of Extinction Rebellion
As part of her research, PhD candidate Amarins Jansma tagged along with the climate activists of Extinction Rebellion. ‘They’re incredibly empathetic.’
Thursday 30 June 2022
Automatic citation? No, thank you
It sounds very convenient: thanks to citation software, scientists can automatically cite their sources. But you should not rely on algorithms, warns sociologist Serge Horbach.
Thursday 7 April 2022
Are your doctors listening to you? Well, they should!
The voice of patients should be heard when discussing treatments with doctors, according to Arwen Pieterse.
Thursday 10 March 2022
Your online fears are being watched
The internet has opened the door to an abundance of new criminal activities. Fear of crime researcher Jelle Brands studies what makes us afraid of online crimes and how this information could be used.