News
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How a pathogenic bacterium searches for food 25 August 2023
Bacteria whirl around in the mouths of most people, forming dental plaques and sometimes causing nasty gum infections. Treponema denticola might be a ...
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How cells talk by pulling on a fibre network 11 August 2023
Mechanics play a larger role in blood vessel formation, and other developmental biology, than previously thought. Cells appear to respond to mechanica...
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Exotic alpine newts didn’t travel to the Netherlands themselves, but were released by humans 02 August 2023
Leiden biology students have determined the origin of exotic alpine newts in the Netherlands using a special DNA technique. The animals come from diff...
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Rebellious birds make nests from anti-bird spikes 13 July 2023
The latest innovation in nest building: bird nests made from anti-bird spikes. Researchers from Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Natural History ...
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How Indonesian communities organise their own social security 26 June 2023
Many poor people in Indonesia mainly rely on their family members, neighbours and the local community as a social safety net. One of the forms of aid ...
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Inspired teaching without the administrative hassle 12 June 2023
In his inaugural lecture Professor of Molecular Microbiology Dennis Claessen will explain how lecturer enthusiasm can be contagious. And how as a prog...
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Educational adventures in the tropics: discovering rainforests in Borneo 11 April 2023
Photographing fluorescent flowers, searching for frogs and shooting tropical cucumbers out of trees: this is only a small part of the course Tropical ...
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What Darwin couldn’t see: Expedition to uncover invisible life in Galápagos 22 March 2023
An international research team is to search for invisible life in the Galápagos Islands. The diversity of bacteria and other microscopic organisms may...
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Malformations in heart, eyes and nervous system: Nano-plastics disrupt growth 13 March 2023
Nano-plastics cause malformations. Meiru Wang, researcher at the Institute of Biology Leiden, looked at the extreme effects polystyrene nano-particles...
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The biologist who wants to sound a different note in his field 23 February 2023
Hans Slabbekoorn researches animal sounds and the effect of the noise we humans make on these animals. He is also committed to making his discipline m...
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Robo-bird teaches young zebra finches to sing 15 February 2023
How do young zebra finches learn to sing? A research team led by researcher Katharina Riebel has developed a ‘RoboFinch’ to study just that. She and c...
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Healthy soil for a healthy gut 12 January 2023
How does the soil we grow our vegetables in, affects the health of our gut? And does a healthy soil gives crops a better quality and taste? These are...
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Biology student Sander van Zon: ‘We can still learn so much more about lichens’ 06 January 2023
Lichens enthusiast Sander van Zon was eager to use his knowledge for his internship. He wrote an excellent thesis on lichens’ biodiversity in the city...
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Misleading bar and pie charts: How graphs can lead you astray 19 December 2022
Cutting off the y-axis, using 3D effects and only showing part of the available data: these are all tactics to mislead people with graphs. But they do...
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Are bacteriophages the new antibiotics? 16 December 2022
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, may be used as an alternative treatment option when antibiotics fail. Leiden researchers have studied th...