Sustainable energy from wind and solar is most readily available near the sea.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-Promotor: F. Calle-Vallejo

Before the large scale use of renewable energy sources can be implemented in our society, the storage of electrical energy needs to be tackled. Storage the energy as hydrogen via the reduction of protons is a good option.

How did toxin genes evolve from harmless physiological genes?

In this dissertation iron-based homogeneous catalysts were synthesized, characterized and investigated for water oxidation activity.

Promotor: H.J.M. de Groot, Co-Promotor: A. Alia

In this dissertation, the synthesis and characterization of a series of iron complexes based on different ligand platforms are described.

Evolution & Biodiversity is one of the four research themes of the Institute of Biology Leiden.

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotors: A.I. Yanson, L.B.F. Juurlink

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

Studies in Human Evolution is a series of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.

Human civilization consumes a huge amount of fossil fuels, which has resulted in an atmospheric CO2 level which has not been higher in over 800 millennia.

Why do plants produces always produced so many slightly differing metabolites within a particular chemical class?

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme focuses on understanding how bacteria sense and respond to their environment, and how bacterial diversity and evolution is influenced by cooperative and antagonistic interactions taking place between microbes.

How has early development in R. ocellatus been modified as a result of its parasitic embryonic lifestyle?

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme include evo-devo research, the evolution of cognitive and behavioural traits, and the evolutionary mechanisms of stress adaptation. This research involves both indoor and outdoor studies.

Planets are formed in disks of gas and dust around young stars.

The central theme of Rik Mom’s research group is to identify what the electrode-electrolyte interface looks like when electrocatalysis is taking place. Using specialized forms of Raman and X-ray spectroscopy, we study the chemical state and bonding environment of the electrode surface and near-surface…

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme is to understand what are the key drivers of plant biodiversity during evolution with a focus on plant life history and resilience traits and develop tools to restore and maintain plant biodiversity.

Female and male songbirds sing equally elaborate songs in some species, but in others, females do not sing like males or not at all. How did such pronounced differences in male and female communication evolve?

Balsaminaceae is a diverse plant family characterized by a huge floral morphological diversity.

Negotiation can only really be an alternative to warfare, if the parties agree on a framework of rules and procedures. And if the confidence of the partners may increase in another. But negotiations continue to wage war by peaceful means.

In order to compare languages, it is important to have a thorough knowledge of the specific languages you are studying. Gijsbert Rutten and his team are investigating the origin of Standard Dutch and the repression of ‘non-standard’ variants between 1750 and 1850.

The soil-dwelling, filamentous bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are renowned for their production of useful secondary metabolites including antibiotics. The work described in this thesis provides new insights on the role and regulation of antibiotic production and resistance in these bacteria.

Promotores: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Prof.dr. L.B.F.M. Waters (UvA), Prof.dr. C. Dominik (UvA)

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: O. van Gaans

A catalyst: normally a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, without adding molecules to this reaction. Scientists from the group of Prof. Marc Koper of Leiden University and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of MIT now discovered that in specific reactions that need oxygen, catalysts called metal oxides…

Promotores: Prof.dr. M. Franx & Prof.dr. P.G. van Dokkum (Yale University)

The mechanism of the electrochemical reduction of dioxygen by a mononuclear pyridylalkylamine copper complex was investigated (see picture). It was shown that in neutral aqueous solution dioxygen undergoes stepwise reduction, wherein hydrogen peroxide plays a key role. The rate constants determined…

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.J.A. Rottgering, Co-promotor: David Sobral

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Schilthuizen

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

The growing demand of energy indicates that global energy resources in the form of fossil fuels will not be sufficient in the future. In order to solve potential future energy problems development of a sustainable hydrogen economy is highly desirable.

Certain cichlid fish in Lake Victoria seem to have adapted super-fast to changing circumstances. Dr Frans Witte from the Integrative Zoology section has been awarded an NWO subsidy (approx. € 240,000) to carry out PhD research into the rapid changes apparent in this fish species.

Birds sing to be heard, but how do they cope with increasing noise levels? Which species persist in cities and why? And do they thrive or suffer in the urban soundscape?

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: O.W. van Gaans

To gain more insight into the evolutionary development of orchid flowers and fruits, the orchid species Erycina pusilla was studied. The evolutionary origin of the median petaloid sepal, the callus on the labellum, and the stelidia was studied.

Promotor: H.J.A. Rottgering, Co-Promotor: R.J. van Weeren

This thesis investigates the structural evolution and assembly of galaxies since the first few billions years after the big bang.

Evolution is all around you every day. This is the message of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) of Leiden University and Naturalis that is offered free of charge to anyone interested.

In Slaving Zones: Cultural Identities, Ideologies, and Institutions in the Evolution of Global Slavery, fourteen authors—including both world-leading and emerging historians of slavery—engage with the ‘Slaving Zones’ theory.

Science, Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC)

How did digital intermediality symbolise and facilitate the transfer of content from popular culture into policy statements and vice versa in the period between 1945 and the new millenium?

Pulsars were first discovered in 1967 and since then the population has grown and expanded over several wavelengths.

Plants produce an astonishing variety of secondary metabolites (SMs) which are thought to play vital roles in the fitness of plants through ecological interactions.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: Dr. V.S.F.T. Merckx

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield, Prof.dr. B.J. Zwaan (Wageningen Universiteit)