News archive

This year the students of the Makercie team are participating in the physical edition of the European Rover Challenge in Poland. Read more about the team and the collaboration between the RUG and Hanze UAS here.

Sciene LinX image editor Leoni von Ristok has received a grant from the University of Groningen Seed Fund for Public Engagement program. She will use the grant to develop a photo exhibition which shows the consequence of energy poverty world wide.

Science LinX newsletter June 2023

Martine Schut, a PhD student at the University of Groningen, enjoys talking about her research at the intersection of mathematics and physics. She presents lectures in schools on Einstein’s relativity theory and this Friday (26 May) she received a price for a popular article that she wrote about an experiment that could prove that gravity is a quantum phenomenon.

In a ground-breaking experiment, scientists from the University of Groningen have discovered the existence of a superconductive state that was first predicted in 2017. This discovery could have significant applications, particularly in the field of superconducting electronics.

Scientists from the University of Groningen and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), in collaboration with the local water authority, have monitored wave run-up during storms over a three-year period. The results help the water authority to quantify the protective effect of salt marshes.

In het najaar van 2019 heeft de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG) bijna 1000 fijnstofsensoren in Noord-Nederland uitgezet. Deze slimme kastjes, bij mensen thuis, meten de hoeveelheid fijnstof.

Organic solar cells have a photoactive layer that is made from polymers and small molecules. The cells are very thin, can be flexible, and are easy to make. However, the efficiency of these cells is still much below that of conventional silicon-based ones. Applied physicists from the University of Groningen have now fabricated an organic solar cell with an efficiency of over 17 percent, which is in the top range for this type of material.

The temporary exhibition IMAGINARY, about the beauty of mathematics, can be seen in the Bernoulliborg and the Energy Academy during the month of April. On Tuesday, April 4, about one hundred VWO4 students from different secondary schools in the northern Netherlands visited the Zernike campus, where they received two guest lectures on Astronomy and Chemistry in the morning. After lunch, they actively participated in workshops in smaller groups and were given a tour of the interactive IMAGINARY exhibition by a student assistant.

Researchers from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) have elucidated how a single mutation causes a neurological disease that causes transient loss of muscle control.

Science LinX newsletter April 2023

In organic solar cells, carbon-based polymers convert light into charges that are passed to an acceptor. Scientists from the University of Groningen have now calculated how this happens by combining molecular dynamics simulations with quantum calculations and have provided theoretical insights to interpret experimental data.

Saturday 25 February. The moon is shining brightly above the Bernoulliborg. On this clear evening, Orion and the small dipper are high in the sky. In light of the national stargazing days, the Blaauw Observatory is open to the public tonight. I am here in the Bernoulliborg, together with around 250 other curious people. The group is diverse: there are many families with young children but also younger and older couples who are interested in this stargazing event.

De vierde editie van het project Next Education is van start. Dit jaar gaan de kinderen aan de slag met kringlopen: hoe kunnen kringlopen in hun eigen omgeving zoals op school, thuis en in buurt anders, beter of zelfs nieuw vormgegeven worden?

Sijbren Otto, professor of systems chemistry at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, has received the 2023 Izatt-Christensen Award for being a pioneer of supramolecular systems chemistry, taking supramolecular chemistry into completely new directions.

Materials scientists from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, describe in two papers how complex oxides can be used to create very energy-efficient magneto-electric spin-orbit (MESO) devices and memristive devices with reduced dimensions.

Science LinX newsletter March 2023

Textbooks will tell you that in dividing cells, production of new DNA peaks during the S-phase, while production of other macromolecules, such as proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides, continues at more or less the same level. Molecular biologists at the University of Groningen, led by professor Matthias Heinemann, have now discovered that this is not true.

University of Groningen biochemists have succeeded in resurrecting the ancestral genes of five detoxifying enzyms which are present in all tetrapods to show how their divergence in function has occurred.

Intertidal areas are of greater worldwide importance to sharks and rays than previously thought. Researchers from the University of Groningen and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) have discovered that intertidal areas—coastal areas with sand flats that fall dry at low tide—are important feeding grounds and hiding places for, for example, endangered species of shark and ray.

On the sixth floor of Forum Groningen, in a corner of the Smartlab, you can find the very first ‘meet-o-theek’ – a library for measuring instruments – of the Netherlands. The collection currently comprises 67 tools, such as wildlife cameras, air quality monitors, smart plugs, telescopes and various microscopes. This way, devices that are too expensive to purchase for some, are available to anybody that would like to use them.

University of Groningen scientists have now shown through direct measurements what the versatile polydopamine coatings really look like.

Governments could help millions of people and save a lot of money with targeted energy subsidies. Different kinds of households around the world suffer in various ways from the exorbitant energy prices and need different kinds of support, states Klaus Hubacek from the University of Groningen in a new study that was published {today} in Nature Energy.

Dutch organizations combine knowledge about controlling salinization in deltas in a new Institute

Our society must end its addiction to oil and gas. This means that we need a new source of hydrocarbons, the carbon compounds from which fuels and many fossil-based materials are made.

European Union consumers are 'exporting' negative environmental impacts to their Eastern European neighbours, whilst keeping the bulk of economic benefits linked to consuming goods and services, a new study reveals.

At the University of Groningen, Jingxiu Xie combines her knowledge of catalysis and chemical engineering to produce kerosene from carbon dioxide.

Conducting your research in the most environmentally friendly way possible, one might think that this is a common method for scientists. However, this is not the case yet. Thomas Freese, coordinator of the LEAF project and member of Green Labs, is trying to bring about change.

Chemists from the University of Groningen have found a simple way to produce previously inaccessible chiral Z-alkenes, molecules that offer a significant synthetic short-cut for the production of bioactive molecules. Instead of eight to ten synthetic steps to produce these molecules, the new reaction can be done in three steps.

A new study reveals that it would take 3 million years to recover the number of species that went extinct due to humans on Madagascar. However, if currently threatened species go extinct, recovering them would take more than 20 million years, much longer than what has previously been found on any other island.

Students sometimes pull an all-nighter to prepare for an exam. However, research has shown that sleep deprivation is bad for your memory. Now, University of Groningen neuroscientist Robbert Havekes discovered that what you learn while being sleep deprived is not necessarily lost, it is just difficult to recall.

A bacterium that can grow on a mixture of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and hydrogen can be persuaded to produce various useful products, such as amino acids, milk proteins, and building blocks for pharmaceuticals. Sandy Schmidt, a biochemist at the University of Groningen, wants to grow this bacterium in a bioreactor that is fed waste gases from factories, to turn carbon dioxide into valuable molecules.

Using the vast dataset of the Dutch cattle breeding company CRV, computer scientists at the University of Groningen used artificial intelligence to develop a predictive model that in theory could halve the number of calving problems.

Science LinX newsletter Christmas-January

Polymer scientists from the University of Groningen have developed a starch-based polymer that makes it possible to create a fully biodegradable soft material for sensors.

Biomass is an interesting source of carbon-based molecules. It is also underused because some 25 percent of all plant biomass is in the form of lignin, a biopolymer that, so far, can only be used as a solid fuel. A team of scientists, including ‘enzyme engineer’ Marco Fraaije from the University of Groningen, has now developed an enzyme that can put a lignin monomer to use in chemical synthesis.

Analysis of the very first image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows that the MIRI instrument, developed in the Netherlands, works even better than thought. Researchers from the University of Groningen demonstrate that the infrared telescope shows details of galaxies from the time when the universe was only about 1 billion years old.

Observations and simulations of 237 white dwarfs strengthen the evidence that planets and stars rapidly form together and become planetary systems. An international team of astronomers and planetary scientists, including Tim Lichtenberg of the University of Groningen's Kapteyn Institute, published their findings on Monday in Nature Astronomy.

In an invited review for Nature Reviews Genetics, Danny Incarnato, a molecular geneticist from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), and his colleague Robert C. Spitale from the University of Irvine in California (USA) describe ways to develop the, as yet, largely untapped potential of RNA structures. Their paper was published on 8 November.

Scientists at the University of Groningen have in combing two light-mediated functions in a single molecule, in two different ways. These two types of fluorescing light-driven rotary motors were described in Nature Communications (30 September) and Science Advances (4 November).

Quantum dots are clusters of some 1,000 atoms which act as one large ‘super-atom’. It is possible to accurately design the electronic properties of these dots just by changing their size. A team led by University of Groningen professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics, Maria Antonietta Loi, has succeeded in making a highly conductive optoelectronic metamaterial through self-organization.

Science LinX newsletter November

Sixteen Bachelor’s students spent the weekend of 6-9 October investigating light pollution at the University of Groningen’s Zernike Campus and finding innovative solutions to this problem.

A considerable percentage of new apps in the Google App store are removed for violating the store’s guidelines. This is inconvenient for the users of these apps, who may lose their in-app data. Computer scientists from the University of Groningen have devised two machine learning models that can predict the chances of a new app being removed, both before and after uploading it to the app store.

On Sunday 4 October, it was finally time for a new edition of Zpannend Zernike. No less than 1325 children and adults visited the Bernoulliborg and the rest of Zernike for an introduction to the science of the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Science LinX newsletter Ocotober

Over the last few years, bird flu has become endemic in large parts of Europe. Students from the University of Groningen have come up with a novel way of protecting birds: by genetically engineering a bacterium that is naturally present in the lungs of poultry. The project is their entry for the annual iGEM competition.

Sinds november 2021 liggen langs de Groningse Lauwersmeerdijk 48 kunstmatige riffen om de onderwaternatuur van de Waddenzee te versterken. Onderzoekers hebben de riffen langs de Lauwersmeerdijk voor het eerst naar boven gehaald, om te kijken wat er op en rond leeft.

Eleven partners from three countries (The Netherlands, Spain, and Cyprus) and the European Science Engagement Association have developed teaching modules on biodiversity, water management, and bird migration.

When you make conducting wires thinner, their electrical resistance goes up. This is Ohm’s law, and it is generally right. An important exception is at very low temperatures, where the mobility of electrons increases when wires become so thin that they are effectively two-dimensional. Now, University of Groningen physicists, together with colleagues at Brest University have observed that something similar happens with the conductivity of magnons, spin waves that travel through magnetic insulators, much like a Mexican wave through a stadium.

The molecular dynamics group headed by Siewert-Jan Marrink investigates the interactions of proteins and lipids (fats) in membranes by means of simulations. In collaboration with researchers from Germany, they identified a previously unknown lipid binding site in the barrel-shaped Tubby protein that could help to understand various diseases.

The current taxonomy of metals appears to be too blurry and contains too many exceptions to be convincing. Scientists from the University of Groningen analysed more than 30 metals and show that a simple formula can provide a classification of metals in a more systematic manner.

Science LinX newsletter September

Thirty-eight Chinese cities have reduced their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) despite growing economies and populations for at least five years. A further 21 cities have cut CO2 emissions as their economies or populations have ‘declined’ over the same period - defined as passively emission declined cities. This is revealed by new research from the Universities of Birmingham (UK), Groningen (Netherlands), and Tsinghua University (China).

Wheat is a key source of nutrition for people across the globe. Rising temperatures may affect wheat harvests: the yield is likely to increase at high latitudes and decrease in low latitudes, meaning that prices for the grain are likely to change unevenly and increase in much of the Global South, enhancing existing inequalities. To assess the consequences, an international team which includes University of Groningen professor of Climate and Environmental Change Richard Bintanja has developed a new climate-wheat-economic ensemble modeling approach.

Cells with a nucleus contain compartments with the machinery to carry out specific tasks. Although bacterial cells have no such compartments, evidence suggests that even these cells are not homogeneous. Biochemists from the University of Groningen have now mapped diffusion rates inside a bacterial cell, which identified distinct regions.

Deep evolution casts a longer shadow than previously thought, scientists report in a new paper published the week of Aug. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Smithsonian scientists and colleagues, including University of Groningen emeritus professor Jeanine Olsen, looked at eelgrass communities—the foundation of many coastal marine food webs along the north Atlantic and Pacific coasts—and discovered their ancient genetic history can play a stronger role than the present-day environment in determining their size, structure and who lives in them.

There is a lot that we do not know about the Universe. Some of the answers may hide in the glow that was emitted by neutral hydrogen atoms during the cosmic dawn. Daan Meerburg, a physicist at the University of Groningen, is working on the data analysis pipeline for a telescope that will be able to observe this extremely faint glow.

A team led by Ben Feringa, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Groningen, and Depeng Zhao of Sun Yat-Sen University (Guangzhou, China) has created a unidirectional molecular motor that runs on chemical fuel, just like molecular motor complexes in our cells. The newly designed molecular motor was presented in the scientific journal Nature on 6 July and could eventually be used to perform mechanical functions.

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Science LinX newsletter July/August

Mathematics and music are to some extent related. So, when Aditya Ganesh, amateur musician and Master’s student of Computing Science at the University of Groningen, sat in a lecture on complex behaviour created by a simple formula, he saw the potential for a new music piece. It took him six months to convert a logistic map into a nearly eight minutes’ long composition called ‘Feigenbaum’s Orbit’.

In a project aimed at developing intelligent tools to fight child exploitation, University of Groningen computer scientists have developed a system to analyse the noise produced by individual cameras. This information can be used to link a video or an image to a particular camera.

Inflammatory bowel disease is accompanied by a number of changes in the intestines, such as a change in epithelial permeability, a change in the composition of the microorganisms, and altered levels of antimicrobial substances that are secreted by cells lining the gut. Finding out whether changes are a cause or an effect of the inflammation is difficult. Sahar El Aidy, a microbiologist at the University of Groningen, together with colleagues from San Diego (US), have now teased out the causal chain leading to inflammation.

Science LinX newsletter June

An international group of scientists, including Albert Guskov, associate professor at the University of Groningen, have used single-particle cryogenic electron microscopy to determine the structure of the ribosome of Candida albicans. Their results, which were published in Science Advances on 25 May, reveal a potential target for new drugs.

Together with colleagues from the US, microbiologist Sahar El Aidy and her team at the University of Groningen investigated how catestatin could affect the microbial composition in the gut. The results may have implications for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and were published in the ISME journal (online 19 April).

The University of Groningen research centre CogniGron aims to develop a novel type of computer that is inspired by the brain. To achieve this goal, it collaborates with companies such as IBM. The IBM PhD Fellowship is a clear example of such a collaboration: two students enrolled in this programme, which provides them with the opportunity to work in Groningen and at the IBM Research Institute in Zürich, Switzerland.

Science LinX newsletter May

Mercury harbors water ice in the shadows of the steepest craters around its poles. But it is unclear how those water molecules ended up on Mercury. Now a new simulation by scientists from the University of Groningen and SRON Netherlands Institute for Sp ace Research shows that incoming minor bodies such as asteroids, comets and dust particles carry enough water to account for all the ice sheets present.

Many animal species bury their eggs, for a number of different reasons. While it is firmly established that Eurasian penduline tits bury them because of sexual conflict, their Chinese counterparts seem to have an entirely different reason. Experimental manipulations show that for these birds burial prevents the eggs from falling out of the nest in strong winds.

Mathematicians at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, in collaboration with scientists from Chile and Germany, have developed a mathematical theory and algorithm that overcome some of the key challenges associated with a technique to measure stiffness in tissues in an MRI scanner.

Een team van sterrenkundigen van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen heeft vastgesteld dat drie planetoïden, waarvan werd gedacht dat ze een gevaar vormen voor de aarde, de komende honderd jaar zeker niet zullen inslaan. Ze kwamen tot hun resultaten na spitwerk in telescooparchieven met behulp van geavanceerde datascience-technieken.

In the first few billion years after the Big Bang, the universe contained far more so-called starburst galaxies than models predict. As many as 60 to 90 percent of the stars in the early universe appear to have been produced by galaxies undergoing a growth spurt. This is what an analysis of more than 20,000 distant galaxies show. The team, led by astronomers from University of Groningen (the Netherlands) will soon publish its findings in The Astrophysical Journal.

On 4 April, the third working group report of the sixth IPCC assessment cycle was published. One of the Lead Authors for this part of the sixth IPCC climate report is Klaus Hubacek, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen, at the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen.

Science LinX newsletter April

Wil je met jouw leerlingen onderzoeksvaardigheden oefenen in de praktijk en tegelijk bijdragen aan wetenschappelijk onderzoek? Hebben jouw leerlingen meetinstrumenten nodig voor hun PWS? Of ben je zelf op zoek naar meetinstrumenten voor in jouw les? Het CurioUs?-project biedt uitkomst.

De Nederlandse Sterrenkunde Olympiade wordt dit jaar georganiseerd door de astronomen van het Kapteyn Instituut van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Bacteria and yeast need to prevent leakage of numerous small molecules through their cell membrane. Biochemists at the University of Groningen have studied how the composition of the membrane affects passive diffusion and the robustness of this membrane. Their results could help the biotech industry to optimize microbial production of useful molecules and help in drug design.

The intermittent supply of green electricity requires large-scale storage to keep our power grids stable. Since normal batteries do not scale very well, the idea of using flow batteries, which store electricity in a fluid is attractive. Scientists at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, have designed a flow battery electrolyte that is cheaper and is based on an organic compound, rather than a metal.

If you want to treat a tumour, the chemotherapeutic drug has to travel through the patient’s entire body, potentially causing many side effects in healthy tissues. Scientists at the University of Groningen and the University Medical Center Groningen have produced a light-controlled ‘cage’ that ‘opens’ to deliver the drug to where it is needed.

A black hole gets a large corona first, and only after that it emits jets. This is revealed, among other things, by the heart beat graph that an international team of astronomers, led by Mariano Méndez from the University of Groningen, has made of a black hole and a star orbiting around each other.

Johannes Miocic, Assistant Professor of Geo Energy, is studying the rocks from the Groningen gas field. This should provide more information on what to expect – and how to make better use of those rocks.

All life evolves: microorganisms can become resistant to drugs, viruses evade our vaccines, and species may adapt to climate change. Even the ability to evolve can evolve. If we were to understand how this happens and which mechanisms play a role, it may be possible to predict evolution to some extent.

Sex roles in birds describe sex differences in courtship, mate competition, social pair-bonds, and parental care. Different explanations have been put forward to explain these differences but none are based on a comprehensive study. Therefore, an international team of experts set out to analyse data on 1,800 of the approximately 9,000 different species of birds as their study organisms.

Science LinX newsletter March

Scientists at the University of Groningen have shown that synthetic data can be used to train a convolutional neural network in the detection of yeast cells in a matter of days, rather than months. The new system performs as well as the best available neural networks trained with real annotated data.

If the UN Sustainable Development Goal to lift over one billion people out of poverty were to be reached in 2030, the impact on global carbon emissions would be minimal. That sounds good; however, the main reason for this is the huge inequality in the carbon footprint of rich and poor nations. This conclusion was drawn by scientists from the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute of the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), together with colleagues from China and the US.

An international team of astronomers led by Dutch scientists has discovered that even a weak jet stream from a low-active black hole can be a kind of leaf blower to clean parts of a galaxy. This probably stops the formation of stars.

Even at high concentrations, antibiotics won’t kill all bacteria. There are always a few survivors, even in a bacterial population that is genetically identical. Scientists at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) discovered that these survivors share a common feature: they accumulate acid in their cells.

AI systems are usually trained in image recognition by using annotated trainingsets with images. Computer scientist Estefanía Talavera Martínez added a new data modality, audio/sound, to the teaching material that the AI system looks at. This resulted in a high success rate in recognizing indoor spaces.

Science LinX newsletter January-February

An international team of researchers including Else Starkenburg from the University of Groningen discovered the remnants of a star cluster whose stars share a uniquely low fraction of heavy elements.

Season's greetings from Science LinX

Researchers from University of Groningen with colleagues from the Freien Universität Berlin (Germany) show that a synthetic molecular machine can also perform work, by driving a chemical reaction.

George Azzopardi, a computer scientist from the University of Groningen, is leading a team that has devised a methodology that can recognize Holstein cows in the milking station by the pattern of their coat using artificial intelligence. The long-term vision is to develop a system that can monitor Holstein cows continuously and anywhere on a farm.

Op 12 februari kunnen scholieren meedoen aan de Nederalndse voorronde van de internationale Hersenolympiade

Games that augment the physical world by embedding them with digital data. That is the goal of UMARG - Using Mobile Augmented Reality Games to develop key competences through learning about sustainable development, an Erasmus+ project carried out by ScienceLinX and the Institute for Science Education and Communicationz.

Science LinX newsletter for December 2021

Via de Scholierenacademie kunnen PWS-coördinatoren of -begeleiders een adviesgesprek aanvragen met een alfa/bèta/gamma steunpuntcoördinator

Forum Groningen stond in het weekend van 5, 6 en 7 november 2021 in het teken van Let’s Gro, het inspiratiefestival over de toekomst van Groningen. Ook Science LinX was van de partij.

Scientists at the University of Groningen have published two papers in short succession, in Nature Chemistry and in Nature Communications, in which they describe how to construct a proteosome on top of a nanopore, which can be used for protein identification at a single-molecule level by fingerprinting and – in the future – by sequencing.

During World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, the World Health Organization reminds the world that drugs to fight bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites can lose their effectiveness. Antimicrobial resistance has been a focus point for many researchers at the University of Groningen. Microbiologist Marjon de Vos is working on a novel approach to tackle the problem, based on ecology and evolution.

Op 30 oktober is in het Lauwersmeergebied de nieuwe sterrenwacht geopend van het Kapteyn Instituut voor sterrenkunde van de RUG.

Science LinX newsletter for November 2021

The Standard Model of particle physics has been extremely successful in describing how the universe works. However, there are some things that it cannot explain. Physicists have, therefore, been looking for new physics in particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. At the University of Groningen, a different approach has been used: in contrast to smashing up matter at high energies, physicists wanted to study molecules that are brought to rest.

Ancient genes that predate the last ice age may be the key to survival, at least if you are a dolphin, according to new research led by the University of St Andrews and involving Michael Fontaine, who was working on this project while at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES).

Modelling by materials scientists from the University of Groningen revealed how to design lightweight but very stiff porous materials.

Scientists at the University of Groningen have created wearable, stitchable, and sensitive sensors that respond to pressure and can measure body position and movement, just like our skin. They could be used to measure disease progress in Parkinson’s disease, or sense joint movement in athletes.

Biologists have long studied how behaviour can increase the fitness of animals, which is usually defined as their ability to pass on their genes to subsequent generations. In a new book that has been 10 years in the making, three biologists describe the many dimensions that shape the evolution of social behaviour.

Carpediemonas membranifera, a unicellular organism that lives on marine shorelines, misses genes that are vital to copying and distributing its DNA. Eelco Tromer, an evolutionary cell biologist at the University of Groningen, was part of the team that described this strange creature.

A series of brand-new chemistry laboratories has been created on the top floor of the Linnaeusborg building at the Zernike Campus. This is where two new tenure track scientists will activate reactions to create molecules using only light or electrons, and will use new building blocks to create ’next generation’ sustainable materials.

Mag je dieren gebruiken als kweekvat voor menselijke organen? Om deze vraag te bespreken is de Donordierdialoog opgezet.

Science LinX newsletter for October 2021

How do social conventions change? Robotic engineers and marketing scientists from the University of Groningen joined forces to study this phenomenon, combining online experiments and statistical analysis into a mathematical model that shows how a committed minority can influence the majority to overturn long-standing practices.

There is an urgent need to develop algorithms that can select subsets of features that are relevant and have high predictive powers. To address this issue, computer scientists at the University of Groningen developed a novel feature selection algorithm.

The number of possible alloys is astronomical. Francesco Maresca, an engineer at the University of Groningen, developed a theoretical model that allows him to rapidly determine the strength of millions of different alloys at high temperatures. Experiments confirmed the model predictions.

Op woensdag 15 september vertellen boswachter Arjan Postma en prof. Dr. Martine Maan in Forum Groningen alles over de manier waarop dieren en planten zich aanpassen aan hun veranderende omgeving in het kader van de nieuwe meetactie van CurioUs.

Intrusive apps can harvest data which they can then sell. That is why University of Groningen computer scientist Fadi Mohsen and his colleagues have developed an algorithm that ranks similar apps on privacy scores.

Science LinX newsletter for September 2021

Scientists at the University of Groningen have developed a nanopore system that can measure the concentration of thiamine (vitamin B1) in urine in less than a minute by using an engineered thiamine binding protein. This system should also work with other bodily fluids such as sweat, and can be adapted to measure other molecules that are important for good health. Eventually, this could lead to a wearable device to measure important metabolites. A paper describing the system was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie on 14 August.

Hoe geef je leerlingen in het VO de 21 e eeuwse vaardigheden mee die ze nodig hebben, zoals probleemoplossend vermogen, communicatie en kritische en creatief denken? Twee workshops helpen docenten hierbij.

Computer scientists from the Netherlands and Spain have now determined how a deep learning system well suited for image recognition learns to recognize its surroundings. They were able to simplify the learning process by forcing the system’s focus toward secondary characteristics.

Crenarchaeol is a large, closed-loop lipid that is present in the membranes of ammonium-oxidizing archaea, a unicellular life form that exists ubiquitously in the oceans. Organic chemists from the University of Groningen have discovered that the proposed structure for the molecule was largely, but not entirely, correct.

Scientists at the University of Groningen have trained an Artificial Intelligence system to recognize a specific pattern in skin biopsies of patients with the blistering disease epidermolysis bullosa acquisita. The new system is easy to use and is better than most doctors in making the diagnosis.

The death of cells is well regulated. If it occurs too much, it can cause degenerative diseases. Too little, and cells can become tumours. Mitochondria, the power plants of cells, play a role in this programmed cell death. Scientists from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and the University of Pittsburgh (U.S.) have obtained new insights in how mitochondria receive the signal to self-destruct.

Wil je weten hoe de luchtkwaliteit in jouw huis is, of wat er 's nachts door je tuin scharrelt? Sinds het weekend van 19 en 20 juni is het mogelijk om meetinstrumenten te lenen in de meet-o-theek in Forum Groningen waarmee je je eigen leefomgeving bestudeert.

Donderdag 10 juni was er een gedeeltelijke zonsverduistering in Nederland te zien. Rond het middaguur schoof de maan een stukje voor de zon, zodat het leek of hier een hapje uit genomen werd..

Science LinX newsletter for July 2021

Mate choice is important for females, who often invest much more energy in offspring than males. However, being too selective is a bad idea, as they might end up not mating at all. Biologists have wondered for a long time how females optimize their chances. Scientists at the University of Groningen have performed experiments with fruit flies that reveal the explanation: mating induces a behavioural change in female flies that makes them more choosy than when they are virgins.

Light-driven molecular motors have been around for over twenty years. These motors typically take microseconds to nanoseconds for one revolution. Thomas Jansen, associate professor of physics at the University of Groningen, and Master’s student Atreya Majumdar have now designed an even faster molecular motor.

Ben je docent in het STEM onderwijs en zou je meer kunstvormen/creativiteit in jouw lessen willen brengen, maar mis je handvatten en inspiratie? Doe dan mee met de STEAMitUP workshop op vrijdag 18 juni van 13:00 tot 17:00.

Anupam Mazumdar, a physicist from the University of Groningen, suggests how quantum interference could be applied in the production of a sensitive instrument that could detect movements of objects ranging from butterflies to burglars and black holes.

Physicists in Israel have created a quantum interferometer on an atom chip. This device can be used to explore the fundamentals of quantum theory by studying the interference pattern between two beams of atoms. University of Groningen physicist Anupam Mazumdar describes how the device could be adapted to use mesoscopic particles instead of atoms.

Science LinX newsletter for June 2021

Thirty-two schoolteachers and researchers from Greece, Cyprus, Romania and the Netherlands participated at UMARG project’s Learning Teaching and Training Activity, organized by the University of Groningen, between April 19-23.

The biological clock is present in almost all cells of an organism. As more and more evidence emerges that clocks in certain organs could be out of sync, there is a need to investigate and reset these clocks locally. Scientists from the Netherlands and Japan introduced a light-controlled on/off switch to a kinase inhibitor, which affects clock function. This gives them control of the biological clock in cultured cells and explanted tissue.

Physicists from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) have used a complex oxide to create elements comparable to the neurons and synapses in the brain using spins, a magnetic property of electrons.

In spintronics, the magnetic moment of electrons (spin) is used to transfer and manipulate information. Experiments by physicists at the University of Groningen suggest that magnetic graphene can be the ultimate choice for these 2D spin-logic devices as it efficiently converts charge to spin current and can transfer this strong spin-polarization over long distances.

When studying the enzyme that is responsible for producing cardiolipins in archaea (single-cell organisms that constitute a separate domain of life), biochemists at the University of Groningen made a surprising discovery. A single archaeal enzyme can produce a spectacular range of natural and non-natural cardiolipins, as well as other phospholipids.

Science LinX newsletter for May 2021

Hafnium-based thin films, with a thickness of only a few nanometres, show an unconventional form of ferroelectricity. This allows the construction of nanometre-sized memories or logic devices. However, it was not clear how ferroelectricity could occur at this scale. A study that was led by scientists from the University of Groningen showed how atoms move in a hafnium-based capacitor: migrating oxygen atoms (or vacancies) are responsible for the observed switching and storage of charge.

Charging electric cars can put a strain on the electricity grid. And commuting to work by car can cause traffic congestion. PhD student Carlo Cenedese linked energy use and transportation using Game Theory, and produced an algorithm that calculates how enough individuals can be persuaded to adapt their behaviour to prevent both. He defends his thesis on 16 April.

The nucleus is the headquarters of a cell and molecules constantly move across the nuclear membrane through pores. The transport of these molecules is both selective and fast; some 1,000 molecules per second can move in or out. Scientists from the University of Groningen and Delft University of Technology, both in the Netherlands, and a colleague from the Swedish Chalmers University of Technology, have developed an artificial model of these pores using simple design rules, which enabled them to study how this feat is accomplished.

Science LinX newsletter for April 2021

Simulating the interactions between atoms and molecules is important for many scientific studies. However, accurate simulations can take a long time, which limits their use. To speed up simulations without sacrificing too much detail, Siewert-Jan Marrink, Professor of Molecular Dynamics at the University of Groningen, designed a set of parameters that allow fast but accurate coarse-grained simulations. In a paper that was published on 29 March in Nature Methods, Marrink and his co-workers present a third release of what is known as the Martini forcefield.

Simple systems can reproduce faster than complex ones. So, how can the complexity of life have arisen from simple chemical beginnings? Starting with a simple system of self-replicating fibres, chemists at the University of Groningen have discovered that upon introducing a molecule that attacks the replicators, the more complex structures have an advantage.

Polymer scientists from the University of Groningen and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences have developed a polymer membrane from biobased malic acid. It is a superamphiphilic vitrimer epoxy resin membrane that can be used to separate water and oil amd is fully recyclable.

Science LinX newsletter for March 2021

Scientists have developed a method to visualize and quantify alternative structures of RNA molecules. These alternative RNA ‘shapes’ can have important functional relevance in viruses and bacteria.

In Huntington’s disease, a faulty protein aggregates in brain cells and eventually kills them. Such protein aggregates could, in principle, be prevented with a heat shock protein. However, it is not well known how these proteins interact with the Huntington’s disease protein. New research by Patrick van der Wel (University of Groningen, the Netherlands) and colleagues at the University of Texas explains how they work.

One of the properties that make a planet suitable for life is the presence of a weather system. Exoplanets are too far away to directly observe this, but astronomers can search for substances in the atmosphere that make a weather system possible. Researchers from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the University of Groningen have now found evidence on exoplanet WASP-31b for chromium hydride, which at the corresponding temperature and pressure is on the boundary between liquid and gas.

Science LinX newsletter for February 2021

The evolutionary interaction between insects and plants has created complex dependencies that can have surprising outcomes. Casper van der Kooi, a biologist at the University of Groningen, uses an interdisciplinary approach to analyse the interaction between pollinators and flowers. In January, he was first author of two review articles on this topic.

The Seychelles warbler is a cooperatively breeding bird species, meaning that parents often receive help from other birds when raising their offspring. A study led by biologists from the University of Groningen shows that the offspring of older females have better prospects when they are surrounded by helpers.

New physics-based technologies allow scientists to study the dynamics of viruses and may eventually lead to new treatments. In his role as physical virologist, Wouter Roos, a physicist at the University of Groningen, together with two longtime colleagues, has written a review article on these new technologies, which was published in Nature Reviews Physics on 12 January.

Science LinX newsletter for Christmas 2020

The observation of nonlinearity in electron spin-related processes in graphene makes it easier to transport, manipulate and detect spins, as well as spin-to-charge conversion.This brings spintronics to the point where regular electronics was after the introduction of the first transistors.

Is gravity a quantum phenomenon? Together with colleagues from the UK, Anupam Mazumdar, a physicist from the University of Groningen, proposed an experiment that could settle the issue. In a new paper, which has a third-year Bachelor’s student as the first author, Mazumdar presents a way to reduce background noise to make this experiment more manageable.

Theoretical studies of the dynamics of photoinduced processes require numerous electronic structure calculations, which are computationally expensive. Scientists from the University of Groningen developed machine learning-based algorithms, which reduce these computations significantly.

Scientists are working on new materials to create neuromorphic computers, with a design based on the human brain. Materials scientists from the University of Groningen analysed the behaviour of strontium titanium oxide, a platform material for this type of application, and used the 2D material graphene to probe it

A high concentration of salt or sugar in the environment will dehydrate microorganisms and stop them from growing.  Scientists from the University of Groningen elucidated the structure of a transport protein OpuA, that imports glycine betaine to counter this.

Thermoelectric materials can turn a temperature difference into electricity. Organic thermoelectric materials could be used to power wearable electronics or sensors; however, the power output is still very low. An international team led by Jan Anton Koster, Professor of Semiconductor Physics at the University of Groningen, has now produced an n-type organic semiconductor with superior properties that brings these applications a big step closer.

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus RNA genome structure was studied in detail by researchers from the University of Groningen, the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, and Leiden University. The RNA structures are potential targets for the development of drugs against the virus.

Science LinX newsletter for November 2020

Science LinX newsletter for December 2020

Chemists at the University of Groningen designed a rotary molecular motor that is efficiently powered by near-infrared light, through adding an antenna to the motor molecule. The design and functionality were presented in the journal Science Advances on 28 October.

When going in circles helps you stay put: how spin-orbit coupling leads to stable spins in color centers in materials

Bacteria in the small intestine can deaminate levodopa, the main drug that is used to treat Parkinson’s disease. Bacterial processing of the unabsorbed fractions of the drug results in a metabolite that reduces gut motility.

Science LinX gaat met scholieren en andere geïnteresseerden onderzoeken hoe spinnen zich aanpassen aan het leven in de stad.

Science LinX newsletter for October 2020

A team of physicists and biophysicists from the University of Groningen discovered that individual light-harvesting nanotubes with disordered molecular structures still transport light energy in the same way. By combining spectroscopy, molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical physics, they discovered how disorder at the molecular level is effectively averaged out at the microscopic scale.

Science LinX heeft in samenwerking met docenten van het Leeuwarder Lyceum en Lindenborg en de Provincie Friesland de lesmodule 'Voedselwebstructuren in agrarische landschappen' ontwikkeld, over verlies van biodiversiteit in agrarische landschappen door intensief landbouwgebruik. De module is nu beschikbaar voor scholen.

Op 26 en 27 september was er in het Klokgebouw in Eindhoven weer een Maker Faire. Ook Science LinX was van de partij, met de bouw-opstelling GEN.ERATE.

In China, approximately 10 billion online food orders were served to over 400 million customers in 2018. Together with colleagues from China and the UK, Yuli Shan, an environmental scientist at the University of Groningen, found that reusable tableware can substantially reduce packaging waste and life cycle environmental emissions.

Science LinX newsletter for September 2020

During the summer, scientific journals continued to publish papers. In this overview we highlight a number of summer papers from FSE staff.

Hoe zou je wereld eruitzien als jij een pissebed bent, of een vlinder? Dat hebben nieuwsgierige kinderen woensdag 12 augustus ontdekt tijdens de OntdekDag op het Suikerterrein.

Ecologist Britas Klemens Eriksson from the University of Groningen and his colleagues from Stockholm University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden have now shown that stickleback domination moves like a wave through the island archipelagos, changing the ecosystem from predator-dominated to algae-dominated.

A group of theoretical physicists, including two physicists from the University of Groningen, have proposed a ‘table-top’ device that could measure gravity waves. Their design could also answer one of the biggest questions in physics: is gravity a quantum phenomenon?

Conducting protein-based material could be used in fuel cells, batteries or act as sensor.

During the lockdown scientists cannot visit the university. How do they manage to keep on working? PhD student Chris van Ewijk shares his experiences.

Chemists from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, together with colleagues at the University of Milan (Italy) have created a soft porous aromatic framework containing light-sensitive molecular switches.

Science LinX newsletter for summer 2020

Dit voorjaar zijn 3 en 4 vwo leerlingen van het Leeuwarder Lyceum en De Lindenborg aan de slag geweest met de lesmodule “voedselweb structuren in een agrarisch landschap”. Wegens de Coro-na maatregelen, hebben ze een online variant van de lesmodule gevolgd.

On 21 June, the longest day of the year, the online kick-off of the ‘De Donkerte van het Waddengebied’ (the darkness of the Wadden area) programme took place. The programme aims to allow residents, recreational users and tourists to experience the darkness of the Wadden area.

A summer internship in Bilbao, Spain, has led to a paper in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters for Jack Mayo, a Master’s student in Nanoscience at the University of Groningen. He has helped to create a universal model that can predict the number distribution of topological defects in non-equilibrium systems.

During the lockdown scientists cannot visit the university. How do they manage to keep on working? Melanie König (29) shares her experiences with us.

We know how important bacteria and fungi are for the health of plants. In marine environments and in our own gut, bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) are important in regulating the microbiome. Yet, their effect on bacteria living around the roots of plants has hardly been studied

Some metal oxides, such as nickelates, have a tuneable resistivity, which makes them an interesting material for adaptable electronics and cognitive computing. Scientists from the University of Groningen have studied how these materials can change their nature from metallic to insulating.

Science LinX newsletter for june 2020

During the lockdown scientists cannot visit the university. How do they manage to keep on working? Aditya Iyer (33) shares his story with us.

Some light-emitting diodes (LEDs) created from perovskite, a class of optoelectronic materials, emit light over a broad wavelength range. Scientists from the University of Groningen have now shown that in some cases, the explanation of why this happens is incorrect.

Scientists from the University of Groningen have developed a method that combines different resolution levels in a computer simulation of biological membranes. Their algorithm backmaps a large-scale model that includes features, such as membrane curvature, to its corresponding coarse-grained molecular model. This has allowed them to zoom in on toxin-induced membrane budding and to simulate a full-sized mitochondrial lipid membrane. Their approach, which was published in the journal Nature Communications on 8 May, opens the way to whole-cell simulations at a molecular level.

Photosynthetic systems in nature transport energy very efficiently towards a reaction centre, where it is converted into a useful form for the organism. Inspired by Nature, Physicist Richard Hildner from the University of Groningen and his colleagues have investigated energy transport in an artificial system made from nanofibres.

Dit voorjaar testen leerlingen van 3 en 4 vwo van het Leeuwarder Lyceum en de Lindenborg de lesmodule Voedselweb structuren in een agrarisch landschap die ontwikkeld is vanuit het Europese project over duurzame landschappen SUSTAIN.

Science LinX newsletter for April 2020

Technicians from the Kapteyn Institute of Astronomy have been asked to build another 66 detectors for the ALMA radio telescope in Chile, together with partners in Sweden and Italy.

Two students from the University of Groningen traveled to Cambodia with the 'Your Future Energy' solar cell practical to make thousands of secondary school students enthusiastic about clean energy.

To find out more about birds such as the black-tailed godwit, ecologists have been conducting long-term population studies using standardized information on reproductive behaviour—such as dates of egg laying or hatching. New information gathered using geolocators on godwits in the Netherlands shows that traditional observation methods can lead to inaccurate data.

Normaal is de Bernoulliborg op de Zernike Campus het kloppend hart van de Bèta Battle finale, nu vond die door de omstandigheden online plaats. Vijf scholen hebben de finaleronde gespeeld. Eindwinnaar is het Rudolph Pabus Cleveringa Lyceum uit Appingedam

A promising method for delivery of DNA for gene therapy genes involves the use of DNA/lipid complexes (lipoplexes). Scientists at the University of Groningen have now used advanced simulations to investigate how these lipoplexes deliver DNA fragments into cells. The results can be used to improve their efficiency.

Katja Loos, Professor of Polymer Chemistry at the University of Groningen, is conducting science while industry representatives are looking over her shoulder. Loos does not consider this scary. On the contrary, it inspires her and her colleagues from six other Dutch universities.

University of Groningen scientists observed the characteristics of a single enzyme inside a nanopore. This revealed that the enzyme can exist in four different folded states, or conformers, that play an active role in the reaction mechanism. These results will have consequences for enzyme engineering and the development of inhibitors.

Lead-based perovskites are very promising materials for the production of solar panels. They efficiently turn light into electricity but they also present some major drawbacks: the most efficient materials are not very stable, while lead is a toxic element. University of Groningen scientists are studying alternatives to lead-based perovskites.

Science LinX newsletter for April 2020

A transport protein that is used by the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis to import vitamin B12 contains a huge water-filled cavity, in which hydrophilic substances are transported across the cell membrane. This discovery, which changes our understanding of bacterial physiology, was made by imaging the transport protein using cryo-electron microscopy.

Researchers of the University of Groningen and the Max Planck Institute have found that starlings sleep five hours less per night during the summer. Compared to winter, the birds take more mid-day naps and live under higher sleep pressure. During full-moon nights, starlings sleep around two hours less than usual.

Ajay Kottapalli is a scientist who turns to nature for inspiration to build new sensors. Two years ago, hejoined the University of Groningen as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the ENgineering and TEchnology institute Groningen (ENTEG).

An overview of measures taken by Science LinX to prevent the spread of the corona virus

Het Kasteel te Groningen vormde donderdag 5 maart het decor voor de inmiddels traditionele wedstrijd in de wetenschapscommunicatie, FameLab. Elf onderzoekers stonden te popelen om hun wetenschappelijk onderzoek uit te leggen in een drie-minuten-presentatie zonder PowerPoint.

University of Groningen microbiologists discovered that Lactococcus lactis cells growing in a clonal population can differ in the uptake system they use. Furthermore, the choice for either system is maintained over many generations. It is the first time that such stable heterogeneity is observed in an amino acid uptake pathway.

Op de Huishoudbeurs 2020 stonden drie containers van Expeditie NEXT-On Tour in het midden van één van de hoofdhallen vol in het zicht. In de containers worden korte experimenten en mini-colleges aangeboden, onder meer door Science LinX.

The spread of antibiotic resistance is partly due to the ability of bacteria to pick up DNA from their surroundings. A new study, which started at the University of Groningen, showed that drugs blocking this ability (which is called ‘competence’) in the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae can indeed stop the spread of resistance in mice.

Actin filaments have several important functions inside cells. For one, they support the cell membrane by binding to it. Simulations performed at the University of Groningen, supported by experiments, provide a molecular view on this very fundamental process.

Homecoming-cam at Zernike Campus

The structure of a transport complex used by bacteria to import aspartate has been mapped in unique detail by University of Groningen scientists. The results reveal that the transporter works very efficiently, which is interesting as a similar transporter is vital for signal transduction between human brain cells.

On 14 February, researchers from the UG and the Czech Academy of Sciences, in association with the Municipality of Westerkwartier, laid a Piezo tile connected to a prototype of a new low-energy computer close to Zuidhorn railway station.

By creating neatly spaced slits in a clay mineral, University of Groningen Professor of Experimental Solid State Physics Petra Rudolf was able to filter water to remove a toxic herbicide.

Scientists at the University of Groningen turned a non-enzymatic protein into a new, artificial enzyme by adding two abiological catalytic components. This is the first time that an enzyme has been created using two non-biological components to create an active site.

Scientists at the University of Groningen created a plasmon-exciton hybrid device that is promising for use in integrated nanophotonics (light-based electronics) at room temperature.

University of Groningen physicists have visualized hydrogen at the titanium/titanium hydride interface using a transmission electron microscope. Using a new technique, they succeeded in visualizing both the metal and the hydrogen atoms in a single image.

Science LinX newsletter for February 2020

Science LinX newsletter for March 2020

RUG-onderzoekers Davide Grosse, Jacolien van Rij en Lambert Schomaker legden het uit aan de hand van recente ontwikkelingen in de Kunstmatige Intelligentie.

Science LinX zal samen met 10 basisscholen in de gemeente Westerkwartier een meetnetwerk opzetten voor het meten van fijnstof in de lucht.

Scientists at the University of Groningen and the University Medical Center Groningen used molecular motors to manipulate the protein matrix on which bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells are grown.

Organic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are very versatile, but also chemically unstable. Exposure of these monolayers to air will lead to oxidation and breakdown within a single day. University of Groningen scientists have now created SAMs using buckyballs functionalized with ‘tails’ of ethylene glycol which remain chemically unchanged for several weeks when exposed to air.

Simulations by scientists from the University of Groningen and Utrecht University showed that it is unlikely that the North Atlantic Current , which is responsible for the mild climate in northwestern Europe, will come to a complete stop. However, there is a 15 percent likelihood that there will be a temporary change in the current in the next 100 years.

University of Groningen enzyme engineer Marco Fraaije and colleagues from Italy and Argentina reconstructed the ancestral genetic sequences for three FMO genes and subsequently studied the enzymes. The ancestral enzymes proved to be stable enough to study and revealed how FMOs metabolize toxic substances.

Het in het najaar gestarte duisternismeetnetwerkx van het Kapteyn Instituut en ScienceLinX is recent uitgebreid met twee nieuwe sensoren in Boerakker en De Zilk (Zuid-Holland).

Science LinX newsletter for Christmas 2019 / January 2020

University of Groningen chemists Ruth Dorel and Ben Feringa have constructed a catalyst that can produce different products and is controlled using light.

Maar liefst 57 middelbare scholieren waren 28 november op bezoek bij Science LinX voor de regionale voorronde van de European Union Science Olympiad (EUSO).

Ruim 20 kinderen uit groepen 7 en 8 van basisscholen uit de directe omgeving van de Zernike Campus hebben hard gewerkt om hun surprise een technische upgrade te geven in het Sinterklaas Surprise Lab.

Science LinX newsletter for December 2019

For all FSE staff: join in at the Education and Outreach Day on 10 December

Some photons carry too much energy for the material of solar panels to absorb. These photons produce ‘hot electrons’, and the excess energy of these electrons is converted into heat. Scientists from the University of Groningen have now shown that it may be easier than expected to harvest this excess energy.

Associate Professor Justin Ye, head of the Device Physics of Complex Materials group at the University of Groningen, studied superconductivity in a double layer of molybdenum disulfide and discovered new superconducting states.

Tijdens het Festival della Scienza vertegenwoordigt Science LinX de Groningse wetenschap met een 12-daags programma voor jong en oud in het Italiaanse Genua.

Science LinX newsletter for November 2019

University of Groningen scientists have now taken an important step towards transistors that operate using the spin of electrons, rather than their charge.

Enthousiaste scholieren van scholen uit Assen en Groningen zijn op hun vrije zaterdag naar de Zernike Campus gekomen om deel te nemen aan de ‘Astro Data Science Hackathon’.

Scientists from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and the University of Würzburg (Germany) have investigated a simple biomimetic light-harvesting system.

University of Groningen physicist Dr Kumar Sourav Das created curved spin transport channels. Together with his colleagues, he discovered that this new geometry makes it possible to independently tune charge and spin currents.

Science LinX newsletter for October 2019

Scientists at the University of Groningen have constructed synthetic vesicles in which ATP, the main energy carrier in living cells, is produced. This metabolic network will eventually be used in the creation of synthetic cells.

Physicists from the University of Groningen constructed a two-dimensional spin transistor, in which spin currents were generated by an electric current through graphene.

A phenomenon that is well known from chaos theory was observed in a material for the first time ever, by scientists from the University of Groningen. This ‘spatial chaos’ in a material was first predicted in 1985 and could be used in applications such as adaptable neuromorphic electronics.

Science LinX newsletter for September 2019

University of Groningen scientists, with an international team of colleagues, have now discovered a key mechanism in the tuberculosis bacteria which prevents the immune cells from killing them: the bacteria produce a unique type of antacid which gives the immune cells indigestion.

The arrival of humans in New Zealand, some 700 years ago, triggered a wave of extinction among native bird species. Calculations by scientists from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Massey University in New Zealand show that it would take at least 50 million years of evolution to restore the biodiversity that has been lost.

On 24 June, Paul Zomer defended his PhD thesis at the University of Groningen. Zomer used the technological know-how that he acquired during his research at the company HQ Graphene, which he co-owns with Niko Tombros.

Science LinX newsletter for July/August 2019

University of Groningen Professor of Drug Design, Alexander Dömling, has devised a method to rapidly synthesize thousands of new molecules and evaluate their properties as potential drugs. In a paper published by Science Advances on 5 July, he shows that this method works well when applied to boronic acid chemistry, an important technique in synthetic organic chemistry.

Professor of Astronomy Amina Helmi investigates how the Milky Way got its present shape. The Gaia satellite mission, in which she plays an important role, has provided a cornucopia of data so far. Now, Helmi is involved in the building of a new instrument that will be mounted onto an Earth-based telescope and that will provide even more information.

Self-cleaning surfaces and laboratories on a chip become even more efficient if we are able to control individual droplets. University of Groningen professor Patrick Onck, together with colleagues from Eindhoven University of Technology, have shown that this is possible by using a technique known as mechanowetting.

Science LinX newsletter for June 2019

Pyrolysis, heating in the absence of oxygen, is a technique to turn wood chips into valuable chemicals. University of Groningen Professor of Chemical Engineering Erik Heeres is involved in producing ‘green gold’ from organic waste.

So, you want to be a scientist? In that case, know that simply mastering your chosen subject is only the beginning. Fortunately, there is a series of books about these three topics, written by University of Groningen Dean of Talent Development Ritsert Jansen.

Scientists at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry at the University of Groningen, together with collaborators from the University of Amsterdam, the University of Twente and the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy in Italy, have been able to follow the entire sequence of structural transformations in a new class of molecular switches for the first time.

In his latest paper, newly appointed Professor in Energy and Environmental Scienceis Klaus Hubacek describes how Chinese cities export their pollution to neighbouring regions. His work combines economics and environmental science into models that show the global consequences of regional policies.

Taking an evolutionary view can inspire new ideas in clinical microbiology. That is why clinicians, bioinformaticians analysing pathogens and evolutionary biologists should all work together. These are the conclusions of a diverse group of scientists led by University of Groningen microbiologist Marjon de Vos, in a short review published by The Lancet Infectious Diseases on 29 April.

On 9 April, more than 40 pupils from the Leeuwarder Lyceum and the RSG De Lindenborg from the municipality of Leek visited a farmer to explore ‘sustainable landscapes’. In a masterclass, they got a first impression of the research project that they will be working on over the next eight weeks.

University of Groningen scientists have now shown that a prokaryotic transport protein can transport both L- and D- versions of the amino acid aspartate with equal efficiency. The results were published in the journal eLife on 24 April.

The five groups of pupils nominated for the Jan Kommandeur prize for their final school projects were invited to the Hannover Messe Challenge on 1 and 2 April. This event is the largest technology and innovation fair in the world!

Scientists from the University of Groningen have succeeded in incorporating a light-controlled switch into a molecule used by bacteria for quorum sensing – a process by which bacteria communicate and subsequently control different cellular processes.

The University Museum was the venue of this year’s Groningen heat of the international science communication competition FameLab, which took place on 28 March.

Molecular biologists from the University of Groningen and their colleagues in Switzerland and Germany have now developed a pipeline to create and screen large numbers of new lantibiotic peptides. A description of the method and the first results were published on 1 April in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Science LinX newsletter for April 2019

Science LinX newsletter for May 2019

The 32^nd edition of the Beta Business Days took place on 11 and 12 March. Beta (science, engineering and technology) students entered the MartiniPlaza to immerse themselves into their future career possibilities.

The 40^th anniversary of the six UG ‘science shops’ was celebrated in style at the University Museum on Thursday 21 March. The Museum’s upstairs room was adorned with scientific posters presenting research carried out by the science shops.

Formamidinium lead iodide is a very good material for photovoltaic cells, but getting the correct and stable crystal structure is a challenge. Now, University of Groningen scientists, led by Professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics Maria Antonietta Loi, think they have cracked it.

Organic chemists at the University of Groningen have succeeded in integrating numerous unidirectional light-driven rotary motors into a metal-organic framework (a solid material with a 3D cage-like structure). Details of their discovery were published on 18 March, in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Vorige week werd bekend dat adjunct hoogleraar Patrick van der Wel van de RUG een subsidie van 250.000 euro heeft ontvangen van het Campagneteam Huntington, een organisatie die via crowdfunding geld ophaalt voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar de ziekte van Huntington.

Using solid-state NMR, University of Groningen Associate Professor Patrick van der Wel and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh have discovered how the enzyme cytochrome c induces programmed cell death.

University of Groningen microbiologists and their colleagues from Lithuania have discovered a new glycocin, a small antimicrobial peptide with a sugar group attached, which is produced by a thermophilic bacterium and is stable at relatively high temperatures.

In a new study, published in two back-to-back papers in the journal eLife , Cristina Paulino, head of the cryo-EM unit at the Structural Biology department at the University of Groningen, reveals how a protein family can either transport ions, or both ions and lipids.

University of Groningen Biomedical Engineering student Sander Hekkelman designed an ‘exoskeleton’ that can support a finger.

Science LinX newsletter for March 2019

A new study by scientists from the Universities of Groningen and Manchester, which was published in Applied Physics Letters on 21 February 2019, shows how best to study this transfer from electonspins to a non-conductive magnet.

At the SRON Groningen workshop, scientists and technicians have assembled three survey telescopes to look for the optical source of gravitational waves.

In September 2017, Science LinX started an EU-funded project to involve secondary school pupils and their teachers from the Netherlands, Spain and Cyprus in research as real ‘citizen scientists’. Project leader Maaike de Heij explains what has been done so far.

University of Groningen scientists have developed nanopores that can be used to directly measure the mass of peptides. An article on this discovery was published on 19 February in Nature Communications.

VSC, de sectororganisatie van wetenschapsmusea en science centers waar ook Science LinX bij aangesloten is, vraagt om het instellen van een speciaal fonds of een regeling voor het financieren van goede wetenschapscommunicatie.

University of Groningen scientists Casper van der Kooi and Doekele Stavenga used microscopy and mathematical models describing how light interacts with petals of poppies, to find out how the vibrant colours are created.

Scientists led by Prof. Justin Ye of the University of Groningen have now managed to produce devices with stable germanene. The material is an insulator, and it becomes a semiconductor after moderate heating and a very good metallic conductor after stronger heating.

When it comes to realizing low-power electronic devices, spintronics look promising. However, to generate a suitable spin current, you need a relatively large magnet. An alternative method that uses a special type of molecule has been proposed, but the big question is: does it work? University of Groningen PhD student Xu Yang has constructed a theoretical model which describes how to put this new method to the test.

The ferroelectric polymer PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) has interesting properties and could be used to store information or energy. University of Groningen scientists have created block copolymers from PVDF that leave its ferroelectricity intact, but allow them to tune its characteristics.

Science LinX newsletter for February 2019

An alternative to PET can be made from bio-based furan molecules, but to polymerize these furans you need toxic catalysts and high temperatures. Now, polymer chemists from the University of Groningen, led by Prof. Katja Loos, have described an enzyme-based polymerization method.

In a study published on 18 January in the journal Nature Communications, scientists from the University of Groningen show that gut bacteria can metabolize levodopa into dopamine. As dopamine cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, this makes the medication less effective.

A team of scientists led by University of Groningen Professor of Systems Chemistry, Sijbren Otto, have discovered a new class of complex folding molecules that emerge spontaneously from simple building blocks. The results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on 16 January.

SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research has designed a device which is able to filter just one wavelength of far-infrared light from a light beam and can be used in astronomical observations. Bachelor’s student Carolien Feenstra first built a prototype and then the real instrument, which was tested in Canada in late November.

Global spikes in carbon concentration which occur sporadically may help us pinpoint historic events to a single year. Unfortunately, the cause of the spikes may also create chaos for our civilization.

Microbiologists from the University of Groningen (UG) and the University of Lausanne describe a new mechanism by which Streptococcus pneumoniae can become competent, and why biofilms may be important in this process. Their results were published in Cell Reports on November 27.

Scientists from the University of Groningen, together with colleagues from Germany and Spain, have described a system that combines a pore and a transporter to import potassium ions into cells against an extreme concentration gradient. The results were published in Nature Communications on 26 November.

Wouter Roos, professor of Molecular Biophysics at the RUG, described as first with colleagues from Amsterdam and Utrecht the mechanical properties of these exosomes from red blood cells. The results have been published in de scientific journal Nature Communications on 23 February.

A year ago, astronomers identified the first interstellar visitor to our solar system, ‘Oumuamua.Despite a whopping 33 hours of observation time, ‘Oumuamua proved too faint for the Spitzer space telescope to see. Nevertheless, this allowed the observation team to draw significant conclusions.

An ambitious plan to create a yeast cell that will turn cellulose into styrene, the building block of polystyrene plastics, has brought success to the University of Groningen team participating in this year’s iGEM competition.

Recensie: wetenschapsjournalist Esther Thole heeft het boek ‘Makers van leven’ geschreven, over het bouwen van leven en op de biologie geïnspireerde materialen om uit te leggen hoe dat gaat.

Science LinX newsletter for November 2018

Science LinX newsletter for December 2018

The Blaauw Observatory of the University of Groningen welcomed a record number of 420 visitors on October 27, for the annual Night of Nights.

Tijdens de Open Dag van de RUG op 9 november kun je op de Zernike Campus terecht met vragen over je profielwerkstuk in de profielwerkstuk-EHBO-truck.

University of Groningen physicists have developed memristors, resistors with a memory, made from niobium-doped strontium titanate, which mimic how neurons work. Their results were published in the Journal of Applied Physics on 21 October.

Using ferroelectricity instead of magnetism in computer memory saves energy. If ferroelectric bits were nanosized, this would also save space. University of Groningen (UG) physicists show how this could become a reality in a paper published in Nature Materials on 22 October.

Roboticist Raffaella Carloni wants to build artificial muscles that are inspired by nature, made from nanofibers that, once bundled together, form artificial myofibrils and fascicles. Carloni’s idea has become a European research project and has its kick-off meeting on 15 October at the University of Groningen.

An array of venues opened their doors in the city centre on Saturday 6 October and at Zernike Campus on Sunday 7 October during the 'Zpanned Zernike' science fair.

University of Groningen scientists, led by Associate Professor of Chemical Biology Giovanni Maglia, have designed a nanopore system that is capable of measuring different metabolites simultaneously in a variety of biological fluids, all in a matter of seconds. The electrical output signal is easily integrated into electronic devices for home diagnostics. The results were published in Nature Communications.

In the first systematic study of leucism (the total or partial lack of black and brown pigments in feathers) in blackbirds, biologists from the University of Groningen show that it is more common in urban than in forest populations. They have a number of explanations for this phenomenon, some of which could have consequences for human city dwellers.

An international team of scientists led by the University of Groningen's Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials has identified a way to create quantum bits that emit photons that describe their state at wavelengths close to those used by telecom providers.

Science LinX newsletter for October 2018

University of Groningen physicists in collaboration with a theoretical physics group from Universität Regensburg have built an optimized bilayer graphene device which displays both long spin lifetimes and electrically controllable spin-lifetime anisotropy. It has the potential for practical applications such as spin-based logic devices.

A collaborative project between the UG, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences and two businesses has produced a ‘green’ ink for a special type of 3D printer. An academic article about this was published at the start of the year and the experiment has also now been filmed for the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE).

ACTIE ←→ REACTIE lab tijdens Noorderzon 2018

Physicists from Groningen and Manchester have developed a method to control the direction of electron spins in devices. By being able to conrol the spin, they open the way to produce efficient and low-cost spintronic electrodes, with potential applications to magnetic random access memories under industrial development.

An international consortium led by University of Groningen chemical engineer Erik Heeres has received EUR 4 million in funding from the European Union’s Horizon2020 research programme to develop a new, more efficient method for the production of liquid fuels from biomass. Within four years, the new process should be working in the lab.

Astronomers using a global network of radio telescopes have produced one of the sharpest astronomical images ever. The resulting image demonstrates that dark matter is distributed unevenly across a distant galaxy.

The UG team that entered this year’s International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, in which student teams use synthetic biology to give organisms new properties, began working full time on its entry this week. In their lab in Linnaeusborg, they want to teach yeast cells to convert cellulose into styrene, a building block for plastic.

Science LinX newsletter for July/August 2018

Pupils from primary and secondary schools have been busy since January devising and implementing ways to save energy at school. On Friday, 29 June, teams from 28 schools met at the North Netherlands Energy Challenge Final on the former Suikerunie site in Groningen.

For the last seventeen years, University of Groningen astronomer Mariano Mendez has been working hard to give this same opportunity to over 1,500 astronomers from developing countries. On 15 July, he will receive the COSPAR Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts.

University of Groningen chemists have created a new enzyme with an unnatural amino acid as its active centre. Further modifications of the reactive site can create different enzymes for use in chemical synthesis. A description of the new enzyme was published in Nature Chemistry on 2 July.

De “Pretty Smart Power Girls” uit Noordhorn, die dit jaar de met steun van onder meer Science LinX en het Groningen Engineering Center naar de wereldfinale van de FIRST LEGO League in Detroit gingen, hebben maandag 18 juni het nieuwe ‘Nationaal Techniekpact’ aangeboden aan Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap.

University of Groningen astronomers have discovered relics of merger events in the Milky Way halo. Five small groups of stars appear to represent mergers with smaller galaxies, while a big ‘blob’ comprising hundreds of stars appears to be the remnant of a large merger event.

The human glutamine transporter ASCT2 is upregulated in several forms of cancer. It is also the docking platform for a wide range of pathogenic retroviruses. A team of University of Groningen scientists have used cryo-electron microscopy to elucidate the structure of the protein, which may generate leads for drug development.

Science LinX newsletter for June 2018

A team of physicists from the University of Groningen led by Associate Professor Justin Ye has constructed a superconducting transistor that operates at a few K elvin. This type of transistor could be used in quantum logic circuits. The results were published on 28 May in the journal Advanced Materials.

Molecules that are involved in photosynthesis exhibit the same quantum effects as non-living matter, concludes an international team of scientists including University of Groningen theoretical physicist Thomas la Cour Jansen. The results were published in Nature Chemistry on 21 May.

Petra Rudolf is the next President-elect of the European Physical Society (EPS). She will take up office as the President in April 2019. Representing all national physical societies in Europe (including Turkey and Israel), the EPS studies issues of concern to all European countries relating to physics research, science policy and education. Rudolf, professor in Experimental Solid State Physics at the University of Groningen, will be leading the EPS for two years.

It is the May Holiday, but not everyone is off to sunnier places. There are even people at work! For those who stayed home and work hard, Science LinX has something relaxing: A Capella Science, or science in a song.

Science LinX newsletter for May 2018

Vijf middelbare scholieren gingen namens de RUG naar deInternational Conference for Young Scientistsin Belgrado om hun profielwerkstuk te presenteren. Ze sleepten daar twee gouden medailles in de wacht.

Zo’n zeshonderd scholieren, ook uit het Netwerk Noord scholierennetwerk, deden dit jaar mee aan de Hannover Messe Challenge, het ‘grootste schoolreisje ter wereld’. Na een voorbereidingsdag aan de Universiteit Twente vertrokken ze naar Hannover.

The second data release of the European Gaia mission, which aims to make the largest, most precise three-dimensional map ever of our own and neighbouring satellite galaxies, will have an impact on astronomy across the board, from the Solar System to dark matter and cosmological models. That is the opinion of University of Groningen astronomy professor Amina Helmi, who was involved in the quality assessment for the release.

Zeven onderzoeksinstituten hebben een grote Europese subsidie ontvangen om een nieuw type beenprothese te gaan maken. Robot-ingenieur Rafaella Carloni van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen leidt het project van 4,5 miljoen euro. De officiële start vindt dan ook plaats in Groningen, op 16 en 17 april.

Maandag 9 april streden 144 scholieren van twaalf middelbare scholen met elkaar in de finale van de Bèta Battle 2018. Scoren op de workshops en hoog vliegen met je waterraket, daar draaide het deze dag om.

In May, molecular biologist Geert van den Bogaart will open his lab at the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen. This newly appointed professor has just received a prestigious grant from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP).

Renske de Jonge is the new programme manager of Science LinX, the science centre of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (University of Groningen). From April 2018, she takes over from Bart van de Laar, who founded Science LinX in 2008.

University of Groningen physicists have induced magnetism in platinum with an electric field created by a paramagnetic ionic liquid. As only the surface of the platinum is affected, this creates a switchable 2D ferromagnet. The study was published in Science Advances on 6 April.

De winnaars van de Jan Kommandeurpriijs 2018 zijn Sacha Brons en Wytze Walstra met het werkstuk ‘Growing Pavements’. De Jan Kommandeurpriijs is een wedstrijd voor het beste profielwerkstuk met een exact onderwerp.

Science LinX newsletter for April 2018

Op 21 maart was het feest bij het Groningen Engineering Center (GEC). Het was namelijk de Dag van de Ingenieur, een jaarlijks evenement van het Koninklijk Instituut Van Ingenieurs (KIVI). De editie van 2018 vond plaats in het Energy Academy Building in Groningen met het GEC als gastheer. Ook Science LinX was erbij.

Blackbirds live longer in cities than in forests, but city birds have a much poorer health status than their rural cousins. These findings from a study in five European cities led by University of Groningen biologists were published in Biology Letters on 21 March.

University of Groningen physicists, and colleagues from Nijmegen and Hong Kong, have induced superconductivity in a monolayer of tungsten disulfide.  Their results show the typical 'dome-shaped' superconducting phase, and finally provide an explanation for this phenomenon.

Bacteria and Archaea must have evolved from the putative Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). One hypothesis is that this happened because the cell membrane in LUCA was an unstable mixture of lipids. Now, scientists from the University of Groningen and Wageningen University have created such a life form.

On Thursday 8 March ten young scientists gathered at Groninger Forum for the regional heat of FameLab Netherlands, the annual international science communication competition organized by the British Council. The aim was to share their passion for science with the audience in a three-minute presentation.

University of Groningen biotechnologists used a computational method to redesign aspartase and convert it to a catalyst for asymmetric hydroamination reactions. This successful proof of principle study was published in Nature Chemical Biology on 21 May.

University of Groningen physicists have managed to alter the flow of spin waves through a magnet, using only an electrical current. This is a huge step towards the spin transistor that is needed to construct spintronic devices. These promise to be much more energy efficient than conventional electronics. The results were published on 2 March in Physical Review Letters.

Science LinX newsletter for March 2018

The Dutch LOFAR radio telescope, which fans out over a large part of Europe from the Northern Netherlands, can observe the creation of lightning flashes. These high-resolution observations may lead to better lightning protection. The results were published on 16 February in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

A solar park is sustainable, but it can spoil your view if you live next door to one. Neighbours of the planned Midden Groningen solar park in Hoogezand were therefore invited to have their say on how to make the panels blend into the landscape. Science LinX also attended the meeting in De Gouden Zon restaurant on 6 February, with a popup version of its RE:charge exhibition.

On Friday 2 February 10,000 prospective students (some accompanied by their parents) came to Groningen to explore the city and find out more about the programme they are considering studying at the UG. Over 4,000 visited the science department in Antonius Deusinglaan, Bernoulliborg and the Energy Academy.

University of Groningen microbiologists have visualized tiny islands in the cell membrane of baker’s yeast. These membrane compartments appear to store transport proteins before use. They made these observations with state-of-the-art super-resolution optical microscopy. The results were published in Nature Communication on 5 February.

During the World Economic Forum, the annual meeting of leaders in industry, science and politics, University of Groningen chemistry professor Ben Feringa was also given the floor. In a live-streamed interview, he stressed the importance of fundamental research.

In a sustainable society, we need to use renewable sources for the manufacture of carbon-based products rather than fossil fuels. Lignocellulosic biomass is available in abundance, but refining this into useful compounds is tricky. Now, University of Groningen chemists have developed a catalytic method that completely breaks down lignocellulose and converts the resulting molecules into a variety of useful building blocks.

One of the big challenges in computer architecture is integrating storage, memory and processing in one unit. This would make computers faster and more energy efficient. University of Groningen physicist Tamalika Banerjee has taken a big step towards this goal. Her results were published on 22 January in Scientific Reports.

Photons with energy higher than the 'band gap' of the semiconductor absorbing them give rise to what are known as hot electrons. The extra energy in respect to the band gap is lost very fast, as it is converted into heat so it does not contribute to the voltage. University of Groningen Professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics Maria Antonietta Loi has now found a material in which these hot electrons retain their high energy levels for much longer. Her results were published on 16 January in Nature Communications.

University of Groningen PhD student Siddhartha Omar has analyzed the noise in spin transport. His findings, which were published in the journal Physical Reviews B, pave the way to improving spin transport. This is necessary for building a transistor based on the principle.

Science LinX newsletter for February 2018

Chemical & Engineering News (a publication of the American Chemical Society) recently published two articles on papers by Ben Feringa: one about a muscle that is flexed by molecular motors and the other about a new environmentally friendly process that makes useful building blocks for plastic and pills.

When Cristina Paulino started working on cryo-electron microscopy almost ten years ago, no one could have foreseen it would become one of the hottest fields in science. The field was even the subject of this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Paulino has brought this new technique to the University of Groningen.

University of Groningen scientists led by organic chemist Ben Feringa have fitted an antibiotic with a switch that allows them to activate or deactivate the drug using visible light. Earlier versions of the switch were operated with ultraviolet light.

University of Groningen biochemists made a fascinating discovery: positively charged proteins stick to the surface of ribosome complexes. This explains why most water-soluble proteins carry an overall negative charge. The discovery will appear soon in the journal eLife.

Graphene is an excellent conductor of electron spin, but it is very difficult to manipulate spins in this carbon-based material. University of Groningen scientists have now shown that molybdenum diselenide can be used to do just that. Their results were published in the journal Nano Letters.

University of Groningen Professor of Networks and Robotics Ming Cao has just received an ERC Consolidator Grant of EUR two million. His aim is to design algorithms that will help autonomous robots cooperate. These same algorithms may also help guide the decision-making processes of humans.

Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry Syuzanna Harutyunyan has received a EUR two million ERC Consolidator Grant to develop a method for making 3D structures from 2D rings.

The new European SUSTAIN network has been awarded a EUR 449,900 grant by Erasmus+, the EU programme for education, training, youth and sport. The network will be coordinated byScience LinX, the science centre of the University of Groningen (UG) Faculty of Science and Engineering.

The largest ever genetic study of mosquitoes reveals the movement of insecticide resistance between different regions of Africa and finds several rapidly evolving insecticide resistance genes.

More than 1200 visitors from business, academia and the government of the three northern provinces came together in the Energy Academy Building to put the region on the map as a frontrunner in the transition to sustainable energy. Science LinX was there with RE:charge, an exhibition about energy transition.

On Friday 10 November prospective students from all over the country came to the Open Day of the University of Groningen. The Academy Building, Pathé Cinema and the Zernike Campus received at least 12,000 visitors, 7400 of whom were secondary-school pupils.

Researchers from the University of Groningen in collaboration with their colleagues from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have unravelled the structure of zinc specific bacterial transporter ZntB using cryo-electron microscopy. The results were published in Nature Communications on 3 November.

A deep look back to the early universe by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a surprisingly rowdy bunch of galaxies. University of Groningen astronomer Karina Caputi lead the study which is now published in Astrophysical Journal.

Science LinX newsletter for November 2017

Science LinX newsletter for December 2017

Science LinX newsletter for January 2018

University of Groningen scientists have used a patented nanopore to identify the fingerprints of proteins and peptides, and it can even detect polypeptides differing by one amino acid. The results were published on 16 October in the journal Nature Communications.

Op 14 en 15 oktober was het weer zover: tijd voor Zpannend Zernike. Liefhebbers van wetenschap konden zondag 15 oktober op verschillende plekken op het Zernike Campus van alles leren over wetenschap en natuurlijk zelf lekker experimenteren.

Bacteria use a variety of sensing mechanisms to respond adaptively to changes in their environment. One of these is counting cells. Now, University of Groningen biologists combined experiments and a mathematical model to show just what counts for a bacterium. The results were published on 11 October in Nature Communications.

Secretary Tineke Kalter was the first UG staff member to hear that Ben Feringa had been awarded the Nobel Prize. The effects are still noticeable a year later. ‘We still receive dozens of requests every day.’

Scientists from the University of Groningen and their colleagues from ETH Zürich have discovered how to increase the efficiency of charge conductivity in lead-sulphur quantum dots. Their results are published in the journal Science Advances on 29 September.

University of Groningen microbiologists, and their colleagues from Sichuan University, China, have discovered a clue which sheds light on how evolution created the ‘lipid divide’ between two kingdoms of life. The results were published on 29 September in the journal Cell Research.

Science LinX newsletter for October 2017

University of Groningen scientists discovered how characeteristics of protein factories of the cell can lead to antbiotic resistance. The results are published on 28 September in Nature Communications.

Egbert Boekema has spent almost his entire academic career working on a single problem: elucidating the structure of the proteins responsible for photosynthesis. His official farewell was on 27 September.

Evolve was a big hit for the young and the young at heart. Everyone could link his or her interests to evolutionary biology. The Evolve programme was developed by Science LinX (RUG) in collaboration with evolutionary biologists from the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES, RUG), and with the support of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB).

The summer holidays have begun, which gives us the opportunity to look back at the past academic year (and to take a brief look at the one ahead).

Topological insulators, a class of materials which has been investigated for just over a decade, have been heralded as a new ‘wonder material’. But so far, they have not quite lived up to the expectations fueled by theoretical studies. University of Groningen physicists now have an idea about why. Their analysis was published on 27 July in the journal Physical Review B.

Science LinX newsletter for July 2017

Science LinX newsletter for September 2017

Fifty years ago, the University of Groningen launched a separate degree programme in polymer chemistry with its own programme of research. Polymer chemist Albert Pennings left DSM to join the staff, and he brought a very strong fibre with him.

New insights by University of Groningen microbial ecologist Dr Diego Javier Jiménez and colleagues could make a rational design of microbial communinties for the breakdown of plant biomass possible. They argue this point in an opinion paper published in the journal Trends in Microbiology on 22 June.

Exactly 50 years ago Groningen became the first Dutch university with a separate department of Polymer Chemistry. Ger Challa was the man behind this innovation.

Klas 3 gymnasium van RSG De Borgen uit Leek kwam op 6 juni langs op het Zernikecomplex voor een 'bètasnuffel', georganiseerd door Science LinX. Mentor Anneke de Vries schreef een verslag.

Ton Loontjens worked in industry for about 35 years before he was appointed Professor of Biomedical Materials at the University of Groningen. ‘I am an academic researcher with an industrial background, which is in my opinion a valuable combination.’

Science LinX newsletter for June 2017

University of Groningen organic chemists led by professor Ben Feringa have produced a light driven rotary motor in which the rotary movement is locked to that of a secondary naphthalene rotor. The results were published on 2 June in the journal Science.

Her background in chemistry could just give Julia Even the edge needed to pull off a remarkable feat: an extremely accurate calculation of the mass of a number of exotic, unstable atomic nuclei. She has just received a EUR 425,000 research grant from NWO to make this happen.

The intertidal mudflats in the Wadden Sea are important for many species of birds and fish. University of Groningen ecologist Britas Klemens Eriksson and colleagues have discovered that mussel banks play a vital role. The results were published last week in the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

The Origins Center aims to find out more about the origins of the Universe, the Earth and life. Mathematicians and computer scientists help to connect information from a large number of spatial and temporal scales ranging from cell to galaxy and from seconds to eons. Part 6 in a series on the Origins Center.

Plants are very efficient at turning photons into electrons. But the transport of these electrons is a rather chaotic process, University of Groningen scientists have discovered. They used molecular dynamics to visualize the working of Photosystem II and published their results on 10 May in Nature Communications.

Van 22 mei tot en met 9 juni staat de reizende expositie IMAGINARY in de Bernoulliborg op de Zernike Campus. Bezoekers kunnen wiskunde omzetten in vormen en omgekeerd, schuiven met tegelpatronen en ontdekken hoe wiskunde eigenlijk overal is. En de toegang is ook nog gratis!

There are probably billions of planets out there, but how do we find out if any of them harbour life? University of Groningen astronomy professor Inga Kamp studies planet formation, including the ingredients for life such as water and organic molecules. Part 5 in a series on the Origins Centre, which will investigate how the Universe and life on Earth began.

How did life originate? University of Groningen chemistry professor Ben Feringa believes this is the most important question for science. Especially the question of why life appears to prefer just one of the two mirror-image versions that many organic molecules appear in. It’s an unsolved riddle.

Last week the winners of the Jan Kommandeurprijs presented their profile assignments at the International Conference for Young Scientists in Stuttgart. Pim van der Meer and Adnan El Kharbotly won silver.

Biochemist Bert Poolman and several colleagues are trying to build a synthetic cell with components from all over the living world. Trying to make these components work together will help us understand how life works.

This year’s annual conference of the Netherlands Physical Society, Fysica 2017, was held at Oosterpoort in Groningen. The conference featured lectures on the latest physics research, a keynote by Ben Feringa and a ‘Physics Meets Art’ evening programme, and looked at new technology for use in the classroom.

On six days during the first two weeks of April more than 700 secondary-school students came to Zernike Campus for College Carrousel, a brief introduction to the different science programmes at the University. The Science LinX exhibits in Bernoulliborg and the Energy Academy played a key role.

Chemistry professor Sijbren Otto accidentally discovered evolving molecules. They are now the focus of his research. Part 2 in a series on the Orgins Center, which will investigate how the Universe and life on Earth began.

The Origins Centre will tackle questions submitted to the National Science Agenda about the origin of life on Earth and in the Universe. A number of scientists from the University of Groningen have a leading role in this Centre. Part 1 of a series: the background to the Origins Centre.

There’s more to electrons than just a negative charge. They also possess a quality called ‘spin’. The electron spin can even move through insulators where electrons can’t. PhD student Jing Liu just discovered some interesting facts about this process.

Three provinces, ten schools, four preliminary rounds with 450 entrants, 120 of whom made it to the final of Science battle in Bernoulliborg at the University of Groningen’s Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Associate Professor of Systems Chemistry Sijbren Otto has been awarded a EUR 2.5 million ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council. The objective of Otto’s project is building fully synthetic chemical systems, that may be instrumental in making life in the lab.

Carbon nanotubes can be used to make very small electronic devices, but they are difficult to handle. University of Groningen scientists, together with colleagues from the University of Wuppertal and IBM Zurich, have developed a method to select semiconducting nanotubes from a solution and make them self-assemble on a circuit of gold electrodes. The results will be published in Advanced Materials on 29 March.

University of Groningen neuroscientist Robbert Havekes and colleagues from Germany, South Korea and the US have secured a grant of EUR 1.25 million from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), which funds interdisciplinary research in the life sciences.

De Jan Kommandeurprijs 2017 is gewonnen door Alinda Dersjant, Margot Knapen en Niels Bouman. In het werkstuk ‘Antioxirice’ beschrijven ze een methode om te voorkomen dat de rijsoogst in Bangladesh door overstromingen mislukt.

Science LinX newsletter for May 2017

FameLab gives young researchers just three minutes to inspire people to see the world from a different perspective. The regional qualifier in Groningen was on 9 March.

Over 700 people visited the Blaauw Observatory at Bernoulliborg on the national stargazing days on 3 and 4 March. A record and an increase of at least a quarter on last year.

Science LinX newsletter for Aprl 2017

University of Groningen PhD student Bettadahalli Nandishaiah Madhushankar has used very thin flakes of 2D germanane, the two-dimensional hydrogenated analogue of germanium, to build a transistor.

Science LinX newsletter for March 2017

Buttercup flowers are known for their intense, shiny yellow colour. For over a century, biologists have sought to understand why the buttercup stands out. University of Groningen scientists have now brought together all that was known about the buttercup and added some new information too.

If you are not training for a specific profession and can enter a different field after you graduate, how do you find out what your options are and what is right for you? The Beta Business Days (BBD) have been helping students answer these questions and more for over thirty years.

The new building of the Energy Academy Europe (EAE) simply had to be as energy-efficient as possible. A host of technologies have been used to achieve this. One of them is the arrangement of solar panels on the roof.

University of Groningen PhD student Siddhartha Omar is having a good week. He has had two papers accepted by the journal Physical Review: Rapid Communications. They present new techniques and knowledge about ‘spin relaxation’.

Science LinX newsletter for February 2017

Just over four months after the data from the Gaia satellite became available, University of Groningen astronomy professor Amina Helmi has published her first analysis. She has discovered new insights into how our Milky Way evolved.

Tijdens Eurosonic Noorderslag was Science LinX aanwezig in de Stad van de Toekomst, een initiatief van SummerLabb. Bezoekers konden er met interactieve opstellingen ontdekken hoe duurzaam zij zijn.

University of Groningen scientists have discovered how a class of carbohydrates (galactooligosaccharides) helps infant formula to stimulate the gut microbiota of babies in a similar way that breast milk does. This finding, which the University has patented, paves the way for using these ‘prebiotics’ to increase the nutritional value of infant food. The results were published in the journal Scientific Reports on 16 January.

The biodiversity on islands is is the result of an equilibrium between the immigration of new species and the extinction of established ones. This idea was proposed exactly 50 years ago by the founders of Island Biogeography Theory, Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson. Now, evolutionary ecologists from three institution, including the University of Groningen, have finally found hard evidence to support this hypothesis.

A Happy 2017 from Science LinX!

Bacteria that are susceptible to antibiotics can survive when enough resistant cells around them are expressing an antibiotic-deactivating factor. This new take on how the microbial context can compromise antibiotic therapy was published by a team of microbiologists from the University of Groningen microbiologists, together with colleagues from San Diego, in the journal PLOS Biology on 27 December.

Science LinX newsletter for January 2017

The integrated circuitry of microchips is getting ever smaller. New technologies even promise molecular circuits. But at this length-scale, the normal laws governing conductance have to make way for quantum laws. Ryan Chiechi and co-workers explored some of these quantum effects in molecular circuits in a paper published on 20 December in Nature Communications.

University of Groningen / Science LinX present five images for Nobel-winning motors by Ben Feringa

University of Groningen professor Marco Fraaije is looking to improve enzymes to make them suitable for use in industry. He has already improved a number of such enzymes in his work on the European research project ROBOX. A new film explains the project.

All textbooks describe the cyclin-dependent kinase complex as the one and only/exclusive regulator of the eukaryotic cell cycle. But now University of Groningen scientists have found evidence that a metabolic oscillator acts as the 'conductor' of cell division. Their results were published online in the journal Molecular Cell on December 15.

Peter van Abswoude spent over four years working with electron beams. He now teaches at a school. His ambition is to inspire pupils and spark enthusiasm for his subject of physics.

As the number of seats in Stockholm is limited to say the least, the University of Groningen organized its own Nobel lecture in the Martinikerk on 30 November. For Ben Feringa, the official academic ceremony with professors in gowns was the ideal dress rehearsal for the award ceremony on 10 December. The mood was relaxed, and the audience hung on Feringa’s every word.

The University of Groningen is looking for an artist in residence for a project that it is working on with two Max Planck institutes. The artist will develop an art project on synthetic biology (a field of biology on the interface between molecular biology, cell biology and engineering) that will foster dialogue about this field.

The visible matter in the universe is arranged in a pattern: galaxies and gas clouds form a kind of foam in which filaments of matter surround voids. But alongside this visible matter are vast quantities of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’, both of which are invisible. University of Groningen PhD student Patrick Bos has demonstrated that it is possible to study the structure and nature of these invisible building blocks.

Birds facing many predators at their nests have longer incubation spells than birds that do not have this problem. The latter can more easily change shifts without risking foxes or crows discovering their nests. This is what Czech and Belgian biologists Bulla and Kempenaers and researchers from Groningen have discovered. The findings were published in the journal Nature on 24 November.

The cichlids of Lake Victoria are a textbook example of rapid evolution. Biologists suspect that the visual environment underwater (light and turbidity) is an important driver in the formation of new species, but direct evidence has been hard to come by. Now supporting evidence has emerged from the University of Groningen aquariums. The results were published in The American Naturalist.

Our cells use all kinds of proteins to import useful substances from their environment. These protein pumps are powered by a stream of particles, often sodium ions, that work a bit like water turning a water wheel. How this really works was shrouded in mystery, but University of Groningen biologists have now solved the puzzle.

Surprisingly practical inventions often issue from the University of Groningen’s labs. Not only the scene of fundamental research, the labs are also favoured by engineers who use the latest technology to develop practical applications for their findings. The new Groningen Engineering Center (GEC) should give new impetus to engineering research and teaching at the University.

The university of Groningen will host FameLab, the international science communication competition for young scientists.

Science LinX newsletter for November 2016

Universiteiten, hogescholen en het voortgezet onderwijs werken al geruime tijd samen in regionale netwerken. Ook Science LinX is onderdeel van zo'n netwerk in Noord Nederland. Maar nu dreigt de overheid de financiering stop te zetten. De samenwerkende netwerken doen daarom de onderstaande oproep aan het ministerie van OCW om toch geld te reserveren voor deze netwerken.

Different types of evidence often pass the review during a court case. But how do judges balance ‘hard’ data, for example the chances that the DNA trace comes from the suspect, against witness statements? Mathematician Charlotte Vlek has developed a solution, but not one that can be used in every case.

At the end of September, 42 teachers, 54 school pupils and 45 members of university and science centre staff from 10 European countries met in Kiel, Germany for the final conference of the European IRRESISTIBLE project.

Researchers from Groningen have developed an alternative to epoxy resin that can repair itself when damaged. The material is also fully recyclable a limited number of times, and does not contain Bisphenol A, a substance that can disrupt the endocrine system.

Twenty years ago, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) seemed a promising target in the treatment of brain diseases like multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer’s Disease. But clinical trials produced disappointing results. Now University of Groningen scientists and a group of European colleagues have made an important discovery that explains the failure of these trials, and points the way to promising new treatments.

Ben Feringa is awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

A whopping 1770 children and adults visited the Bernoulliborg on 2 October to experience the program which Science LinX had organized for Zpannend Zernike (Exziting Zernike).

Boekrecensie: negentien verhalen over onderzoek uit hte Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences.

University of Groningen researcher Mark van der Maarel discovered a new blue colouring by chance. The patent application has just been published, but is unlikely to result in much. His discovery will benefit students though.

The first data from the Gaia satellite was published on Wednesday. Astronomers from the University of Groningen's Kapteyn Astronomical Institute couldn't wait to get their teeth into it.

We’re used to computer chips increasing in speed and capacity. This is achieved by making transistors smaller, so that more fit on the computer processor. However, miniaturization is nearing its limit. One solution may be transistors that operate on electron spin rather than a charge. Sander Kamerbeek defended his PhD thesis on this topic on 9 September.

As islands grow in the Wadden Sea, the new land hosts a succession of plant species. Biologists are familiar with this phenomenon. What they didn’t know was which bacteria live in the bare sands and ever-richer soils during this natural ecological succession. Francisco Dini-Andreote has now filled this gap in our knowledge.

It is going to be like Harrod's Christmas sale. Astronomersare about to embark on a mad trolley dash through the galaxy. It’s not t-shirts or the latest gadgets that they’re after, but the brightness and position of a billion stars, as recorded by the Gaia satellite. The data will be made publicly available on Wednesday 14 September.

On 30 August, students from the Harens Lyceum school (formerly Zernike College) visited the University of Groningen Science faculty.

Researchers from the Universities of Groningen (Netherlands) and Pennsylvania (US) have discovered a piece in the puzzle of how sleep deprivation negatively affects memory.

While investigating perovskite crystals, University of Groningen scientists made an observation that could make perovskite solar cells more efficient. It could also lead to new sensors for oxygen and water vapour. The results were published in the journal Science Advances on 27 July.

A team of physicists from the University of Groningen led by Bart van Wees have managed to steer the transport of electron spins with an electric field. They are the first to achieve this at room temperature, bringing new applications of spintronics a step closer. Their results were published in the journal Nano Letters.

University of Groningen microbiologists are participating in a project which has just been awarded some EUR 7.4 million by the European Horizon 2020 programme. The aim is to use ‘lipid rafts’, parts of cell membranes, to produce useful products or break down pollutants.

On December 7 the KNCV Gold Medal will be awarded to University of Groningen associate professor Syuzanna R. Harutyunyan. The KNCV Gold Medal is the most prestigious, Dutch recognition for chemical talent, and will be awarded during the chemical conference CHAINS, which takes place from 6 - 8 December 2016.

University of Groningen scientists led by Professor of Organic Chemistry Ben Feringa have developed a molecule containing two separate light switches. Feringa has thus created another tool for building light-controllable functional materials. An article on the double switch was published in the journal Nature Communications on 12 July.

Science LinX newsletter for July 2016

Science LinX newsletter on teacher training

Science LinX newsletter for October 2016

Location is what counts: University of Groningen microbiologists Jan-Willem Veening and Jelle Slager describe how gene location influences bacterial processes in a review that was published in Trends in Microbiology on 27 Juni (corrected proofs).

An international group of scientists has published a model of the ‘Parkinson protein’ LRRK2. University of Groningen biochemist Arjan Kortholt is one of the corresponding authors of the paper which describes the model. It was published on 27 June in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

University of Groningen engineer Ming Cao receives European Control Award

University of Groningen Professor of Animal Ecology Theunis Piersma and his colleagues from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) received an eminent visitor during their fieldwork on the knot, a wading bird, on Banc d’Arguin in Mauretania. None other than Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, dropped by.

Industrial robots are usually good at doing one pre-programmed job. Getting them to do something else requires a lot of new programming. The ENgineering and TEchnology institute Groningen (ENTEG) wants to develop flexible robots. Hector García de Marina describes how to do so in his PhD thesis.

Verslag van het International Student Congress of (bio)Medical Sciences, eerder deze maand in het UMCG.

Report of the annual science taster by class 3Y of the Lindenborg (Leek) at the University of Groningen’s Bernoulliborg and Linnaeusborg buildings.

In academic year 2015-2016, various schools in the Netherlands participated in the IRRESISTIBLE project.

Bart van Wees, Professor of Physics of Nanodevices at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, is one of the four recipients of this year’s NWO Spinoza Prize, the highest distinction in Dutch academia. His research stems from his curiosity about the behaviour of electrons inside new materials, but he has always had at least half an eye on practical applications.

The work of University of Groningen PhD student Vahideh Faghihi will make the calibration of thermometers even more accurate. No big deal for the average user, but important to climate scientists.

Albert Einstein spent the last twenty years of his career trying to unify physics in one theory, without success. The most nagging aspect was his failure to describe gravity in terms of quantum mechanics. Physicists around the world are still working on the problem and believe they will find the answer by studying the early Universe. The cosmological models developed by University of Groningen PhD student Marco Scalisi promise significant progress.

University of Groningen chemist Ben Feringa has done it again. He has presented a rotary motor driven by chemical energy. An article on the new motor was published in Nature Chemistry on 6 June.

University of Groningen chemist Ryan Chiechi has produced a device that can be switched by light from low to high conductance at the speed of picoseconds. In time, such a photogated device could use organic molecules to convert optical pulses to electronic signals. The proof of principle study was published on 8 Junein Nature Communications.

Photo report: Science LinX @ Der Aa church during the Night of Art en Science

Who hasn’t lain awake at night worrying about their profile assignment? Some 300 school pupils came to seek inspiration for that oh so important research question from the Science LinX exhibition in the Der Aa-kerk during the Research Days prior to the Night of Arts and Sciences. Our reporter Sterre Koops was there too.

Three years ago, University of Groningen chemist Ben Feringa presented a cleaner method to make compounds that are important for pharmaceuticals and more. He has now come up with a follow-up that is cleaner still. Nature Communications published the new technique on 2 June.

Science LinX newsletter for June 2016

Transistors are shrinking, but the heat they produce is becoming a problem. One solution could be to cool them with electrons, relying on what is known as the Peltier effect. This works for beer, and Ivan Vera Marun, a physicist at the Universities of Groningen and Manchester, has now shown that it also works on two-dimensional graphene sheets.

The University of Groningen will lead a European consortium that will train 14 PhD students to analyse large databases using state-of-the-art computer science. The training programme, called Sundial,will be funded by a EUR 3.7 million grant from the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks programme.

Roses are red, violets are blue. Everybody knows that, but what makes them so? Although plant breeders were aware of some of the genes involved, there was as yet no quantitative study of how pigment turns a flower red, blue or yellow. Casper van der Kooi conducted just such a study, combining biology and physics.

Op dinsdagavond 17 mei zal prof. Mike Jetten ​(Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) ​een lezing geven bij het Koninklijk Natuurkundig Genootschap te Groningen, over de ontdekking van 'onmogelijke' microorganismen.

Management measures aimed at restoring commercial stocks of marine fish, for example cod, is an efficient tool to decrease eutrophication effects in coastal areas. This is the main conclusion of a review, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Science LinX newsletter for May 2016

Almost 800 school pupils from 11 different schools attended the University of Groningen research days on 21, 22, 25 and 26 April. They found inspiration for their profile assignment and learned about open and investigative questions.

Science LinX newsletter for May 2016

De afgelopen week waren vier middelbare scholieren in Roemenië om namens de RUG hun profielwerkstuk te presenteren op de International Conference for Young Scientists. Ze wonnen een gouden, een zilveren en een bronzen medaille.

RUG-promovendus Davood Abbaszadeh heeft met collega’s uit Duitsland een manier gevonden om plastic halfgeleiders efficiënter te maken. Het levert betere led’s op, en mogelijk ook efficiëntere zonnecellen. En dat tegen lagere kosten. Het onderzoek is maandag 25 april gepubliceerd in Nature Materials.

Welke wetenschapper kan het beste zijn onderzoek uitleggen aan het publiek? Daar gaat het om bij FameLab, een internationale wedstrijd waaraan honderden jonge onderzoekers uit meer dan 25 landen aan meedoen.

In spring 2015, chemistry student Marieke Veenstra did her final Bachelor’s project in organic chemistry. During the three-month project in Syuzanna Harutyunyan’s lab, she tested a new method to produce carbon-carbon bonds. Her work has ended up in a Science article that was published on 23 April.

By combining two century-old techniques in organic chemistry, Syuzanna Harutyunyan is able to make organic compounds with greater ease and precision. Such compounds are important for drug discovery and development. Harutyunyan’s method is described in a paper that is be published by the journal Science on 22 April.

Some 30 girls in their first year at secondary school visited the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences for the annual Girls’ Day, held this year on 14 April. The programme included a lecture on whole-brain synchronization in Tibetan monks, visits to the Science LinX exhibition and the Blaauw Observatory and an opportunity to meet female scientists.

You may not have heard of hybrid perovskites, but they could make solar panels much cheaper. They could also make X-ray detectors more efficient, which would mean less radiation in scans. Professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics Maria Antonietta Loi studies these exciting materials and has just published two papers on them.

Dipayan Paul wanted to introduce a new way of measuring the radioactive isotope carbon-14 to Groningen. But he failed to reproduce the results published by an American lab, and could only conclude that the method was wrong. The results can be found his PhD thesis, which he defended on 11 April.

Science nowadays isn’t just about producing data: making sense of publicly available ‘Big Data’ can be equally important. Chris Davis from the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen used some 1.5 million data points describing electricity generation in all US states to assess the likely impact of the new Clean Power Plan, a policy aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the US.

University of Groningen scientists are the first to discover the mechanism bacteria use to import vitamins, and in the process they discovered that the textbooks were wrong. The results were published in Nature Communications.

Scholieren kunnen kennismaken met Informatica en Wiskunde tijdens een speciale middag over het kraken van codes.

On Friday and Saturday, March 11th and 12th, a record number of 565 visitors participated in the National Stargazing Days at the Blaauw Observatory of the University of Groningen.

Gerrit Poelarends was looking for an enzyme that would make a key step in the production of important pharmaceuticals greener and much more efficient. It led him to a tiny protein called 4-oxalocrotonate tautomerase. Over a period of five years, he managed to map the possibilities it offers and re-engineer it to perform the required step.

Physicists have used the radio antennas of the Lofar telescope to study high energy cosmic particles. In the journal Nature they report that the origin of these particles lies within the Milky Way.

When there is fierce competition for territories, shy-slow birds have an advantage. That's what University of Groningen ecologists found while studying the evolution of personality traits in great tits.

Science LinX newsletter for March 2016

Science LinX organizes two workshops for teachers to introduce new teaching modules.

Report on the Groningen qualifying round of FameLab, the international competition for young scientists who want to explain their work to the general public.

Astronomer and engineer Robert Huisman designed a vital part for the European Extremely Large Telescope, and got his PhD in the process.

Martin van Duin, research scientist at Lanxess, becomes honorary professor in Rubber products at the University of Groningen.

Come and watch the Groningen heat of FameLab 2016, on 11 February!

The first year essay written by master student Nancy Obeng became an Opinion article in the journal Trends in Microbiology.

Researchers from the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy and the Martini Hospital are developing a drug preparation that can be inhaled. Patients suffering from what is known as an ‘off-period’ (cramps throughout body) are expected to recover much faster with this innovation.

During Eurosonic/Noorderslag, festival-goers had the opportunity to touch and interact with innovations in sustainability in SummerLabb. Science LinX was part of this festival-lab with a preview of the new exhibition on energy transition RE:charge.

Science LinX presents RE: charge at Eurosonic/Noorderslag

University of Groningen scientists have come up with an improved method to apply fluorescent labels in microscopy studies. They have linked a protective ‘stabilizer’ to the fluorophore resulting in increased and longer emission. Their results were published on 11 January in the journal Nature Communications.

Three trips to Greenland resulted only in disappointment for climate researcher Harro Meijer from the University of Groningen Centre for Isotope Research. A few years later, however, the data from this failed field experiment on the ice cap suddenly proved extremely useful, and Meijer ended up contributing to a study that was published in Nature Climate Change on 4 January.

University of Groningen chemistry professor Sijbren Otto studies ‘chemical evolution’ to see if self-organization and autocatalysis will provide the answer. His research group previously developed self-replicating molecules – molecules that can make copies of themselves – and have now observed diversification in replicator mutants. This means that ecological diversity as encountered in biology may well have its roots at the molecular level. The results were published on 4 January in Nature Chemistry.

Science LinX newsletter for December 2015

Pep Ingla-Aynés, a PhD student in the nanodevices group headed by Bart van Wees at the University of Groningen, has obtained the longest spin relaxation length ever achieved. With a length of 24 micrometers he doubled the previous record distance, set by the same group.

University of Groningen scientists and colleagues from Switzerland have conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the proteins that the bacterium Escherichia coli expresses in 22 different growth conditions. The resulting dataset describes most (>90 percent) of the protein mass in the cells and will be a treasure trove for cell biologists. A first description is published on 7 December in Nature Biotechnology.

University of Groningen scientists are the first to provide a direct look at the divisome, a protein complex responsible for cell division in bacteria. Their results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

AkzoNobel, BASF, Shell, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Top Sector Chemistry, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and Utrecht University, the Eindhoven University of Technology and Groningen University today presented their plans for setting up the new Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC). This national research centre will tackle important energy and chemistry issues associated with the g rowing depletion of the finite supply of raw materials.

Science LinX newsletter for December 2015

Kort verslag van 'Een dag student' bij de bètafaculteit.

Nanotechnology looks at the very small. Although it might seem a world away from the chimneys of Tata Steel, Bart Kooi, leader of the research group Nanostructured Materials and Interfaces, is joining forces with this steel giant. University of Groningen scientists investigate the effect of nanoparticles on steel quality

University of Groningen chemist Ben Feringa wins Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize

Material scientist Andreas Herrmann, orthodontist Yijin Ren and their colleagues have made a 3D printing substrate which kills bacteria on contact. The first applications will be in dentistry, but other implants may follow. Their results were recently published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

Friese scholier Sybren Bos wint finale zoutkristallenwedstrijd.

Report of the Night of Nights in the Blaauw Observatory

Science LinX newsletter for October 2015

Microbiologists Robin Sorg and Jan-Willem Veening from the University of Groningen have taken a detailed look at single bacterial cells to elucidate the prerequisites for antibiotic resistance development in the human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae . They published their study on 30 October 2015 in the journal Nature Communications.

Science LinX newsletter for October 2015

Astronomers from Groningen contribute to biggest telescope ever

Making snow on Greenland for better climate models

University of Groningen chemists led by prof. Ben Feringa designed a new type of molecular motor. The published their results this week in Nature Chemistry.

Verslag van de iGEM jamboree in Boston door het Groningse team 'Blue Energy'

Photo report on the Zpannend Zernike science fair

Review paper on microbial invasions

Theoretical physicists from the University of Groningen, supported by the FOM Foundation, have discovered that so-called ‘frustrated magnets’ can produce skyrmions, tiny magnetic vortices that may be used in memory storage. This discovery opens up a new class of materials for scientists working on ‘skyrmionics’, which aims to build memory and logic devices based on skyrmions. The results are published on 23 September 2015 in Nature Communications.

Science LinX to develop academic skills programme.

Report of the 'Research' theme at the Holland Web Week Groningen.

While studying the earliest light from the Universe, astronomers discovered unexpected structures in our galaxy

Fourth blog of the University of Groningen iGEM team

Physicists at the University of Groningen, together with colleagues from Utrecht and Brest, have discovered a new principle governing how information is sent between electronic circuits. This could also help generate electricity more efficiently from temperature differences. The results were published on 14 September in the journal Nature Physics.

Third blog of the University of Groningen iGEM team

Second post in the Groningen iGEM team blog.

The road to Boston: iGEM team Blue Energy produces energy using bacteria

Bioinformatics paper a hit during the summer.

New Science Linx exposition: Future Proof!

Forty kids investigate left- and right-handedness.

Photo impression of the Night of Arts and Science

KVI-Cart works on a faster, better way to check treatment plans for proton therapy

Review of the biography of astronomer J.C. Kapteyn

Five winners in Physics Olympiad National final

Winner of the 2014 Spinoza Prize Cisca Wijmenga on genes and health

Pupils of RSG De Borgen visit Science LinX

Meet up to discuss 3D printing in research.

ZEN network studies seagrass all over the Northern hemisphere

Blaauw Observatory organizes SUNday.

FOM grant for theoretical physicist Diederik Roest

PhD thesis on design and validation of HIFI, instrument for Herschel Space Telescope.

The Kapteyn Institute delivers new receivers for ALMA radio telescope

EUR 2 million ERC Consolidator Grant for Justin Ye.

Science LinX is looking for teachers to test innovative teaching modules.

University of Groningen chemists publish switchable catalyst in Nature Communications

Subject of the 26th Bernoulli lecture is a computer from Ancient Greece.

Report on the National Stargazing Days.

De Science LinX Nieuwsbrief voor Aporil 2015

De Science LinX Nieuwsbrief voor Aporil 2015

De Science LinX Nieuwsbrief voor Juni 2015

Science LinX newsletter for September 2015

Temporary exhibition: 3D printing in education and research

Secondary school pupils visit the University

Prizes awarded for best secondary school science profile assignment

Pupils take classes on board a ship sailing in the Carribbean.

Technasium pupils take electives at University of Groningen

PhD student shows rubbertree can be source of green oil

Trial of teaching module on breast milk

Safe and robust control system for multi agent systems.

New method to make graphene can lead to breakthrough in graphene electronics.

University of Groningen Open Day on 31 January

Dutch finals of EUSO science competition in Groningen.

University of Groningen scientists develop sensor to measure crowding in cells.

Computer speeds up enzyme design

PhD student Jiawen Chen revolutionizes light driven molecular motors

University of Groningen astronomer studies birth of Cosmic Web

PhD student makes bits out of polymers

Join the FameLab competition, regional round in Groningen.

De Science LinX Nieuwsbrief voor Januari 2015

De Science LinX Nieuwsbrief voor Maart 2015

Bio-informaticus Marnix Medema wint prijs voor beste proefschrift.

De Science LinX Nieuwsbrief voor Januari 2015

Two PhD students make their building greener

Sugar beets may become an important source of raw materials.

Pac-man caught in the act - Nature paper by University of Groningen biochemists

PhD student Ard Jan Grimbergen wins fifth 'Science Battle'

University of Groningen scientists have completely changed the activity of an enzyme in just one mutation.

Nature Communications paper describes greener, cheaper chemistry

RUG studente Maria Azhar wint afstudeerprijs Natuurkunde

Report on ‘Student for a Day’ in the Chemistry / Chemical Engineering degree programme.

University of Groningen scientists publish Nature paper on a chemical nanoreactor.

Some 3,000 visits to Science bachelors during the annual Open Day.

Astronomer Amina Helmi gives inaugural lecture on galactic evolution and gender equality.

Science LinX Newsletter for November

University of Groningen chemists in final of Dance your PhD contest

Teachers travel to Lisbon for workshop in exhibit design.

'Dark sky night' in the Blaauw Observatory

An interdisciplinary conference on the Star of Bethlehem at the University of Groningen.

PhD thesis describes drone that flies like a bird

Blaauw Observatory opens during 'Night of the Night'

Oscar Kuipers in documentary on synthetic biology

Weekend of Science: 800 visit Bernoulliborg

New enzyme reaction could reduce bad smells.

Lots of excitement at Zernike this Sunday

Science LinX Newsletter for October

Science LinX publishes vision in Spokes Magazine

First meeting of teachers in the Science LinX project IRRESISTIBLE.

University of Groningen scientists work on new design to harvest wave energy

How a potty idea led to several Nature papers.

Agreement brings Chilean engineers to Groningen

Farewell to Vice Dean Peter van Haastert

Science LinX Newsletter for September

Research may lead to new method of data storage.

Pupils from the Zernike College visit Science LinX

The Salt Express will visit 60 primary schools in the coming weeks.

University of Groningen astronomer Amina Helmi co-author of Science paper.

Nano-cooler works on spin change

Veni-grant awarded to Science Faculty

Investering van 81 miljoen in nationale onderoeksstructuur.

Bezoek van scholieren aan de bètafaculteit tijdens Junior Honours College.

University of Groningen host training camp for Dutch delegates to International Physics Olympiad

Conference on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems held in Groningen.

Prof. Gerard Roelfes uses chemistry to study biology.

Interview with University of Groningen honorary doctor Renata Kallosh and husband Andrei Linde.

Praise for winner of Spinoza Prize Theunis Piersma.

Spinoza Prize 2014 awarded to Theunis Piersma.

American astronomers discover planets around Kapteyn's Star.

Astronomy professor Rafaella Morganti appointed 'Commander in the Order of the Star of Italy'.

Twee winnaars Jan Kommandeurprijs 2014 krijgen ook KNAW Onderwijsprijs.

Verslag van de Nacht van Kunst en Wetenschap vanuit de Der Aa-kerk.

University of Groningen cell biologists win cell race.

Enzyme mediates three steps from glucose to bioplastic.

Lab at My Place brengt wetenschap in je huiskamer!

Professor of Molecular Dynamics Siewert-Jan Marrink is awarded a EUR 780,000 research grant for simulating membranes.

Vijf Groningse chemici krijgen een onderzoekssubsidie van NWO.

University of Groningen microbiologists topple 70 year old dogma.

Winnaars van de profielwerkstukwedstrijd deden mee aan de jaarlijkse International Conference of Young Scientists.

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Second-years from the Werkman College visit the Science LinX Girls Day.

The video journal JoVE produced a video based on a scientific paper written by University of Groningen scientists.

A short report of the preliminary round of FameLab in Groningen.

Jasper Oosthoek defends his PhD thesis on phase-change memory.

The international FameLab competition comes to Groningen.

De winnaars van de Jan Kommandeurprijs zijn bekend!