Researchers Jaap Kaandorp, Rob Belleman of the Informatics Institute, Computational Science lab (CSL) and master student Inge Bieger have developed a new method to use the analysis of 3D images to quantify the morphology of complex-formed and branching corals.

For the first time, scientists from the University of Amsterdam and a Spanish university have developed a method to quickly determine the exposure of people to pesticides via the analysis of wastewater. The researchers published their work in the scientific journal Chemosphere this Summer.

This summer, The NWO Domain Board Science approved 21 grant applications in the Open Competition Domain Science-XL programme (ENW-XL). Together, the projects have been granted about 60 million euros. Four of the projects involve IoP physicists.

Sponges are among the oldest creatures on Earth and play a key role in many underwater ecosystems. A new study by Niklas Kornder of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and colleagues finds that sponges 'sneeze' to clear their water channels. With a sneeze the sponge releases a type of mucus that is eaten by other animals. The results of this study are published in Current Biology on August 10th 2022.

Three UvA researchers who all recently obtained their doctorates have received Rubicons grant from NWO/ZonMw to conduct research at foreign research institutions. They are: chemist Eduard Bobylev, astronomer Ines Pastor Marazuela, and socio-cultural researcher Alex Thinius.

Future Planet Studies student Daan Rademaekers has been appointed as the University of Amsterdam's student assessor by the Executive Board (CvB). Rademaekers succeeds Dikran Kassabian as of 1 September for a period of one year. 'Education policy has appealed to me since a long time, and this is a great opportunity to both be involved and to learn a lot from the board member perspective,' he says.

Rivke Jaffe, professor of Urban Geography at the UvA, has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Th grant, which amounts to 2.5 million euros, will allow her to conduct research into the role that animals play in the development of urban inequalities.

Part of being smart is knowing where your limitations lie. Learning AI systems have long been bad at this. But thanks to UvA researchers Rajeev Verma and Eric Nalisnick, AI systems are now starting to learn when it would be better to leave a decision to a human expert.

Many fans of online video games make their own content, inspired by their favourite game: from self-invented storylines to new characters. Although this gives fans some influence over the video game production process, it is primarily the video game industry that capitalises on it. That is the conclusion of Argyrios Emmanouloudis in his doctoral thesis, which he will be defending on 9 September.

Prof. Sander Woutersen of the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences has been awarded a Demonstrator Grant of 160,000 euros by the Dutch Research Council NWO (Domain Applied and Engineering Sciences). Together with his colleague and Veni-fellow Dr Giulia Giubertoni he will be developing a structureand size-sensitive chemical probe.

The FASTER consortium for new, precise picosecond detectors and algorithms for particle detectors was awarded an NWO ENW-XL grant of 3.1 million euros. Main applicant of the consortium is UvA physicist Hella Snoek; among the 9 co-applicants from Amsterdam, Utrecht, Maastricht, Nijmegen and Groningen is also UvA physicist Jory Sonneveld. The consortium will develop new detector technologies and computer algorithms that use extremely precise timing information at the picosecond level.

The BG5 building on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in the city centre has been empty since the end of 2014. Facility Services and Ad Hoc manage buildings like these together to prevent squatting, vandalism and abuse. Together they developed a new concept, which gave start-ups a unique opportunity to occupy an office at a prime location in the city centre from 2019. The video shows the result of the cooperation.

A digital twin of society that policymakers can use to solve complex social problems: that sounds futuristic. Yet this is exactly what researchers from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and the University of Amsterdam (UvA), in particular the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), are working on. On 31 May of this year, the fruitful cooperation between Statistics Netherlands and the UvA was extended for five years.

Sarah de Lange has been named Professor of Political Pluralism at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). What will she focus on?