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A team consisting of physicists from the University of Amsterdam and medical researchers from the Amsterdam UMC and the Cardiology Centers of the Netherlands, has investigated the potential role of small aerosol droplets in the transmission of the coronavirus - an issue that has been under much debate recently.

Wang defended his PhD thesis, which was completed under the supervision of Prof. Marc Salomon, in June of last year. After 4 years in Amsterdam, he moved to China, where he is now assistant professor of Innovation and Information Management at the University of Hong Kong. Marketing, he states, has in some respects progressed further than other disciplines when it comes to the deployment of machine learning (ML).

Patients want to have a say in their medical treatment, especially when it will have a major impact on their life. Research shows that a shared decision-making process does indeed have positive effects. But how can a doctor learn how to approach this properly? The current training lacks sufficient opportunities to practise with patients.

What is a hit song made up of? And why are some songs much easier to remember than others? Musicologists Ashley Burgoyne and Henkjan Honing investigated this by using music from the Eurovision Song Contest. In the recently launched online experiment Hooked on Music , participants listen to songs from the Eurovision Song Contest throughout the years.

It has been all over the popular news: a Dutch man who has not been able to move or talk for eight years due to severe brain injury can once again function normally with the use of sleeping pills. Neurobiologists Conrado Bosman and Cyriel Pennartz of the UvA's Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences are among the scientists behind a study that tries to unravel the working mechanism of this phenomenon.

In a publication in the Journal of Cleaner Production, Prof. Bob van der Zwaan of the Van 't Hoff Institute of Molecular Sciences presents the first example of a learning curve for microwave ovens, which follows a learning rate of around 20%. The paper discusses opportunities for possible microwave heating applications in households and industry, that can contribute to sustainable development.

The loss of large mammalian frugivores as seed dispersers in tropical ecosystems will have severe consequences for many rainforest plants. This is the conclusion from a study using empirical data and simulations of fruit-eating mammals and palms, both iconic elements of tropical forests worldwide. The authors of the study, including UvA researchers Jun Ying Lim and W. Daniel Kissling, have published their results in the scientific.

The EHT team that published the first images of a black hole last year used the knowledge they gained to analyse archive data from the period 2009-2013, and concluded that its shadow has been wobbling across the years. The findings of the team, which includes Sera Markoff from the University of Amsterdam and her PhD candidate Koushik Chatterjee, are now published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Novel concept based on sunscreen-like molecules could boost crop production worldwide Researchers at the University of Amsterdam have developed a novel class of molecules capable of raising the temperature of plants. Application of such 'molecular heaters' allows crops to grow at lower environmental temperatures.

We tend to have strong feelings when it comes to politicians, ranging from disgust to enthusiasm. So just how deep-seated are these feelings? Bert Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn and Gijs Schumacher studied physical reactions to political messaging and found that the human body actually reacts to politics.

Members of parliament in Iceland tweet less than once a day on average, whereas parliamentarians in Turkey tweet six times a day on average. In Canada, the Netherlands, Turkey and the US upwards of 97% of active politicians are on Twitter, but in Austria the number is only 47%. These are some of the early findings offered up by the Twitter Parliamentarian Database (TPD), built by the researchers from the UvA's Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research and Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology.

Dark matter might be disappearing and sending its signal - but not very fast - in dwarf satellite galaxies Dark matter is even more elusive than thought before. This is the main message of a new study by a group of scientists that includes Shin'ichiro Ando of the Institute of Physics at the University of Amsterdam.

Astronomers from Belgium and the Netherlands, including Alex de Koter from the University of Amsterdam, present an explanation for the mesmerising shapes of planetary nebulae. The discovery is based on an extraordinary set of observations of stellar winds around ageing stars. Contrary to common consensus, the team found that stellar winds are not spherical but have a shape similar to that of planetary nebulae.

Protected nature areas are essential for conserving the earth's biodiversity. But having isolated protected areas isn't enough; to really maintain biodiversity, it is essential that these areas are also connected. A new study by an international team of biologists, including James Allan of the University of Amsterdam, shows that this is a huge problem worldwide.

Today, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) announced the launch of the research project "Designing the tax system for a Cashless, Platform-based and Technology-driven society" (CPT project). The ambitious initiative is led by the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law (ACTL) of the Amsterdam Law School (FdR).

Contrary to classical economic theories, people do not make economic decisions that benefit them the most but are biased towards default options. This bias has mostly been explained by how the options are framed. An experimental study by behavioural scientists from the University of Amsterdam now proves that biases are also built when framing is absent, originating from a person's internal state.

Women suffered gender-specific violence during the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship, says archaeologist and forensic anthropologist Laura Muñoz-Encinar in a recent publication. The researcher excavated mass graves to find new evidence about the specific forms of repression that women suffered during this period of the Spanish contemporary history.

Using chemistry and advanced data analysis for mapping demography In a paper recently published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, Dr Saer Samanipour of the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) reports on the chemical analysis of municipal wastewater as a predictor for population socioeconomics.

Microtargeting allows political players to send tailored messages to citizens in order to influence them. This could explain the successful Leave campaign in the UK, not to mention the surprising election of Donald Trump. But what about the Netherlands? UvA communication scientist Tom Dobber decided to investigate.

Gels occur everywhere in our everyday life, but the precise way in which they form is not very well understood. Combining experimental observations and numerical models, physicists from the universities of Amsterdam and Cambridge and from Unilever have now shown that gel formation is closely related to another well-known physical process: percolation.