2023

Professor Sijbren Otto is working on a chemical system that shows signs of life, but that is made up of entirely different molecules than life as we know it.

In 2010, UG Professor of Systems Chemistry Sijbren Otto accidentally discovered molecules that copy themselves. Since then, he has been working on artificial life in the lab.

An international team of researchers has discovered a giant and extremely faint stream of stars between galaxies.

Against the trends for many shorebirds, sanderlings have been doing relatively well in the Wadden Sea for the past years. The key to that success lies in the timing of these little birds' main food: shrimp on the mudflats.

Materials scientist Patrick van der Wel contributed to measurements that helped discover the root cause of a deadly metabolic illness called Barth syndrome. This could be a step towards a cure.

On 7 November, the first full-colour images of the cosmos taken by ESA’s space telescope Euclid were presented. The University of Groningen is responsible for part of the data processing.

Adri Minnaard builds pieces of the tuberculosis bacteria. According to him, this is the route to a more effective vaccine and simpler, more robust diagnostics.

Worldwide, scientists search for novel materials to build computer microchips for brain-like computers. However, there are no theoretical guidelines for the creation of these computers, even though this is crucial, argues Herbert Jaeger, Professor of Computing in Cognitive Materials at the University of Groningen.

Scientists at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, have just reproduced two famous paintings at the micrometre scale.

Astronomers at the University of Groningen are involved in the design and deployment of the European Extremely Large Telescope, while huge parts for this mega-telescope are being built at a special facility in Dwingeloo.

An international team of scientists has developed a method to detect thousands of lipid molecules that are displayed to the human immune system. This information can be used for the development of vaccines or anti-microbial treatments.

Léon Koopmans wants to put a telescope on the moon to peer into the Cosmic Dark Ages

An international team of researchers have resolved the fundamentals of the molecular switching behaviour of a specific class of switchable molecules called azonium compounds. This paves the way towards actual application of these compounds in developing light-controlled drugs.

Giovanni Maglia has developed a method to transport proteins through a nanopore

UG researcher Prajal Pradhan aims to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals from failing

In an article that was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution on 14 September, Biologists from the University of Groningen show how European pied flycatchers can adapt to climate change.

Macromolecular chemist Qi Chen from the University of Groningen used a problematic weed to build a tiny, self-powered sensor.

Scientists at the University of Groningen have developed an oscillating system that contains a catalyst and exhibits periodic catalytic activity.

Bart Verheij thinks that responsible AI should be capable of logical reasoning.

An international team of marine scientists, led by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Center for Coastal Studies in the USA, has studied the DNA of family groups from four different whale species to estimate their mutation rates. Using the newly determined rates, the group found that the number of humpback whales in the North Atlantic before whaling was 86 percent lower than earlier studies suggested.

A chemical system of synthetic replicators showing the first signs of Darwinian evolution: two different replicators compete for a common building block, and which one wins depends on the environment. As the replicators can also change their environment, ecological-evolutionary dynamics ensue. This finding shows that Darwinian principles extend beyond biology to synthetic systems.

Nature in the Wadden area is under pressure, but what the consequences of climate change, tourism, environmental pollution or sea level rise are is still unclear. Using six bird species, researchers from the RUG, NIOZ, and the UVA want to find out what is going wrong and what protective measures work. Artists also play a role in this.

Tomato plants as the source of inspiration

In the struggle to survive, plants have numerous tactics to ward off enemies. The wild tomato has a secret weapon as well: tiny hairs on its stem that act as a glue trap for flies and insects that wish to feast on the nutritious leaves. This weapon is a type of natural pesticide that proved to be the source of inspiration for Abinaya Arunachalam, a PhD student at the University of Groningen.

For approximately 3,000 years, generations of green sea turtles have returned to the same seagrass meadows to eat. This highlights the importance of protecting seagrass meadows along the coasts of North Africa.

Adéla Melcrová, biophysicist at the University of Groningen, and her colleagues discovered that the relatively new antibiotic AMC-109 affects the cell membrane of bacteria by disordering its organization. This differs from most other antibiotics and could open up new directions for future treatment and drug development.

Professor of neurogenetics Jean-Christophe Billeter is convinced that all life is in essence social, even that of fruit flies

Beatriz Noheda, Professor of Functional Nanomaterials at the University of Groningen, has studied the properties of hafnium oxide material and recently wrote a Perspective article for the journal Nature Materials on its properties for the journal Nature Materials for neuromorphic computing. ‘It is already used in devices, even though we do not understand all of the physics.’

Action to protect the planet against the impact of climate change will fall short unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system, which now make up a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions. These results are described in a paper by an international group of scientists led by the Universities of Groningen and Birmingham, which was published in Nature Food on 15 June.

MIRI instrument on JWST detects H-alpha emission during the Epoch of Reionization for the first time

An international team of surface scientists has now developed a simple method to produce large and very clean 2D samples from a range of materials using three different substrates.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.