Science LinX news

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The lockdowns that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However, in the recovery phase, emissions could rise to levels above those projected before the pandemic. It all depends on how the stimulus money that governments inject into their economies is spent.

Science LinX presents three graphene videos.

Jouw huis eens van de chemische kant bekijken? Ga aan de slag met de Molecula moleculenspeurtocht! Kom erachter waar in huis je welke moleculen tegenkomt en hoe deze er in 3D uitzien.

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.

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.

Ben Feringa is awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

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.

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.’