News overview 2023

Vier scholen van de Stichting Quadraten presenteerden donderdagochtend 29 juni van onderzoek door hun leerlingen over milieu en kringloop.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Science LinX newsletter March 2023

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.