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They hit the headlines almost daily in the summer: major wildfires that reduce thousands of hectares to ashes.

"Better safe than sorry": Plants anticipate potential heatwaves by already slowing down pollen development under mild heat conditions, concludes Stuart Jansma in his PhD research project. This "overreaction" on the part of plants has negative effects on fruit and seed harvests when the weather is warm.

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. The analysis of sewage water and application of wastewater-based epidemiology is already done for drugs such as cocaine and for viruses such as covid-19.

Gamification can lead to lasting behaviour changes. That is the conclusion of a recent PhD study by Jan Dirk Fijnheer at Utrecht University. Households that played his game Powersaver Game saved up to 30 percent more energy than households that used an energy-savings app without game elements. Fijnheer will defend his dissertation on Wednesday, 7 September 2022.

Although it sounds weird, it is true: the steppes of Eastern Europe are home to a similar number of plant species as the regions of the Amazon rainforest. This is only seen when species are counted in small sampling areas rather than hectares of land. An international research team led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig has now demonstrated how much estimates of plant diversity change when the sampling area ranges from a few square metres to hectares.

"Maybe one day we can produce cell-based proteins on a rooftop in a city," says Julia Keppler from the Laboratory of Food Process Engineering. This lab looks into milk proteins made by cells instead of cows. Over the next four years, she and her colleagues will be taking major steps on this new path in the protein transition.

The opening of the academic year on 5 September is themed planetary boundaries. But, what are they? How can you study them, and can you use them in your day-to-day life? Today, episode 3: Marten Scheffer, one of the speakers during the opening. Marten Scheffer , professor of Aquatic Ecology, has been working on critical boundaries for some time.

Healthy lifestyle campaigns are often unsuccessful. It is hard to get people to eat healthily or do more exercise. Expertise on behaviour should be included at a much earlier stage in policy development, say twelve behavioural scientists in a position paper. They will present the paper to Maarten van Ooijen (State Secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport) on 31 August.

Scientists from TU Delft, together with scientists from other research institutions, will investigate how the reduction of urban greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution can best be monitored with atmospheric measurements. Monday, August 22, the measurement campaign will start in the Rotterdam region.

The Netherlands is preparing for La Vuelta Holanda which starts on Friday 19 August. How clean is the air in the places that the peloton is visiting? Researchers from Utrecht University have mapped the annual average air quality of each stage of La Vuelta and demonstrate that the air is most polluted at the start (Utrecht) and finish (Madrid).

For three years in a row, Steffen Künn and colleagues went to a seven-week-long chess tournament in Cologne to establish a link between levels of air pollution and cognitive performance. The somewhat alarming results were eagerly scooped up by the media, but it took even more data to convince the academic community that air pollution might affect our economy.

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.

Masses of hamburgers, steaks, cheese and a lot of eggs: Americans love their animal products. But researcher Oliver Taherzadeh discovered that only a relatively small group of high-volume consumers need to modify their diet to achieve an enormous environmental gain. The day on which we have used up all the biological resources that the Earth can regenerate in a year, Earth Overshoot Day, was this year 28 July.

The movement of elephants through wildlife corridors is directly impacted by differing forms of human pressures and development, new research by Elephants Without Borders (EWB) and Radboud University shows. Their study, published today in Frontiers in Conservation, is the first that takes an in-depth look at how varying land-use affects elephants and their use of wildlife corridors.

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. For many researchers, professional experience abroad is an important step in their career.

Larger fishes are more likely to experience oxygen deficiency in warming water than smaller species. The same applies to fish with large cells, note researchers at Radboud University in their latest study. In addition, marine fishes are less tolerant of oxygen-depleted water than freshwater fishes. Based on these insights, the researchers ultimately aim to predict which aquatic species are at risk due to changes in their habitat caused by global warming and human activities.

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Researchers have found 129 different pesticides on 23 cattle farms in Gelderland that likely have a negative impact on grassland birds. The Buijs Agro-services and WECF Nederland research agencies published a report on this in 2019, and have recently extended this research in collaboration with Radboud scientists, publishing their results in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and TU Delft have developed a model to generate hundreds of ways in which Europe's energy system can become green and self-sufficient by 2050. They have made their results available on an interactive platform to provide a clearer picture of all the various options and their associated trade-offs.

With many human-made chemicals, problems regarding public health and the environment become apparent only years after their widespread use. A team of researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University now propose a way to change that. In an article in the journal 'Chemosphere' they present a method for (re)designing safe and sustainable chemicals.