September 2009

Newsletter 7

News Earth and Life Sciences


Participation in VPRO voyage of the Beagle
A year of top-science on Dutch television. NWO, including ALW (Earth and Life Sciences), is participant of the project that will imitate the journey of Charles Darwin around the world. NWO's contribution to the project is to facilitate scientific research aboard the ship. The trip will be broadcast on television for almost a full year on Sundays (Nederland 2, 21.05) and can also be followed on the VPRO website. 		Stad Amsterdam


Niko Tinbergen lecture
On Sunday 20 September, Professor Marc Hauser (Harvard) shall give the Niko Tinbergen lecture. He will cover the subject: 'Evolving a moral instinct'. Leiden University organises the Niko Tinbergen lecture in cooperation with the NRC Handelsblad newspaper, Museum Naturalis, Boerhaave Museum and NWO-ALW. The lecture is held each year in memory of the Nobel Prize winner Niko Tinbergen and focuses, certainly in this Darwin Year, on evolution.


Facilitating research into Biosolar cells
The research programme 'Towards Biosolar Cells' has received a 25 million euro budget from the Economic Structure Enhancing Fund (FES). The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality recently announced this. NWO is making a financial and organisational contribution to this programme under the auspices of the NWO Theme Energy. The specific objective of the research programme is to develop background knowledge about solar cells based on the primary steps in photosynthesis. That knowledge must eventually contribute to sustainable energy applications. Click here for further information.


Annual report
ALW's Annual Report is part of NWO's Annual Report. NWO's Annual Report for the general public is called Synthese. You can read Synthese here. ALW’s section can be found on pages 4-7.


Bosatlas of the world beneath the Netherlands
To mark the conclusion of the international year of the planet earth, Noordhoff publishers have published a Bosatlas that examines solely the world under the Netherlands. Natural gas, metro tunnels, Roman ruins, soil energy, nutrients: the vast knowledge of the world under the Netherlands has been brought together in this atlas. Some 30 companies, government agencies and knowledge institutes worked on the realisation of this volume, including NWO-ALW. 		Bosatlas



Debate Darwin versus Einstein
On Tuesday 22 September, physicist Jan Zaanen will consider the world view of physicists versus that of biologists: Darwin versus Einstein. Spinoza te Paard is the title for a series of debates with Spinoza winners across the boundaries of science. The debates are held at music venue Het Paard van Troje, The Hague.


BWM workbook about diabetes
The Biosciences and Society Foundation (BWM) whose office is housed at ALW, has issued a new publication about diabetes. By 2025, there will be an estimated 1.3 million diabetes patients in the Netherlands. How doctors, the government and patients can best deal with this is detailed in this volume.


ALW Divisional Board
A number of changes have taken place on the Divisional Board:
- Prof. G. Komen, has left due to completion of tenure;
- Prof. M. Stive, has left due to completion of tenure;
- Prof. L. Dijkhuizen has been reappointed for a second tenure until 1 July 2011;
- Prof. M.A. Herber has been appointed as chair of the steering group Sustainable Earth.



Grants awarded


Programme news


Cognition
Within the programme Cognition the public event Illusio is being organised (Saturday 12 September, Pakhuis De Zwijger, Amsterdam). The American illusionist and pantomime artist Teller shall give a revealing performance. Following that the book by science journalist Bennie Mols – written on behalf of the programme committee – will be presented. Various exhibits involving illusions shall also be on display.

Illusio - Teller

Sea and Coastal Research
Together with NIOZ, ALW is organising a symposium within the programme Sea and Coastal Research. The symposium shall consider the first results from the subsidiary programme Carrying Capacity of the Wadden Sea. This symposium is also intended as a place where researchers can meet policy advisors.

Darwin week
KNAW and NWO are jointly organising the Darwin week. from 15 to 18 September. On Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September the programme Evolution and Behaviour shall be concluded with, amongst other things, a public lecture on the Thursday evening by Robin Dunbar. During this week the British Council exhibition on Darwin can also be viewed.

LOICZ
On 24 November the final symposium of the LOICZ programme (Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) and the Vlanezo programme (Flemish-Dutch Cooperation in Coastal Energy Research) shall take place. Location: Trippenhuis, Amsterdam. Further information available from Auke Bijlsma.

Ecogenomics
Ecogenomics studies the structure and function of an organism's genome in relation to the biotic and abiotic environment. The programme has two focus areas: Adaptation and Environmental Change, and Comparative Genomics and Evolution. Preproposals can be submitted until 21 September 2009. For further information see the website.


Deadlines


8 September: CSBR centres for systems biology
16 September: User Support Space Research
21 September: Ecogenomics
22 September: Sea and Coastal Research
1 October: TOP grants
22 October: ESF networking programmes
3 November: Sea and Coastal Research


Click here for further information about the deadlines.

Press releases


Apes also trade
Apes have a market economy due to trading in grooming sessions and apples. The apes obey the law of supply and demand. This was revealed by research in the programme Evolution and Behaviour and has been published in the scientific journal PNAS.

Warming up of subarctic peat accelerates CO2 emission
When subarctic peat warms up by 1 degree Celsius, the rate of CO2 emission increases by almost 60 percent. With this the Kyoto objectives are at risk, as explained in a Nature publication by VU University Amsterdam researcher Ellen Dorrepaal, who performed the study in northern Sweden with a grant from the Climate Variability Programme.

Evolutionary struggle between bacteria and viruses in the soil demonstrated
Evolutionary struggles also occur on a very small scale. Viruses of soil bacteria (phages) evolve in order to better infect surrounding bacteria. With the help of a Rubicon grant, Dr Michiel Vos published this finding in the scientific journal Science.