7 November 2016
The ‘Müller-Lyer illusion’ is not a phenomenon that sounds familiar to many people. However, most of us have seen the image of two arrow-like lines, one with normal arrowheads at each end and the second with inverted arrows at each end. The line with the inverted arrows appears to be longer. This is an optical illusion that the German psychologist Franz Müller-Lyer described a century ago. Veni researcher Myrthe Plaisier (VU Amsterdam) and her colleagues discovered that if you allow study subjects to lift two identical brass bars with ordinary and ‘inverted’ cardboard arrows attached to their ends, they then think that one object is not only longer but also lighter than the other. And that is a new discovery. The article ‘How Heavy Is an Illusory Length?’ was published in the online magazine i-Perception.
18 October 2016
Although the increasing number of fences and walls along national boundaries is intended to prevent human migration, these can also have disastrous consequences for the natural spread of large animals. These constructions could rapidly destroy decades of international collaboration to facilitate the spread of European brown bears, lynxes and wolves, for example. This is the argument that lawyer Arie Trouwborst presents in the article entitled ‘RECIEL: Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law’. The author and his research group are working at Tilburg University with the support of a Vidi grant from the NWO Talent Scheme.
11 October 2016
In certain cases, it is necessary to refuse a verdict rendered in one Member State of the European Union ‘crossing the border’ to another Member State in order to safeguard the universal right to a fair trial. If a verdict is the result of an unfair procedure in the due process of law in one country, then it must remain possible for another country not to accept it. That is the judgement passed by lawyer Monique Hazelhorst in her PhD thesis entitled ‘Free Movement of Civil Judgments in the European Union and the Right to a Fair Trial’. She defended her doctoral thesis on Thursday 13 October 2016. Her research was funded from the NWO Talent Scheme.
15 July 2016
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant of maximum 250,000 euros to 158 researchers who have recently gained their doctorate. With a Veni grant from NWO, highly promising young researchers can further elaborate their own ideas during a period of three years.
25 May 2016
How far does the power of the European Union extend? Recent rulings from the European Court of Justice approved extending the executive powers of the EU, including those of its official staff. However, it is not clear where the boundaries of this freedom lie exactly. Researcher Joana Mendes concludes that the Court of Justice dismisses the role of the law, which should bring structure to the ‘discretionary powers’ as the foundation of EU decisions. Her article ‘Discretion, care and public interests in the EU administration’ was published in the journal Common Market Law Review, with NWO funding from the Talent Scheme.
10 May 2016
NWO has awarded 87 experienced researchers a Vidi grant worth 800,000 euros. The grant enables them to develop their own innovative line of research and set up their own research group.
Red knots (Calidris canutus canutus) migrate between their summer breeding grounds in the high Arctic and their wintering grounds in the West African tropics. An international team of scientists discovered that chicks currently born under rapidly warming conditions in the Arctic attain smaller sizes before migration starts because they miss the insect peak. If they make it all to their wintering grounds on the African intertidal flats, they are there faced with a second disadvantage: their shorter bills hamper their ability to reach their favourite shellfish food in the tropics. This results in an evolutionary force towards smaller-sized birds with relatively large bills.
12 February 2016
32 excellent scientists have received a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from NWO. The funding will enable the laureates to do research for the next five years and to build up their own research group. Vici is one of the largest grants for individual scientists in the Netherlands and is part of NWO's Talent Scheme.
28 January 2016
When it comes to supply and demand for civil security technology, commercial parties play such a large role in defining danger that they effectively create the demand for security. The market for homeland security technology in Europe is therefore growing rapidly concludes Marijn Hoijtink in her PhD project into the ‘security industry’ in Europe. She also warns for the militarisation of everyday life because many influential companies in the sector have a military background. Hoijtink defended her doctoral thesis on 27 January at the University of Amsterdam. Her research was funded by a Vidi grant from the Talent Scheme.
21 January 2016
Brain research has demonstrated that psychopaths exhibit reduced control over their emotional actions. Researchers from the Donders Institute in Nijmegen discovered that the quantity of testosterone a person produces influences the parts of the brain responsible for regulating emotions. The findings provide starting points for the treatment of psychopaths. The results were published in ‘eNeuro: the online Journal of the Society for Neuroscience’. The article by Karin Roelofs and her group was realised thanks to a Vidi grant from NWO's Talent Scheme.
