https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from University of Amsterdam When we think of materials, we usually think of substances like metal, concrete, glass or rubber. What these examples have in common is that they are inactive: when pushed, pulled, shifted or sheared they may move or deform, but only by using the energy that is provided from the outside through the forces applied to them. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-restless-materials-dont-pressure-snap.html Engineering Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:20:05 EDT news695484661 In a paper just out in Nature Synthesis, researchers led by Prof. Timothy Noël of the University of Amsterdam's Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences presented a breakthrough in autonomous laboratory systems for synthesis optimization. With an estimated cost of a mere $5,000, a versatile, modular design and the option for "human in the loop" analytics, RoboChem Flex caters to all synthesis laboratories, large or small. The paper provides all the information to build their own system. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-robotic-chemistry-built-deployed-lab.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 13 Apr 2026 19:40:02 EDT news695313269 At any moment, your body hosts trillions of microorganisms, on your skin, in your hair, and especially in your gut. Together they form the microbiome. It plays a crucial role in digestion, immunity, and overall health. Yet despite decades of research, microbiome-based interventions such as probiotics or fecal transplants still produce inconsistent results. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-rethinking-gut-microbiome-health-staying.html Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:20:01 EDT news694971902 In a new Nature Physics publication, University of Amsterdam researchers introduce human-made materials that spring to life. These 'metamaterials' don't just learn to change shape, but can autonomously adapt their shape-changing strategy, perform reflex actions and move around like living systems do. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-metamaterial-chains-hinge.html General Physics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:20:05 EDT news694780502 The debate surrounding the provision of assistance to those wishing to die has long centered on abstract notions such as individual choice and personal autonomy. What is often missing from the discussion, says sociologist and Ph.D. candidate Kalima Carrigan, is a sense of the individuals behind these choices. Therefore, Carrigan spoke extensively with people facing this profound decision and places their life stories at the center of her research. She will defend her dissertation on March 31 at the University of Amsterdam. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-life-stories-path-death.html Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:20:08 EDT news694102151 In a study published in Analytical Chemistry, researchers from the University of Amsterdam's Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) reveal a sobering reality regarding nontargeted chemical analysis. Although widely used for screening the environment for chemicals, this concept isn't nearly as broad as its name suggests, leaving massive blind spots in the data. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nontargeted-analyses-chemical.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:40:04 EDT news692540522 Humans are fundamentally "musical animals"—and our capacity for music is rooted in biology, not just culture. This is the conclusion of new work by University of Amsterdam professor of Music Cognition Henkjan Honing. In "The Biology of Musicality," published in the journal Current Biology, Honing describes how two decades of work across psychology, neuroscience, biology, genetics and animal cognition have reshaped scientists' understanding of music's origins. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-musicality-rooted-human-biology-culture.html Evolution Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:00:03 EDT news692527662 UK Biobank is a major biomedical database and research resource, holding the genetic, health, and lifestyle information of half a million adult volunteers. Its datasets are accessible to approved researchers from academic, charity, government, and commercial organizations for health-related research in the public interest. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-consent-discontents-uk-biobank-breach.html Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:50:02 EST news691950721 Why are adolescents so sensitive to their peers' behavior? And is this sensitivity necessarily negative, as the term peer pressure often implies? In his Ph.D. dissertation, UvA behavioral scientist Andrea Gradassi demonstrates that adolescents are particularly influenced by classmates to whom they are socially close, such as friends, as well as by peers who occupy high-status positions within the classroom social network. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-teenagers-dont.html Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:10:06 EST news691937041 Scientists at the EU4MOFs research network have taken the initiative to standardize the reporting of synthetic procedures and material properties of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). To this aim, they have developed the concept of a "Material Preparation Information File (MPIF)," which has been introduced in a recent paper in Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-community-driven-standard-metalorganic-framework.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 03 Mar 2026 17:20:06 EST news691779781 Corals living in coastal bays with strongly fluctuating temperatures and environmental conditions are better able to withstand heat and other stressors than their counterparts on more stable reefs. This is shown by research conducted by marine biologist Sarah Solomon, whose thesis offers valuable insights into the mechanisms and trade-offs associated with the resilience of coral reefs in a rapidly changing climate. She will defend her Ph.D. thesis on Thursday, February 19, at the University of Amsterdam. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-corals-extreme-coastal-bays-greater.html Plants & Animals Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:12:00 EST news690639061 Utilizing data from Stichting HIV monitoring (SHM) and Statistics Netherlands, a study published in the journal Nature Communications has compared labor market outcomes of 5,960 people diagnosed with HIV between 2010 and 2022 to a matched control group of 59,600 people drawn from the general population. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-economic-hiv-quantifies-impact-income.html HIV & AIDS Mon, 16 Feb 2026 11:59:22 EST news690465541 What happens to soft matter when gravity disappears? To answer this, UvA physicists launched a fluid dynamics experiment on a sounding rocket. The suborbital rocket reached an altitude of 267 km before falling back to Earth, providing six minutes of weightlessness. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-rocket-science-3d-soft-gravity.html Soft Matter Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:00:05 EST news690045931 From table salt to snowflakes, and from gemstones to diamonds—we encounter crystals everywhere in daily life, usually cubic (table salt) or hexagonal (snowflakes). Researchers from Noushine Shahidzadeh's group at the UvA Institute of Physics now demonstrate how mesmerizing spherical crystal shapes arise through structures called spherulites. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-scientists-reveal-formation-mechanism-spherical.html Nanomaterials Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:02:23 EST news690051721 Controlling light is an important technological challenge—not just at the large scale of optics in microscopes and telescopes, but also at the nanometer scale. Recently, physicists at the University of Amsterdam published a clever quantum trick that allows them to make a nanoscale mirror that can be turned on and off at will. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-quantum-phenomenon-enables-nanoscale-mirror.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 08 Jan 2026 14:42:38 EST news687105721 When observing small worms under a microscope, one might observe something very surprising: the worms appear to make a sweeping motion to clean their own environment. Physicists at the University of Amsterdam, Georgia Tech and Sorbonne Université/CNRS have now discovered the reason for this unexpected behavior. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-worms-particle-sweepers-simple-movement.html General Physics Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:57:31 EST news686851022 Criminal networks are known for their ability to reorganize and continue operating even after major law enforcement crackdowns. New research from the University of Amsterdam's Informatics Institute and Institute for Advanced Study shows why: The networks adapt in ways that reduce their visibility while maintaining, and in some cases increasing, their levels of criminal activity. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-police-crackdowns-criminal-networks.html Social Sciences Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:01:14 EST news685195261 A team of physicists from the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Physics has 3D-printed a Christmas tree made entirely of ice. Researchers Menno Demmenie, Stefan Kooij and Daniel Bonn used no freezing technology or refrigeration equipment—just water and a vacuum. In time-lapse videos, you can see how the Christmas tree is printed and how it melts again when the vacuum pump is turned off. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-3d-christmas-tree-ice.html Soft Matter Wed, 17 Dec 2025 09:41:20 EST news685186771 A new study led by the UvA suggests that even a fictional personality system, the Hogwarts houses from Harry Potter, can reveal meaningful patterns in real-world entrepreneurial mindsets. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-hogwarts-house-reveals-entrepreneur.html Economics & Business Tue, 09 Dec 2025 22:00:01 EST news684518427 Inspired by the Japanese art of kirigami, a team of scientists from the University of Amsterdam have developed a material that can reflect different colors of light, depending on how it is stretched. The results were recently published in the journal ACS Photonics. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-chameleon-nanomaterial-mechanical-strain.html Nanophysics Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:43:40 EST news684157381 A new study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam shows how gravitational waves from black holes can be used to reveal the presence of dark matter and help determine its properties. The key is a new model, based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, that tracks in detail how a black hole interacts with the surrounding matter. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-decoding-dark-imprint-black-hole.html Astronomy Fri, 05 Dec 2025 10:56:32 EST news684154561 Real progress in oral health doesn't come from expensive gadgets, but from better daily habits. That is the conclusion of dentist-periodontist Tim Thomassen in his dissertation Oral Disease Prevention, which he will defend on 12 December at the University of Amsterdam. In his research, he examines how effective different types of toothbrushes are and how much impact the actual time people spend brushing has on oral health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-important-healthy-mouth-high-tech.html Dentistry Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:54:14 EST news684086042 Some phenomena in our daily lives are so commonplace that we don't realize there could be some very interesting physics behind them. Take a dripping faucet: why does the continuous stream of water from a faucet eventually break up into individual droplets? A team of physicists studied this question and reached surprising conclusions. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-faucet-jet-breakup-angstrom-scale.html Soft Matter Mon, 01 Dec 2025 16:12:20 EST news683827921 Humans can "catch" fear from robots, new research has shown. The findings—by a team of psychologists from the University of Amsterdam and the University of British Columbia—shed new light on how emotions can spread through touch, with implications for human relationships, mental health, and future technologies such as virtual reality and wearable devices. The research is published in the journal Emotion. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-robots-reveal.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 18 Nov 2025 13:45:03 EST news682695901 When you think of birds imitating sounds, parrots and starlings might come to mind. They're famous for copying human speech, car alarms, and even ringtone melodies. But what happens when you challenge them with something really complex, like the electronic beeps and boops of R2-D2, the beloved Star Wars droid? Researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Leiden University put nine species of parrots and European starlings to the test. The results are published in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-birds-imitate-r2-d2-good.html Plants & Animals Thu, 06 Nov 2025 10:59:06 EST news681649135 Having good neighbors can be very valuable—even in the atomic world. A team of Amsterdam physicists was able to determine an important property of strontium atoms, a highly useful element for modern applications in atomic clocks and quantum computers, to unprecedented precision. To achieve this, they made clever use of a nearby cloud of rubidium atoms. The results were published in the journal Physical Review Letters this week. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-physicists-high-precision-strontium-atoms.html General Physics Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:22:04 EST news681484921 Optimal packing problems have inspired mathematicians for centuries. Biophysicists now add a layer to the question: How do chloroplasts arrange themselves optimally within cells, when the meaning of "optimal" changes over time? In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Emory University in Atlanta show how certain plants have managed to solve this problem strikingly well. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-optimal-chloroplasts-cells-maximize-safe.html Plants & Animals Thu, 23 Oct 2025 09:08:05 EDT news680429282 The race to build the metaverse—a vast digital realm where virtual and physical worlds merge—is already becoming a global power struggle. https://techxplore.com/news/2025-10-internet-visions-metaverse.html Internet Wed, 22 Oct 2025 13:32:32 EDT news680358745 People who have lived through floods, heat waves, or other climate-related disasters are significantly more likely to view climate change as a very serious threat, according to new research from the University of Amsterdam, published in Environmental Research Letters. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-extreme-weather-climate-perceptions-worldwide.html Environment Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:46:04 EDT news679758362 Amides and thioesters are ubiquitous compounds in chemistry, used for the production of medicines, natural products, and advanced materials. Traditionally, their synthesis is a messy business, involving wasteful reagents, toxic metals, or energy-intensive conditions. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-industrial-relevance-alcohol-dehydrogenase-enzymes.html Biochemistry Wed, 08 Oct 2025 14:13:03 EDT news679151581