Historical story

• 2017 winner Volkskrant-IISH Thesis Prize examined everyday communism under Khrushchev

  The communist interference during the 1950s went a long way:even cooking had to go according to plan. Olav Hofland investigated whether this actually got off the ground in practice. He won the 2017 Volkskrant-IISH Thesis Prize for his thesis. This year, three men were shortlisted for the Volkskrant

• Abominable snowman turns out to be an Asian bear

  He would look like a big monkey. The local population occasionally finds footprints and a few say they have seen him. But the Abominable Snowman is probably just an Asian bear. Scientists write this today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Former vet and now presenter Mark Evans scrambled for

• Shifting scientific perspectives on Dutch slavery history

  Until recently, slavery and colonial heritage received little attention in Dutch science. The new generation of historians looks at the subject in a different way and with the help of new sources. Opinions are divided, but perspectives are slowly shifting. Due to the growing discussion about the im

• A dive under the work of the Dutch masters through X-ray scans of the canvas in which threads are counted

  Research on paintings often takes place on the surface, but the deeper layers of paint and the canvas contain a wealth of information. X-ray scans of Vermeers paintings now show which works come from the same roll of canvas. A possible gold mine for art historians. In the Mauritshuis I am surrounde

• Shadows of the liberation

  75 years ago, the Netherlands was finally free, after five years of German occupation. Recent research shows that it was not a celebration for all liberated citizens. With the passage of time, more and more attention is being paid to their suffering and thus to the downside of liberation. Books abo

• The Outbreak Management Team needs more and different expertise

  The corona crisis is not a medical problem, but a social problem. Nevertheless, Rutte mainly bases his policy on advice from medical experts. Medical historian Rina Knoeff believes that historians should also be listened to. Historians do not have to wait for the corona crisis to become history. It

• Ode to failed buildings

  A swimming pool that sinks into the ground and becomes unusable. Architects commit suicide over a failed building. You come across it all in Waagstukken, tragic stories about engineering. Usually we read about buildings in the newspaper or on websites when they have won a prize. An office complex t

• Does progress exist in science?

  Is science still moving us forward? Now that examples of flawed research have piled up in recent years, that question seems to be becoming more and more penetrating. A group of philosophers are now researching it. Our faith in science is tested by studies that repeatedly fail to produce the same re

• Reparation for the spiritual father of skull leather

  The bumps and pits on your skull betray your character, said Austrian physician and scholar Franz Joseph Gall. At the end of the eighteenth century he drew crowds with this idea, but today he is remembered at most as a quack. With the book The Brain Collector, neuropsychologist Theo Mulder gives thi

• Selection:Relevant articles about the corona crisis

  NEMO Kennislink closely follows the news about the Covid-19 outbreak. Every day new relevant articles are published worldwide that are based on good scientific sources. We have listed the most interesting articles for you here. The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations The New Yorker – May 1 (

• Peter Jan Margry:This epidemic teaches us that you can't control everything

  While the virus spreads, many peoples lives come to a standstill. That raises big questions. Where can we turn to with our uncertainty? According to ethnologist Peter Jan Margry, we must realize that we cannot keep everything under control. The coronavirus inevitably confronts us with existential q

• Coastal erosion exposes fossils

  Two centuries ago, the first complete giant reptiles were found on the south coast of England, such as the ichthyosaur and the plesiosaur. Along the Jurassic Coast Special finds are still regularly made, such as large skulls of the ichthyosaur. The unstable rocky coast constantly exposes new fossil

• London celebrates 150 years underground

  In 2013 it will be exactly a century and a half since the first underground in London started running. Meanwhile the London tube immensely popular, transporting more than a billion travelers a year. The London Underground was the first in the world. When the metro was opened in 1863 – then the larg

• Chosen by poverty

  In 1212 something special took place in Germany and France. Thousands of children united to go on a crusade to Jerusalem. Almost every Dutch person knows this story thanks to the popular childrens book Cruise in Jeans from 1973. That there was once a childrens crusade is a myth, however. But a myth

• Nikola Tesla, the eccentric

  Nikola Tesla is a born inventor, he is adept at it from an early age. Later on, the originally Serb will make important contributions to our current electricity grid. But he also works on radio communication and wireless energy transfer. Tesla is often portrayed as an almost mythical figure, a legen

• Incas sacrifice drugged children

  Children sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago were first given large amounts of alcohol and coca leaves. This is evidenced by the hair of three mummified children. Just before the sacrifice, they were given an even higher dose of drugs, probably to keep them calm during their dying process. Hair An

• Josephine Cochrane, the self-made woman

  The woman in the list of famous inventors initially developed her device to lend a helping hand. But especially hotels and medical institutions saw the usefulness of the fast and boiling hot washing machine. Kennislink spoke to Ms Cochrane about her difficult road to success and the inspiration for

• How strong is our democracy?

  Over the past seven years, dozens of scientists have conducted research into the ups and downs of our democracy for the NWO project Contested Democracy. What new insights has this yielded? Kennislink discussed some important conclusions with initiator Remieg Aerts. The shockingly rapid rise of the

• Coffee with your NSB neighbor

  The recently graduated historian Josje Damsma came to a striking conclusion in her dissertation:the Dutch did not necessarily hate NSB members as a person. This conclusion sparked heated reactions in the press and on various forums. Is the time ripe for the cozy NSB neighbor? Her reaction. “The jud

• Alan Turing, the Outcast

  Today, many see him as the “father of the computer.” In 1936, British mathematician Alan Turing devised a number of important concepts that formed the basis for the computer revolution. But the brilliant Turing also struggled with his homosexuality at a time when it was all but accepted. “Into the c