Science Stories

Every few years, PISA turns up in the news. It is an international study that measures how well 15-year-olds can read, and how good they are at maths and science. The conversation then usually turns to whether the Netherlands is rising or falling in the ranking. That is a shame, because it is not really a ranking at all. So what is it?

You spread a slice of bread and almost automatically sprinkle chocolate sprinkles - hagelslag - on top. Not because you've thought about it for a long time, but simply because you feel like it. It feels like your choice. But how free is that choice, really?

Summer is the season of pavement cafés, street parties and long evenings outdoors. But climate change is making our summers so hot that we’re told more and more often to stay indoors. If you don’t have many people around you, that can mean weeks spent alone. Almost every summer a heat record falls somewhere, but for loneliness there is no weather station. Can we design our cities to keep summer sociable for everyone?

During a heatwave, you can feel the city change from street to street. One road shimmers with heat coming off the asphalt. Five minutes away, a leafy street feels almost liveable. For most of us, a heatwave is a hard week that passes. For millions of others, this heat is the everyday climate, with no escape. So it matters whether planting more trees cools the streets that need it most, or mostly benefits neighbourhoods that already experience lower temperatures.

The Netherlands is built on controlling water. That is why we are reinforcing our dikes for warmer, wetter winters. But what if the country does not warm up, but cools down? Can our river delta handle that?