Science

The Dutch government is implementing a large number of rules, regulations, and law changes at the stroke of midnight on January 1. Below is a summary of changes made in the category Education and Culture:

The Netherlands might not be able to keep roadways from icing over this winter, due to high levels of the chemical PFAS in the country's rock salt supply. Rock salt makes up the vast majority of the country's road salt supply, of which an average of 200 thousand tons is distributed every winter along Dutch roads, said Ardin Bos in an interview with the Telegraaf.

The latest images from Dutch space instrument Tropomi, which maps air pollution around the globe, shows that India is the new top polluter in the world. Also, research shows that the Netherlands has one of the highest concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in Europe, Pieternel Levelt, head of satellite observation at Dutch meteorological institute KNMI and professor at TU Delft, said to newspaper AD. 

From today the Dutch public can suggest names for the "Dutch" exoplanet that was gifted to the Netherlands by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), to celebrate the union's 100th birthday, the Volkskrant reports. 

The IAU is responsible for, among other things, naming planets and other celestial bodies. To celebrate its 100th year of existence, the IAU "gave" planets to over 70 countries to name. The Netherlands got star HAT-P-6, which is 910 light years away from earth, and the planet that revolves around it, currently known by scientific name HAT-P-6-b. 

The Eindhoven University of Technology designed a sustainable alternative for the diesel and petrol generators used at festivals - a collapsible wind turbine that comes equipped with solar panels and a battery for energy storage. The GEM tower will be tested for the first time at the Pukkelpop festival in Hasselt, Belgium nine days from now, NOS reports.

Residents in the Groningen province received a scary start to Sunday morning when an earthquake measuring 2.5 on the Richter Scale shook the ground and rattled windows. The earthquake took place at 7 a.m. with an epicenter located below the small village of Garrelsweer.

"It was a huge bang. For a moment I thought there was a truck on its side," Garrelsweer resident Sibrand Bakker told the Telegraaf.

The number of cats and dogs used for medical experiments increased by 49 percent in 2017. In that year 909 dogs and 200 cats were used as lab animals, compared to 656 dogs and 89 cats in 2016, AD reports based on figures from the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA.

Half of the laboratory dogs and a third of the cats did not survive the experiments in 2017, according to the newspaper. 

While perhaps more commonly known for floods than droughts, The Netherlands is allocating seven million euros to combat excessively dry seasons in the country. The money will be used to build larger water reservoirs in sandy areas, to monitor levels of evaporation, and to reduce the impact of salinization on drinking water production, the government announced on Friday.

Three skeletons were found during archeological excavations in Den Bosch. The skeletons are believed to be soldiers who died during the siege of the city in the Eighty Years' War in the 17th century. Two skeletons were excavated during the past few days. The third skeleton is in the process of being excavated on Thursday, NOS reports.

The Veterinary Medicine faculty of Utrecht University 3D printed a skull cap for a dog - a premier in Europe. The dog had a benign tumor removed from the skull bone last year and the tumor was so large that he needed a new skull cap, NU.nl reports.

For the first time ever, researchers successfully put a fish species on contraception. Dutch biologist Max Janse and vet Henk Luten of Burgers' Zoo implanted a straw full of hormones into an extremely fertile eagle ray, after which she stopped producing offspring. Two years later the researchers published their results this week, NOS reports.