A report from a teaching perspective

Switching over to the digital semester may have been comparatively easy for the Digital Design Group as many of the course units have already been taught using computers for quite a long time. Nevertheless, there was still much to learn about cloud-based applications and the limits of digital modelling. Professor Oliver Tessmann provides some insights into the digital semester in the Department of Architecture.

Researchers at TU Darmstadt develop device to detect unauthorized audio streaming

Researchers at TU Darmstadt have teamed up with partners from the US and France to develop a device that can detect when smart home devices stream audio recordings to the Iinternet without the user’s consent.

A remedy for stress and the fear of failure

The Centre for Educational Development and Technology (HDA) at TU Darmstadt not only wants to provide teachers and students with didactic tools but also with mental support – something that is not only important during the corona crisis. The new training course “Mentally strong in studies and teaching” has been online since June. It was developed by the teacher and mental coach Diana Seyfarth. The project is based on the methods of positive psychology and provides strategies to combat exam stress, anxiety blockages and other feelings of stress. The new course aims to promote the well-being of members of TU Darmstadt.

Continental and TU Darmstadt continue PRORETA research cooperation

Technology company Continental is continuing the series of its PRORETA research projects, together with TU Darmstadt, the University of Bremen and TU Iaşi (Romania). PRORETA 5 is dedicated to one of the most challenging tasks for automated driving: recognizing complex traffic situations in inner cities and how algorithms from sensor data can deduce the correct driving decisions in these situations. By the end of 2022, algorithms based on artificial intelligence (AI) should be developed and tested for the entire chain of effects of automated driving.

Interview with Prof. Michèle Knodt

How can policymakers better coordinate the energy system transformation and get citizens more effectively involved? An analysis and recommendation by Michèle Knodt,w Professor of Political Science at TU Darmstadt.

International researcher team confirms TU findings on a new kind of radioactivity

Five years ago a team of the Institute for Nuclear Physcis of TU Darmstadt discovered the new, comparably rarely-occurring kind of radioactivity, the „competitive double-gamma decay“, which in 1937 had been predicted in theory by the Nobel Prize winner Maria Goeppert-Mayer. The findings which had been published in „Nature“ have now been confirmed and measured more precisely by an international team of researchers at the European Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics near Bucharest, Romania. The results are released in „Nature Communications“. One of the authors is the TU professor and at the time „joint-discoverer“, Norbert Pietralla.

Thin films in the fight against corona

Researchers in materials science, led by Professor Wolfgang Ensinger, are developing plastic membranes with nanopores. Now they are experimenting to establish whether the thin films are suitable as air filters in the fight against coronaviruses.

Students from three UNITE! Partners are designing a bioreactor for space missions in the INSPIRED project

The INSPIRED (International Project Week for Interdisciplinary Research-Oriented Digital Learning) project is being held entirely in digital form this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Students from Portugal, Italy and Germany are carrying out research and learning together in interdisciplinary groups for three weeks. Their task: to design a sustainable and efficient bioreactor that can generate nutrients and therapeutics under the extreme conditions found in space. The project has been held under the umbrella of the European University UNITE! since 2020. INSPIRED is a good example of what UNITE! stands for: completely new forms of cross-border teaching and student exchange.

Research at the Locomotion Laboratory

Human movement when stumbling is manifold – and remarkably misunderstood. TU motion scientist have come to a well-founded conclusion that could even help robots to maintain balance.

TU research team lets photons and atoms interact

Researchers at TU Darmstadt halt individual photons and can release them at the push of a button. The tool could be used for bug-proof communications, for example, or for something that was previously impossible.

Kavli Prize for physics professor Harald Rose and long-standing research colleagues

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has announced the 2020 Kavli Prize winners who will be honoured for groundbreaking discoveries in astrophysics, nanosciences and neurosciences. The highly prestigious Kavli Prize for Nanosciences, worth one million US dollars, is shared by Professor Harald Rose (TU Darmstadt and University of Ulm) with his colleagues Maximilian Haider, Knut Urban and Ondrej Krivanek.

An opportunity for digital lessons in schools

Student teachers at TU Darmstadt have already been using the electronic portfolio tool introduced by the Center for Teacher Education (ZfL) to prepare for and follow-up on their practical training units both inside and outside of school for around five years.

The international body identifies new members for the Scientific Council

TU Computer Science Professor Mira Mezini has been named as a member of the Identification Committee that identifies future members of the Scientific Council, the governing body of the European Research Council (ERC).

Digital teaching at the Institute IWAR

Christiane Brockmann has already been using Moodle exercises, scanned examinations and teaching videos in her chemistry courses and laboratory practicals for prospective environmental engineers for many years. She has gained good experience of these methods in her work at the Institute IWAR in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, which is now helping her in the digital summer semester. In particular, she wants to provide her students with more short films of chemistry experiments and video tutorials on laboratory devices as didactic tools.

TU study examines influences on perceived income justice

Whether people perceive their income as fair is not only important for themselves but also for the labour market. But which factors – environment or genetics – influence the perceived income justice? Professor Michael Neugart and doctoral student Selen Yildirim from the Institute of Public Economics and Economic Policy at the Department of Law and Economics investigated this question. They published the sometimes surprising results of their research in the journal “Economics and Human Biology”.