Pragmatic approach to saving what can be saved

How can biodiversity be preserved in a world in which traditional ecosystems are increasingly being displaced by “man-made nature”? Biologists at the TU Darmstadt and ETH Zurich have developed a new concept for conservation measures that incorporates current landscapes formerly considered ecologically “of little value”.

Safer drugs thanks to a new solution to a 150-year-old chemistry problem?

Just like gloves, molecules come in so-called left-handed and right-handed versions. Until now, however, it could be determined only with great difficulty whether a certain molecule is right-handed or left-handed. In medicine, this would be a big step forward because, for example, the unwanted side effects of drugs could be avoided. In the current issue of the journal Science, a team of researchers from Germany, Canada and Switzerland reports a new solution to a 150-year old problem.

Physicists at the technical university freeze motion of light for a minute

Physicists in Darmstadt have been able to stop something that has the greatest possible speed and that never really stops: light. The physicists, headed by Thomas Halfmann, stopped light for about one minute. They were also able to save images that were transferred by the light pulse into the crystal for a minute – a million times longer than previously possible.

Scientists at the TU Darmstadt are coating fibres with organic semiconductors

We are just starting to develop smart textiles. So far the problem has always been that it was not possible to apply the electronic components, called organic semiconductors, to three-dimensional structures such as fibres in a reproducible way. But now Darmstadt’s material scientists have developed a machine with which electronically active materials can be vacuum deposited onto threads.

A conversation about future sensors and the vision of a “smart city”

Abdelhak Zoubir, spokesman of the LOEWE priority program Cocoon, and Marius Pesavento, head of the Communication Systems Group, conduct research and teach at TU Darmstadt’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology.

Sensor has to decide which paths are used for transmitting data

Sensors are expected to be major players in the mobile communications networks of the future. Scientists at TU Darmstadt, together with colleagues at the University of Kassel, are seeking to endow these tiny devices with more robust features.

Darmstadt University inaugurates pioneering high-performance computer

The Technical University Darmstadt has officially inaugurated its new "Lichtenberg" high performance computer. In a new building on the "Lichtwiese Campus" the computer will solve problems in a few hours, for which a normal office computer would take months or more, if he could cope with it at all.

Study confirms online sales are enhanced by social recommendations

When online retailers display customer recommendations next to their product descriptions, it can significantly increase the sales of these. This is the conclusion reached following a study undertaken by academics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Technische Universität (TU) Darmstadt.

Emanuel Merck Lectures mark 20th anniversary

Frances Arnold, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in Pasadena (USA), has been awarded the Emanuel Merck Lectureship this year. The 57-year-old professor is regarded globally as the eminent authority in the field of directed evolution and has been recognized with many prestigious honors and awards.

Continental hands over research vehicle

Handover of research vehicle to Technische Universität (TU) Darmstadt by Continental takes the PRORETA 3 project into its second half. As part of the third collaborative PRORETA research project, TU Darmstadt and the international automotive supplier have been working for around two years on an integrated driver assistance concept for avoiding accidents and mitigating the consequences of accidents in urban traffic scenarios.

Future Internet research cluster present roadmap

The mobile telephones of the future will be able to see, shrink while becoming larger, and slip into their users’ skins. That terse statement summarizes the recently released results of a thorough look at the next ten to fifteen years of mobile telephony by the Technische Universität Darmstadt’s “Future Internet” research cluster.

Emitting much more light for less electric-power dissipation

Scenarios for the optimal employment of light-emitting diodes for lighting purposes are being investigated at the TU Darmstadt’s Institute for Lighting Technology. The focus is on human perceptions, wellbeing, and health.

Study reveals a colossal role of facebook in users’ emotional life

Participation in social networks, such as Facebook, can cause negative feelings and reduce members’ life satisfaction. Those are the results of a survey with nearly 600 Facebook users by Information Systems scientists at the TU Darmstadt and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Bioscientists develop a biosensor for the early diagnosis of sleeping sickness

Infectious African sleeping sickness is widespread south of the Sahara Desert. Although the around sixty million people residing in tropical Africa run the risk of becoming infected every day, only around four million of them are monitored for the disease by disease-control authorities. TU Darmstadt bioscientists have recently developed a biosensor that provides simple, cost-effective, means for diagnosing incidences of the disease before it breaks out.

Innovative method inexpensively and energetically efficiently reduces CO2 emissions

The "carbonate-looping" method for capturing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), which has been researched at TU Darmstadt could reduce power-plant CO 2 emissions by more than 90 %, while utilizing less energy and incurring less expense than former approaches.