Archive

TU Delft researchers Andrei Anisimov, Roger Groves and Nan Tao used their special research equipment in the Rijksmuseum last week, to make the invisible structure of The Night Watch visible.

Using nanopore DNA sequencing technology, researchers from TU Delft and the University of Illinois have managed to scan a single protein: by slowly moving a linearized protein through a tiny nanopore, one amino acid at the time, the researchers were able to read off electric currents that relate to the information content of the protein. The researchers published their proof-of-concept in Science today. The new single-molecule peptide reader marks a breakthrough in protein identification, and opens the way towards single-molecule protein sequencing and cataloguing the proteins inside a single cell.

Researchers from QuTech created a time crystal, a novel exotic quantum phase of matter, using a quantum computer based on diamond. Together with a simultaneous experiment by Google, the results shed new light on the physics of out-of-equilibrium quantum systems. The team reports their findings today in Science. 

An imposing, compelling and urgent social problem, that is what Master student Sarah Hanus wanted for her final project. She found it high up in the Austrian Alps where climate change is altering river runoff patterns. Using a model she developed herself, Hanus is able to come up with long-term projections of what these patterns will look like in future. Her work earned her the title of Best Graduate of the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Sciences.

TU Delft takes 50th position on the 2021 Times Higher Education World Reputation Ranking published today. As far as European universities are concerned, TU Delft has ended in 13th position, and within the Netherlands TU Delft is number one.

From 28 October to 5 November, it is National Climate Week with the slogan 'everyone does something'. TU Delft, as a climate university, is fully participating, because attention to the climate is more urgent than ever.

An international consortium, led by Delft University of Technology and the University of North Carolina, has for the first time succeeded in probing the molecular origins of recombination in RNA viruses. Hiccups during the copying process of viruses cause recombination to take place: the exchange of segments of viral RNA.

How do you install a wind turbine far out at sea when high waves and strong winds make its installation virtually impossible? With this question in mind, a team of researchers from TU Delft, in collaboration with Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) and DOT B.V., boarded the world's largest crane vessel this week: Heerema's Sleipnir. As part of a major pioneering project, the FOX project, they are exploring floating wind turbine installation.

ProRail, TU Delft and Deltares will conduct an investigation over the next five years into the behaviour of trains travelling along our railway embankments. On 4 October 2021, they signed the RESET research programme agreement for this purpose. This research will focus on the consequences of increased and heavier rail traffic along with climate change on our railway embankments and how we can anticipate them. As there is little fundamental systematic knowledge in this field in Europe, this pioneering research may also assist other countries facing similar problems.

Delft PhD student Daan Sutmuller has developed a new, effective method in collaboration with the police that supports homicide investigation teams in collecting and prioritising interesting persons in the investigation more quickly. The promising method should make the investigation work more manageable and ensure that more homicide cases are solved. Sutmuller obtains his doctorate this Thursday with his dissertation 'Murder investigation in the digital age'.

In order to ensure that the electricity grid is prepared for the future, TU Delft, the Dutch government and partners including grid operator TenneT have joined forces to build a brand-new laboratory: the Electrical Sustainable Power Lab, otherwise known as the ESP Lab. The laboratory – described as a ‘veritable temple of sustainability’ – will be officially opened on the afternoon of Friday, 1 October 2021.

Robotic body-weight support (BWS) devices can play a key role in helping people with neurological disorders to improve their walking. The team that developed the advanced body-weight support device RYSEN in 2018 has since gained more fundamental insight in BWS but also concludes that improvement in this field is necessary.

Last year, computer engineers from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and Northwestern University introduced the world’s first battery-free Game Boy, which harvests both solar energy and the user’s kinetic energy from button mashing to power an unlimited lifetime of game play. The same team now introduces a new platform that enables makers, hobbyists and novice programmers to build their own battery-free electronic devices that run with intermittent, harvested energy.

Making a significant contribution to creating opportunities for a CO2-free energy system, this is what 150 representatives from the business community, knowledge institutions and government are working on within the Dutch AI Coalition. The Energy and Sustainability working group collaborated on the position paper 'AI as an accelerator of the energy transition', which sets out the opportunities for a CO2-free energy system. Researchers from TU Delft have made an active contribution to this agenda.

Overstroomde riolen, plastic afval, lekkages van waterleidingen… Ook onder de grond kent Nederland grote wateruitdagingen. Met menselijke kracht alleen kunnen we dat niet oplossen, zegt professor Zoran Kapelan. Daarom schakelt hij de hulp in van kunstmatige intelligentie en machine learning.

At the request of medical professionals, researchers at TU Delft developed a test method to check whether imported face masks met the safety requirements. And that was necessary, as it turns out, because in total only one-third of the 140 million face masks tested in 19 hospitals passed the safety test.

Every trace or other piece of evidence at a crime scene has to be thoroughly examined. Traces that cannot be taken away or stored, such as blood spatters, is visualised with a ruler to indicate its size. TU Delft and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) have developed a new method for the police that will soon make the ruler obsolete and make it easier to measure all kinds of forensic evidence.

The heavy precipitation along with the high water of July 2021 in the Netherlands and surrounding countries was an extreme and exceptional event with major social consequences in Limburg. Commissioned by the Expertise Network for Water Safety (ENW), a broad consortium of knowledge institutions, led by Delft University of Technology and Deltares, has now made an initial analysis of the available information on a range of topics.

On Monday 6 September, Delft University Fund awarded Max Mulder the title of Professor of Excellence 2021. Mulder is Professor of Control & Simulation in the Department of Control & Operations at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (AE).

NWO has announced that Professor Lieven Vandersypen (TU Delft/QuTech) has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest award in Dutch Science.

Researchers from the technical universities of Delft and Munich have invented a new type of molecular trap that can hold a single protein in place for hours to study its natural behavior – a million times longer than before.

Researchers from the group of Stan Brouns (Delft University of Technology) have discovered a new CRISPR-Cas system that cuts RNA. The study will be published on August 26 in Science and is expected to offer many opportunities for the development of new applications in genetic research and biotechnology.

The performance of no fewer than four students at TU Delft were crowned with a medal at the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Roos de Jong (Rowing) and Annete Duetz (Sailing) both won bronze and Stef Broenink (Rowing) won a silver medal. Dirk Uittenbogaard, a student in the Leiden-Delft Master’s degree programme in Industrial Ecology, won a gold medal for rowing (Men’s Quadruple Sculls).

Tussen een en twee op de vijf Uber-reizen hebben geen haalbaar alternatief in het openbaar vervoer. Het aandeel reizigers dat Uber verkiest boven openbaar vervoer neemt af naarmate de reistijd van het openbaar vervoer concurrerender is. Dat zijn twee bevindingen in een nieuw onderzoeksrapport over ritdiensten, dat gebaseerd is op een vergelijking van gegevens van Uber en het openbaar vervoer uit zes steden in de VS en Europa.

Catching the breeze may bring you gold but sail too close to the wind and you’ll miss the boat. Combined with a sailor’s intuition meteorologist Sukanta Basu’s highly detailed wind forecast may well help the Dutch sailing team secure a win at the Olympics this year.

Professor Karen Aardal was appointed as board member of the NWO Domain Science. As a professor at the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics, Aardal brings with her an enormous knowledge on the area of applied mathematics and theoretical computer science.

Three-times world champion in sailing Marcelien de Koning has been appointed the world's first ‘chef de emission’. With this NOC*NSF wants to promote making sports and society more sustainable. “An excellent idea”, according to professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Sustainability Coordinator at TU Delft. TU Delft has a long history of working with NOC*NSF on innovations in top-level sports and will be the first one helping the chef de emission with knowledge in the field of sustainability.

Onderzoekers stelden ruim 10.000 Nederlanders in staat de overheid te adviseren over klimaatbeleid. Het eindrapport is nu online.

It’s a decade since the creation of the Sand Motor, an artificial sand bank off the North Sea coast. What happens to a natural system following human intervention on such a large scale? That question has been the focus of professor of Coastal Engineering Stefan Aarninkhof’s research for the last ten years. The results, he hopes, will pave the way to a full-scale experimental climate lab.

Lunar Zebro, an ambitious team at TU Delft will work together with TNO (The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research) to build the lightest and smallest Moon rover to date.

TU Delft has been selected as a partner of the New European Bauhaus, a think-do tank initiated by the President of the European Commission.