The Week at TU Braunschweig │17.04.2020 Our Newsletter for all Employees

Topics: Summer semester + Covid-19 antiviral agent + hoarding +
Waste, sewage and agriculture + battery research + bicycles + #WirVsVirus

► Online for the summer semester

“Our thanks go to the teachers, who have been working intensively and with great commitment on online formats for their courses for several weeks now,” says President Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla. We learned what the changeover actually means for the teaching staff in a meeting with Professor Georg Ostermeyer, Dean of Studies of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

► On the hunt for the Covid-19 antiviral agent

The team at the Institute of Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics is working hard to find suitable antibodies against the virus. In order to provide financial support, Björn Thümler, the Minister of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony, has overcome bureaucratic hurdles.

► Those who purchase like hamsters

Why is it so difficult for us to be alone for long periods of time? And where do the hoarding come from? In an interview, Professor Beate Muschalla explains the psychological consequences of the Corona crisis

► Full garbage cans

The more people are at home, the more waste piles up in front of the house. On top of this there is separate waste disposal for infected people. Professor Klaus Fricke from the Waste and Resource Management Department of the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering explains the new challenges.

► Electrified agriculture and lettuce on recycled wastewater

What will change when agricultural machinery is completely converted to electric drives? This is the subject of research by an extraordinary group of institutes at the TU and HBK Braunschweig. The Hypo-Wave project, on the other hand, is running completely independently of the arable land. The novel irrigation technology relies fully on treated wastewater.

► When the battery goes dead

A battery diagnosis line is being built at the Battery LabFactory Braunschweig (BLB). This new laboratory unit will investigate how battery cells age and how they remain fit for longer.

► Via bicycle corpses towards sustainable mobility

The TU Braunschweig is creating more space for bicycles with a three-stage plan. Starting on April 20, broken bicycles will be marked and removed after one month.

► Our favourite(s) of the week

… are six computer science students at the TU Braunschweig. They took part in the Hackathon #WirVsVirus of the German government and worked on a symptom tracker. The app is supposed to digitally record the symptoms of Covid-19’s disease.

► This last post

… to be honest, was not easy for us to write. Six professors retired on 31 March. The “outstanding European physicist” Gertrud Zwicknagl, Christel Müller-Goymann, with whom an “era” in pharmacy ends (and who was also a member of the university council), the “renowned Heinrich-Heine-Researcher” Renate Stauf, Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier, whose magnetometers are represented on all renowned space missions and who has brought worldwide fame to our university not only with the “alien-like sounding” of the Rosetta magnetic field. Petra Mischnick is also an extraordinary scientist, science communicator and inspiring personality. And then there is Ulrich Reimers. Vice President, father of digital television and media studies at the TU Braunschweig. He has done us a great deal of work with his countless awards. Read the laudationes, it’s worth it. We would miss them all very much. And so that it doesn’t come to that, we don’t say farewell but see you soon.