News in Brief – Delta 14

Ede’s adoption of this new technology is a world first. Nereda is a groundbreaking technology for the thorough treatment of domestic waste water; it uses a quarter of the space and consumes around 30 percent less energy than conventional plants.

Strong words

The Netherlands’ Council for Societal Development has stated that the government should stop using the words allochtoon and autochtoon to draw distinctions between Dutch citizens. Autochtoon describes people whose parents were born in the Netherlands, while allochtoon is the word used for people whose parents were not born in the Netherlands. The Council for Societal Development told Parliament that since the government no longer has ethnicity-based policies in place, it should not use these two words to differentiate between citizens of the Netherlands

Bad transport

More people are unhappy with the state of public transport in the Netherlands this year compared to 2011. In the first three months of 2011 some 2,222 complaints were submitted about Dutch public transportation, which is a 50 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2011. The majority of complaints received by the agency that monitors public transport involved the high costs of traveling by train, tram, bus and metro, as many commuters felt the quality of public transport services offered do not justify price hikes.

DNA-repair

Scientists from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience have discovered a key element in the mechanism of DNA repair. When the DNA double helix breaks, the broken end goes searching for the similar sequence and uses that as a template for repair. Using a smart new dual-molecule technique, the Delft group has now found out how the DNA molecule is able to perform this search and recognition process in such an efficient way. This week the researchers report their findings in Molecular Cell journal.

Knowledge Festival

Got a brilliant idea? Now you just need the finance. Who wouldn’t like to be the next Mark Zuckerberg? One brilliant idea and a few years later you’re a billionaire. Well if only it was that simple. Capital is often a barrier to success. This is why the Knowledge Alliance organizes the annual Knowledge Festival aimed at new start-ups and entrepreneurs, with workshops on funds, risk capital, funding and finance. The ninth Knowledge Festival will be held on June 13 at the Lijm & Cultuur on the Rotterdamseweg in Delft.

www.kennisfestival.com

Student Elections

The influence of international students will become a bit clearer in the coming year if it is up to Lijst Beta, a TU Delft student political party, which is currently engaged in setting up an ambassador network of internationals students that should provide the party with issues of concern to TU Delft’s international student community. This was stated in the Lijst Beta election manifesto. On May 23-24, student council elections will be held, and all TU Delft students can vote for either Lijst Beta or Oras, which is currently the largest party in the Student Council. Lijst Beta has an international student candidate on its list. A few years ago Oras also had an international student as a party member and now also has an international student on its candidate list. According to ORAS’s party leader, Anna van der Togt, it remains difficult to find people who want to devote a full year to serving on the Student Council. Her party now has close relations with the Delft International Student Society.

Rotterdam’s Ecomarathon

The Shell Ecomarathon is an energy efficiency competition for schools and universities. This year’s event will be held from May 16-9 May in Rotterdam. And TU Delft’s Ecorunner Dream Team will take part again. Shell is also organizing a festival for the entire family revolving around the Ecomarathon. Some 200 teams from more than 25 countries will compete for the prizes in this year’s European event. Teams come from universities and colleges, secondary schools and technical institutes. Their mission: to devise, build and test ultra-energy-efficient vehicles. The winners are the teams who travel the longest distance using the smallest amount of energy. This is the first time in 28 years that the competition has been held in the Netherlands, and the first time that the vehicles will travel on the public roads around the Ahoy centre.

www.ecorunner.nl