Research

EPFL researchers have studied Vernier, a city in the canton of Geneva, as the pilot site for an interactive map that explores our relationship with the built and natural environments.

Cancer patients might one day benefit from being administered immune cells from healthy donors. But as things stand, receiving donor cells can cause severe or even fatal immune reactions. A researcher at ETH Zurich has now developed a technology that avoids these.

Plants transform light into sugar and are thus the foundation of all ecosystems as well as the food supply for humanity. In a global initiative, plant researchers together with representatives from civil society have now compiled the 100 most pressing questions for plant science.

Researchers at ETH Zurich, Empa and EPFL are developing a 3D-printed insole with integrated sensors that allows the pressure of the sole to be measured in the shoe and thus during any activity. This helps athletes or patients to determine performance and therapy progress.

Researchers at EPFL and KAIST have developed a new AI model that significantly improves the understanding of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), promising materials for hydrogen storage and other applications.

The Chinese windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei), a popular postcard subject in the southernmost Swiss canton, originates from Asia and is extremely resistant to cold. The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL has now investigated the potential impact of its massive spread in the forests of Ticino and proposes targeted control measures.

Mental health disorders can only be diagnosed on the basis of symptoms – and individual outcomes cannot be accurately predicted. An ETH scientist hopes to change that with the help of mathematical models.

Around the world, the race is on to achieve a decisive breakthrough in quantum research. ETH Zurich is spearheading its own challenge.

Emotional trauma can have far-reaching ripple effects and may even reverberate across generations. Professors Isabelle Mansuy and Katharina Gapp study how the effects of trauma can be inherited through epigenetic mechanisms.

Life is a constant stream of decisions that pit sober reflection against powerful emotions, conscious deliberation against gut instincts. Using complex models and sophisticated experiments, ETH researchers study how we combine these different decision-making strategies.

Psychologist Verena Zimmermann joins computer scientists Joachim Buhmann and Elgar Fleisch to discuss whether our feelings can be measured, what role they play in human-machine interactions, and the use of smart technologies.

In a major joint project with top Indian scientists, PSI researchers have determined why smog forms at night in the Indian capital New Delhi, contrary to all the rules of atmospheric chemistry. Their results have now been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

AI chatbot ChatGPT exploded onto the scene in November 2022. It can write essays, WordPress plugins and even pass an MBA exam – yet scientists still don’t fully understand how these general artificial intelligence programs work. New EPFL research aims to change this paradigm. 

EPFL researchers have developed a new technique that uses a protein language model for generating protein sequences with comparable properties to natural sequences. The method outperforms traditional models and offers promising potential for protein design.

Researchers at ETH Zurich achieved a shape memory effect for the first time with objects that are only a few nanometers in size. This can be used to manufacture tiny machinery and robotic devices on the nanoscale.