Research

EPFL researchers have shown that people’s perception of office temperature can vary considerably. Personalized climate control could therefore help enhance workers’ comfort – and save energy at the same time.

Even though industrial wastewater is treated at state-of-the art plants, the sheer variety of synthetic organic compounds from the chemical and pharmaceutical industry which end up in surface waters are seriously underestimated. This is shown by a new study carried out by Eawag and ETH Zurich.

Thanks to genetic tools that allow computers to accurately count neurons from microscopy images, EPFL researchers have estimated with unprecedented accuracy the number of neurons and other types of cells in the brain of fruit fly larvae—and discovered that females have substantially more neurons than males.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that enables time-resolved measurements of electron motion in water clusters lasting only a few attoseconds. The technique can be used for more detailed studies of water as well as faster electronics.

A study published today in Nature Microbiology highlights the great advantage of wastewater monitoring as being rapid, unbiased and cost-effective: the detection of genomic variants of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater offers an early alert and can be based on fewer samples as compared to clinical samples. The bioinformatics tool developed by the groups of Niko Beerenwinkel and Tanja Stadler (ETH, Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering) in collaboration with Eawag and EPFL identifies variants of concern even at low abundance.

Which trees should European foresters plant in order to prepare their forests to climate change? A researcher supported by the European Commission and hosted by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL is distributing a special mix of beech and silver fir seeds to foresters across Europe to test the trees’ survival and growth in their forests.

Plastics are everywhere in our environment, even inside living organisms. This article looks at the impact of this major pollution risk and accompanies our report on the SEA Plastics expedition, which is currently crisscrossing the Mediterranean to raise awareness of the issue. 

An innovative new collaboration between EPFL’s HexHive Laboratory and Oracle has developed automated, far-reaching technology in the ongoing battle between IT security managers and attackers, hoping to find bugs before the hackers do.

Does nuclear power have a future? Are electric cars dirty? In a four-part series, the ETH Podcast takes a detailed look at popular theories about the future of energy.

Using a new method, scientists are better able to distinguish between mirror-image substances. This is important amongst others in drug development, because the two variants can cause completely different effects in the human body. Researchers from Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, EPF Lausanne (EPFL), and the University of Geneva describe the new method in the scientific journal Nature Photonics.

Scientists at EPFL have found a way to synthesize large numbers of macrocyclic compounds, which are needed for developing drugs against difficult disease targets.

ETH Zurich researchers have discovered a serious security vulnerability in computer hardware. The vulnerability, called "Retbleed," affects microprocessors from market leaders Intel and AMD. All commercially available operating systems worldwide that use these processors are affected. When computers execute special calculation steps to compute faster, they leave traces that hackers could abuse.

On 11 July, NASA published the first image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. ETH Zurich Astrophysicist, Adrian Glauser was also involved in the construction of one of the telescope's measuring instruments. In an interview, he explains what he thought and felt when he saw the image.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have redetermined the gravitational constant G using a new measurement technique. Although there is still a large degree of uncertainty regarding this value, the new method offers great potential for testing one of the most fundamental laws of nature.

The cement industry emits large amounts of climate-damaging carbon dioxide – but alternative binders based on magnesium carbonate could even bind CO₂. Concrete as a carbon sink? A research project at Empa is to explore the basics of this and prepare the stage for practical applications.