Research

In this episode of the ETH podcast Didier Queloz talks about the quandaries of being a young Nobel Laureate. He also talks about his plans at ETH and tells us what he would ask a Martian if he met one.

Together with international colleagues, PSI researchers have now been able to make correlated metals more readily usable for applications in superconductivity, data processing, and quantum computers.

A comprehensive inventory of Swiss glacial lakes shows how the lake landscape in the high mountains has changed since the end of the Little Ice Age.

3D printing can be used to build load-bearing concrete structures that require significantly less material and no steel reinforcement or mortar. ETH architects and engineers from the Block Research Group in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Architects and other partners from industry showed how this works with a footbridge in Venice.

Although a very promising solution for capturing solar energy, perovskite solar cells contain lead, which is toxic to the environment and a serious health hazard. EPFL scientists have now found a very elegant and efficient solution by adding a transparent phosphate salt that doesn’t interfere with light-conversion efficiency while preventing lead from seeping into the soil in cases of solar panel failure.

An international research team of cryptographers completed a detailed security analysis of the popular Telegram messaging platform identifying several weaknesses in its protocol that demonstrate the product falls short of some essential data security guarantees.

The Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and EPFL teamed up to develop a new test that’s sensitive enough to measure the amount of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies present in the bloodstream. The scientists’ discovery, published in the prestigious Science Translational Medicine, opens promising new avenues for tracking immunity acquired by infection or vaccination. With this test, experts can measure the level of protection against variants of the virus and monitor their prevalence over time.

A team of EPFL scientists turned Bois-Chamblard park in Buchillon, on Lake Geneva, into a temporary research station for collecting experimental data. Their goal is to better understand how anthropogenic air pollution affects plant growth.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have trapped a tiny sphere measuring a hundred nanometres using laser light and slowed down its motion to the lowest quantum mechanical state. Based on this, one can study quantum effects in macroscopic objects and build extremely sensitive sensors.

EPFL researchers have pioneered an innovative approach to implementing virtual memory in data centers, which will greatly increase server efficiency.

An international team of scientists led by EPFL has developed a system that combines information from the brain’s connectome – the “wiring” between neurons – and machine learning to assess and predict the outcome of stroke victims.

Rea Lehner has been running the “Future Health Technologies” research programme at the Singapore-ETH Centre since 2020. Together with her team, the ETH researcher is working on the principles of how healthcare can be changed through digital technologies.

Based on observational data from Europe, climate researchers from ETH Zurich have shown for the first time that forests lead to a rise in precipitation. Their analyses also revealed that if the available agricultural land were reforested, the amount of precipitation in Europe could increase by more than 7 percent.

EPFL Summer series: How science works. From data collection to environmental and public-health advocacy, amateur scientists make a valuable contribution to scientific research.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is able to recognise the biological activity of natural products in a targeted manner, as researchers at ETH Zurich have demonstrated. Moreover, AI helps to find molecules that have the same effect as a natural substance but are easier to manufacture. This opens up huge possibilities for drug discovery, which also have potential to rewrite the rulebook for pharmaceutical research.