Research

Renowned planetary researcher and Nobel laureate Didier Queloz is moving to ETH Zurich, where he will be joining with other professors to study the origins of life in a new centre.

Engineers at EPFL have developed a predictive control model that allows swarms of drones to fly in cluttered environments quickly and safely. It works by enabling individual drones to predict their own behavior and that of their neighbors in the swarm.

Climate-related temperature rises will further increase the cooling demand of buildings. A projection by Empa researchers based on data from the NEST building and future climate scenarios for Switzerland shows that this increase in energy demand for cooling is likely to be substantial and could have a strong impact on our future – electrified – energy system.

During an inflammatory response, things need to happen quickly: ETH Zurich researchers have recently discovered that certain immune cells that function as security guards can use a shortcut to get from the tissue to lymph nodes.

Some 250 million people depend on water from the glaciers of High Mountain Asia, which include the Himalayas, the Karakoram and the central Asian ranges. A study led by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL shows that this largest non-polar ice mass on Earth is in dire condition. The research team has developed a new computational method that can determine the balance between ice accumulation and melt in glaciers with the help of satellite data.

"Trust in Science" is the motto of the International Day of Light. For Luc Patthey, head of the Laboratory for Advanced Photonics, transparency and usefulness to society are also important goals of research at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI.

Digital twins – a savvy combination of artificial intelligence and personal data – have already begun to revolutionize the way healthcare is provided. But they raise a lot of ethical and legal questions, especially given the vast amounts of medical data that must be collected to train artificial intelligence algorithms. So should we be worried about the eventuality of a digital clone? We spoke with experts from a variety of fields to find out.

Where plant diversity decreases, the diversity of insect life, and therefore biodiversity as a whole, also decline. For example, specialist insects that rely on a few plant species are absent from intensively managed meadows and pastures and dark beech forests because their food plants are no longer to be found there. This is the finding of an international study coordinated by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL).

SARS-CoV-2 is critically dependent on a special mechanism for the production of its proteins. A collaborative team led by a research group at ETH Zurich obtained molecular insights into this process and demonstrated that it can be inhibited by chemical compounds, thereby significantly reducing viral replication in infected cells.

A study published today in Nature shows that the NHS COVID-19 app for digital contact tracing, based on the DP3T protocol, averted between 300,000 and 600,000 COVID-19 cases in England and Wales. The researchers used data from the NHS to show and quantify the epidemiological impact of such privacy-preserving apps, which are now available around the globe to help control the pandemic.

The last ice age, about 20,000 years ago, was significantly colder than previously thought. This is shown for the first time by systematically analysed samples of groundwater collected around the globe and the inert gases dissolved in it. Swiss groundwater from Uster (ZH) also contributed to the results.

Fewer typing errors when touching a smartphone keyboard: ETH Computer scientists have developed a new AI solution that enables touchscreens to sense with eight times higher resolution than current devices. Thanks to AI, their solution can infer much more precisely where fingers touch the screen.

ETH Fellow Rodrigo Arzate-Mejia is studying how traumatic life experiences affect the brain, with a focus on epigenetic changes in brain cells.  

Researchers at Goethe University Frankfurt, in cooperation with PSI, have probably discovered another, previously unknown mechanism of action of the antiviral remdesivir. Using structural analyses, they have discovered that a decomposition product of the virostatic agent remdesivir binds to the viral protein nsP3 of Sars-CoV-2. This protein helps the virus suppress host cell defence mechanisms. The discovery may be important for the development of new drugs to combat Sars-CoV-2 and other RNA viruses.

The 5G wireless standard is a less polarising issue among the Swiss population than thought. According to a survey conducted by ETH researchers, the majority of people are in favour of 5G. However, a substantial portion of the population in the French-speaking region had concerns about electromagnetic radiation.