Research

Where should radioactive waste be packaged before it is stored in a deep geological repository? Daniela Scherer explains how stakeholders are being brought on board to tackle this thorny question.

Making agriculture climate-neutral has a high cost – which some rich countries might be willing to accept, ETH Zurich researchers find.

Thanks to a study of the entire genetic material (genome) of a dangerous chestnut pathogen, biologists from the University of Neuchâtel and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL have helped to better understand how invasive organisms can spread. Their work has just been published in the scientific journal eLife.

An international research team conducted with the participation of SLF and the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss) has for the first time collected snow data for the period 1971–2019 from more than 2000 measuring stations located throughout the Alps, and analysed them using uniform methodology. Data comparison shows that the extent of decline in snow depths and the snow cover is not uniform, but subject to large regional differences.

PyTorch is used for countless AI applications ranging from Tesla’s Autopilot to Facebook’s translation software and its latest version, just launched, features an EPFL communication-efficient training algorithm that even helps the planet. 

ETH Zurich and University of California Santa Barbara researchers reveal the extent to which rivers across the USA are losing flow to aquifers.

When a person taps with their fingers, each finger generates a different vibration profile propagating to the wrist through bones. ETH Zurich researchers have now leveraged this discovery in the development of a dual-sensor wristband that brings intuitive free-hand interaction to virtual productivity spaces.

An international team studied the chemical fingerprints in European oak trees to reconstruct summer climate over 2110 years. They found that after a long-term drying trend, drought conditions since 2015 suddenly intensified, beyond anything in the past two thousand years.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have chemically modified wood and made it more compressible, turning it into a mini-generator. When compressed, it generates an electrical voltage. Such wood could serve as a biosensor or as a building material that harvests energy.

Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich have made wood compressible and turned it into a micro-generator. When it is loaded, an electrical voltage is generated. In this way, the wood can serve as a bio-sensor - or generate usable energy. The latest highlight: To ensure that the process does not require aggressive chemicals, naturally occurring wood-degrading fungi take over the task of modifying the wood.

Rare earth metals such as cerium and gadolinium are increasingly entering wastewater from industry, but also from hospitals. This is shown by Eawag’s investigations at 63 wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland.

River flow has changed significantly worldwide in recent decades. An international research team led by ETH Zurich has now demonstrated that it is climate change, rather than water and land management, that plays a crucial role at a global level.

Together with its partners Avenergy Suisse and Hyundai, Empa is presenting a new permanent exhibition on sustainable fuels of the future at the Swiss Museum of Transport starting in March 2021. Among other things, the focus is on the question: How does green electricity get into the tank? And: Which fuel makes sense for which purpose? In an interactive game, visitors can even virtually produce hydrogen themselves.

Electricity providers have a simple way of encouraging households and companies to procure power from sustainable sources. This can help lower CO₂ emissions.

We look for certainty in uncertain times. But that is not something statistics can necessarily provide. Tanja Stadler explains why it is important to consider statistical uncertainty through describing the COVID-19 R value estimation which she performs for Switzerland.