Research

The health of Swiss forests has been monitored closely since the 'forest dieback' in the 1980s. However, the characteristics used as an indicator for tree health have some drawbacks. It is time for biochemical analyses of tree rings to be incorporated into the relevant monitoring programmes, says a research team headed by WSL.

Monitoring of wastewater samples has the potential to provide a further indicator – alongside the number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths – to track the course of the pandemic. With support from the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), an existing research project is now being expanded from two to six wastewater treatment plants.

Scientists at ETH Zurich are working to develop information-processing switching systems in biological cells. Now, for the first time, they have developed an OR switch in human cells that reacts to different signals.

Katharina Fellnhofer researches how intuitive decision-making influences personal success. She is convinced that people who follow their intuition tend to be more successful in their decision-making. 

Using anonymized policyholder data from Swiss insurance company La Mobilière, EPFL scientists were able to predict a number of socio-economic indicators in 170 Swiss towns. This innovative approach could help increase the granularity and applicability of official statistics.

Hyaluronic acid, also known as hyaluronan, is a polysaccharide that helps establish the viscosity of bodily fluids. According to a new study by EPFL scientists, it also influences the behavior of far more water molecules than previously thought. Their findings – just published in Science Advances – open new avenues of research on the role water plays in the human body.

To see, smell, taste, get excited, or mount a defence against an infection – in our bodies, G protein-coupled receptors mediate countless, often vital processes. This is why a better understanding of these proteins is relevant for the development of new drugs. An international team of researchers has now set up an online platform that makes simulations of these proteins usable for science. In an interview, PSI researcher Ramon Guixà-González, talks about how he brings proteins to life on the computer screen – and how this project should expedite drug development.

A team from EPFL and the Swiss Cancer Center Léman has discovered that CD4 T lymphocytes, which usually play a supporting role in fighting cancer cells, also have the power to destroy them. 

Using the extinct niobium-92 atom, ETH researchers have been able to date events in the early solar system with greater precision than before. The study concludes that supernova explosions must have taken place in the birth environment of our sun.

New EPFL research on whether handwriting skills transfer when a child writes in two different alphabetic scripts may pave the way for cross-lingual digital tools for the detection of handwriting difficulties.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the partner institute Empa have started a joint initiative called SynFuels. The goal is to develop a process for producing kerosene from renewable resources. In this way liquid fuel mixtures of the highest quality, which would allow the most residue-free combustion possible and thus be suitable for aircraft propulsion, should be obtainable using carbon dioxide and hydrogen from renewable resources.

Scientists led by EPFL have developed a breakthrough in vivo model for invasive lobular carcinoma, a serious yet understudied type of breast cancer. The work will open up previously inaccessible study of the tumor’s biology and help discover new therapies.