EPFL

Have you ever wanted to explore outer-space? Now you can, without leaving Earth, thanks to powerful, open-source beta software VIRUP that builds – in real-time – a virtual universe based on the most detailed contemporary astrophysical and cosmological data.

Personalized medicine is set to revolutionize healthcare, yet large-scale research studies towards better diagnoses and targeted therapies are currently hampered by data privacy and security concerns. New global collaborative research has developed a solution to these challenges, described in Nature Communications.

EPFL researchers have built a footbridge prototype using reinforced-concrete blocks from walls of a building being renovated. The blocks were cut into individual pieces on site and assembled into a prestressed arch. This project, which marks the first time concrete has been reused in this way, is part of an initiative to substantially shrink the construction industry’s carbon footprint by adopting a circular economy approach. The footbridge will be inaugurated at a ceremony at the Smart Living Lab in Fribourg on 11 October.

Urban brownfields represent a major challenge to sustainable transition that remains difficult to overcome. A new reference work, based on over ten years of research carried out at EPFL, aims to outline the processes involved in transforming urban brownfields into sustainable neighborhoods. 

Bacteria in the human gut go to war in order to protect themselves against attacks of the “spear-wielding” cholera bacterium Vibrio cholerae or other pathogens, an EPFL study has found.