December 2022

Niger’s Atelier Masōmī designs to ‘elevate, dignify and provide a better quality of life’

external pageRecently been appointed professor of Architecture Heritage and Sustainability at ETH Zurich, Mariam Issoufou Kamara is an architect, spatial designer, and builder shaping West Africa's architectural future.call_made

Fabian Oefner’s...Blend of Art and Science

external pageGlacier Timelines 2019 – 2020 is a series of photographs that visualize the change in Alpine glaciers in Oefner’s birthplace of Switzerland. Oefner and his team collaborated with the Glaciology Institute at ETH Zurich to bring art and science together in a unique way. Using drone-mounted LED lights and utilizing long-exposure photography, Oefner essentially light-painted the scientific data directly into the night sky around the terrain where the glacier existed in the past.call_made  

Empathy is the Key to Being a Better Pet Owner, Finds Study

external pageTaking in a pet and looking after them is no easy task: not only do you have to make sure that the animal is healthy, you also have to keep them happy. Scientists in Denmark and ETH Zurich in Switzerland say that empathy is a valuable quality for pet owners because it helps them better understand their furry friend.call_made

Also reported in...

Neuroscience News, 21 December 2022, external pageHuman Empathy Makes Us Better at Understanding Animal Soundscall_made

This ecologist is on a mission to save Earth’s microbiome — and he’s closer than ever

external pageIn a paper published earlier this year in the journal Nature Microbiology, a team of researchers analyzed 80 experiments around the world to provide one of the most comprehensive overviews of Earth’s microbiome — the countless microscopic organisms in the planet’s soil ranging from bacteria to fungi. The team was led by Colin Averill, a lead scientist at ETH Zurich's Crowther Lab...Averil’s group proposed a striking idea: to save our planet, we need to preserve the microbial diversity hidden in these vast soil ecosystems.call_made

New platform integrates THz photonics with planarized low-loss polymers

external pageIn a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, a team of scientists led by doctoral student Urban Senica and Professor Giacomo Scalari from ETH Zurich developed a novel integrated photonic platform.call_made

‘Missing link’: Scientists may have just found the source of all complex life forms

external pageOne of the big mysteries in the field of biology is how the complex organisms that roam the Earth first arose. A collaboration between...University of Vienna and Martin Pilhofer at ETH Zurich may have found the answer...“The researchers succeeded in cultivating a special archaeon and characterizing it more precisely using microscopic methods. This member of the Asgard archaea exhibits unique cellular characteristics and may represent an evolutionary "missing link" to more complex life forms such as animals and plants...”call_made  

For the first time, farmers in the Philippines have cultivated Golden Rice on a larger scale

external pageETH Zurich Professor Emeritus Ingo Potrykus, the father and inventor of Golden Rice, sees its cultivation in the Philippines as a breakthrough: “Finally, the step towards practical utilisation has been taken. After decades during which genetic engineering has been used exclusively for commercial agriculture, the first instance of a humanitarian project using it to solve a major health issue is now becoming a reality.”call_made

Swiss universities on guard against Chinese espionage

external page"An application from China is now considered very differently than it was five years ago," explains Anders Hagström, head of international affairs at ETH Zurich, in the NZZ am Sonntag.call_made

Glowscape: an interactive display of light and color

external pageGlowscape is a 3D-printed installation that continually exudes a warm serene glow...the interactive illumination, designed as part of a digital fabrication workshop between Southeast University (SEU) Nanjing and ETH Zurich...call_made

Also reported in...

3D Print.com, 27 December 2022, external page3D Printing News Unpeeled: LocLab and Hexagon, SpaceTech and Glowscapecall_made

12 Most Advanced Countries in Robotics

external pageSwitzerland ranks 9th in the world on the list of most advanced countries in robotics with noteworthy ETH Spinoff ANYbotics and ETH Zurich's well-recoginized robotics program.call_made

Robotics and Automation in Gardening

external pageThe TrimBot is a robotic gardening automation device developed by an international team of researchers at the University of Edinburgh, ETH Zurich and several other institutions. It is a self-navigating robot designed to trim and prune overgrown bushes and roses...The Trimbot has a three-dimensional mapping system that allows it to navigate around the garden.call_made

NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of Science

external pageIts highly sensitive seismometer, along with daily monitoring performed by the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the Marsquake Service managed by ETH Zurich, detected 1,319 marsquakes, including quakes caused by meteoroid impacts, the largest of which unearthed boulder-size chunks of ice late last year.call_made

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Gizmodo, 21 December 2022, external pageRest in Peace, InSight: Scientists Pay Tribute to the Mars Landercall_made

Yahoo News (UK), 21 December 2022, external pageRest in Peace, InSight: Scientists Pay Tribute to the Mars Landercall_made

Smithsonian Magazine, 21 December 2022, external pageWhat NASA’s Retired InSight Lander Taught Us About Marscall_made

SciTech Daily, 29 December 2022, external page“Dead Bus” – NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After 4 Years on Red Planetcall_made

Researchers Examine Concrete Recycling for Ukraine Post-War Construction

external page“If we can recycle and reuse demolition waste on site, we can minimize [logistical] expenses,” notes co-researcher Viacheslav Troian, a professor at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, now working at Switzerland’s ETH Zurich.call_made

Watch: Araris Biotech at Bio-Europe

external pageAraris is a spin-off company from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich. In October, the company closed a $24 million financing round...Proceeds from the financing will be used to support the further development and advancement of Araris’ antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidates, created using the Company’s proprietary linker technology, as Araris moves closer towards clinical development.call_made

People With More Human Empathy Better Understand Animal Sounds

external pageThose who do well on human empathy tests are also measurably better at decoding the emotional sounds of animals, according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen conducted with ETH Zurich and Agroscope.call_made

The clever glue keeping the cell's moving parts connected

external pageResearchers from Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have discovered how proteins in the cell can form tiny liquid droplets that act as a smart molecular glue.call_made  

Producing fertilizer without carbon emissions

external pageETH Zurich researchers have shown how nitrogen fertilizer could be produced more sustainably. This is necessary not only to protect the climate, but also to reduce dependence on imported natural gas and to increase food security.call_made

Also reported in...

Canadian Mining, 21 December 2022, external pageResearchers chart environmentally friendlier methods to produce nitrogen fertilizercall_made

Printing atom by atom: Lab explores nanoscale 3D printing

external pageOne of the cornerstones for this success was a feedback mechanism that enables precision control of the print nozzle's movements. It was developed by Momotenko together with Julian Hengsteler, a Ph.D. student he supervised at his previous place of work, ETH Zurich...call_made

ETH Zurich’s new antifogging coating turns light into heat

external pageFollowing years of research, a team at ETH Zurich has developed an ultrathin, bendable, and transparent coating that prevents glass surfaces from fogging up thanks to a nanolayer of light-absorbing gold clusters. The experiment was carried out initially on eyewear and car windshields, with further applications underway in the near future.call_made

Also reported in...

Engadget, 12 December 2022, external pageA nano-thin layer of gold could prevent fogged-up glassescall_made

ExtremeTech, 13 December 2022, external pageScientists Develop Transparent, Sun-Activated Coating That Prevents Glass Foggingcall_made

Futurity, 14 December 2022, external pageGold coating could mean end to foggy glassescall_made

The Next Web, 12 December 2022, external pageSwiss scientists figured out how to stop your glasses from fogging upcall_made

Gizmodo, 13 December 2022, external pageAn Invisible Layer of Gold Could Be the Secret to Glasses That Never Fog Upcall_made

Yahoo!, 13 December 2022, external pageAn Invisible Layer of Gold Could Be the Secret to Glasses That Never Fog Upcall_made

ZME Science, 15 December 2022, external pageNew ultrathin gold coating can make your glasses defog themselvescall_made

CNBC Television Broadcast, 14 December 2022, external pageAn invisible gold coating may prevent eyewear from foggingcall_made

ETH Zurich and Swiss defence agency launch joint robotics programme

external pageETH Zurich and armasuisse Science and Technology are launching a joint security robotics programme. Over the course of five years, armasuisse will be investing 2.5 million Swiss francs in selected research projects.call_made

ETH Zurich solar syngas spinout Synhelion raises $23.7 million

external pageSince spinning off from ETH Zurich in 2016, the company has delivered on its core technology and expects to start making syngas from its Germany-located pilot facility in 2023.call_made

Biggest marsquake was five times larger than previous record-holder

external page"The energy released by this single marsquake is equivalent to the cumulative energy from all other marsquakes we've seen so far, and although the event was over 2000 kilometers (1200 miles) distant, the waves recorded at InSight were so large they almost saturated our seismometer," said (John) Clinton, a seismologist at ETH Zurich's Marsquake service that monitors and evaluates the seismological data recorded by the NASA InSight Mars lander.call_made

Oxyle’s tech uses water movement to remove pollutants

ETH Zurich spinoff, Oxyle has, so far, raised $7.4 million in capital since it was founded in 2020. The startup’s customers include companies in the pesticide, chemical, textile pigments, electronics and pharmaceutical sectors that are regulated by strict discharge limits. Its wastewater treatment was developed five years ago by co-founder and CEO Dr. Fajer Mushtaq during her doctoral research at ETH Zurich.

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Forbes, 14 December 2022, external pageHow Oxyle Plans To Rid The World’s Water Of Forever Pollutantscall_made

Tech Crunch, 14 December 2022, external pageOxyle’s tech uses water movement to remove pollutantscall_made

Yahoo!, 14 December 2022, external pageOxyle’s tech uses water movement to remove pollutantscall_made

Why It’s So Hard to Recycle Plastic

external pageBecause manufacturers can’t make many products with recycled plastic, the market for it is limited, says Magdalena Klotz, a graduate student of ecological systems design at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Klotz and her collaborators have shown that even if 80% of plastic in Switzerland was collected for recycling, at most only about 20% of it would wind up in recycled plastic products. “It’s not sufficient if we only collect more,” she says. Without other changes to the plastic system, “we get secondary material which cannot be utilized”.call_made

external page“We really could solve this waste problem of plastics if the people making plastics need this waste as a feedstock,” says André Bardow, a chemical engineer at ETH Zurich. “And that makes me hopeful.”call_made

Astronomers Spot Three Interacting Systems with Twin Discs

external pageAn international team of astronomers (including researchers at the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich) observed three interacting twin disc systems...Their findings show that due to their dense stellar environments, gravitational encounters between early-stage star systems play a significant role in their evolution.call_made
 

Accelerating innovation in computational chemistry

external pageScientists from Microsoft, ETH Zurich, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have recently presented a new automated workflow to leverage the scale of Azure to transform R&D processes in quantum chemistry and materials science.call_made

Swiss AI risk management startup Calvin Risk closes on $1.5 million

external pageHaving spun off earlier this year from the Swiss instituteETH Zurich, Calvin Risk is working on a risk and auditing management toolkit to help AI developers overcome the "black box" problem of commercial algorithms lacking human accountability.call_made

AI enables more effective humanitarian action

external pageResearchers from EPFL and ETH Zurich, working together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Bin Khalifa Unversity (Qatar), have developed a program that can generate population density estimates with unparalleled precision, and only needs a rough estimate at the regional level to learn.call_made

Slightly Creepy HuggieBot 3.0 Robot was Designed for Hugging Humans

external pageMeet HuggieBot 3.0. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich, and the University of Copenhagen created slightly creepy autonomous robot capable of intra-hug gestures to improve mood.call_made

Sea urchin sperm is surprisingly useful to robotics experts

external page"Research groups have already explored drug delivery microrobot designs that utilize external signals...For instance...researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland developed a tiny starfish larva-inspired robot that is guided by sound waves and might one day be useful in delivering drugs directly to specific diseased cells in the body.call_made  

Scientists Discover New Permanent Changes Caused by Giving Birth

external page“Our research shows that even before the cessation of fertility the skeleton responds dynamically to changes in reproductive status,” says Paola Cerrito, now a research fellow at ETH Zurich. “Moreover, these findings reaffirm the significant impact giving birth has on a female organism—quite simply, evidence of reproduction is ‘written in the bones’ for life.”call_made

New method identifies spatial biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease progression in animal model

external pageResearchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and ETH Zürich in Switzerland have developed a computational framework for simultaneously analyzing gene expression...G. V. Shivashankar, a study author and professor of mechano-genomics at ETH Zürich, the team also found that they could predict plaque size—a marker of disease progression—by analyzing just one feature of cells near the plaques.call_made

There's a Giant Magma Plume on Mars, Bulging the Surface out Across a Vast Region

external pageVolcanism at Elysium Planitia has been traced to Cerberus Fossae, a region characterized by young fissures extending for 1287.5 km (800 mi). In a recent study, a research team from ETH Zurich revealed that the vast majority of marsquakes recorded by NASA’s InSight mission originated in this region. According to the researchers, the only explanation for this was the presence of volcanic activity within the past 53,000 years.call_made

Helga Nowotny, sociologist: ‘The metaverse will be a time machine’

external pageHelga Nowotny, a professor emeritus of Science and Technology Studies at ETH Zurich, believes ‘co-evolution’ between machines and humans is changing our perception of time. The 85-year-old is also a co-founder of the European Research Council and member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences...call_made

TOP 10 renewable energy solutions of 2022

external pageInternational researchers at ETH Zurich have found a way to produce aviation fuel using water, carbon dioxide (CO2), and sunlight.call_made

Strategic Intelligence Outlook 2022: navigating complexity and interconnected systems

external pageETH Zurich professor, Tom Crowther comments, "There needs to be a change in biodiversity being viewed as a co-benefit to being a key driver in our move towards global sustainability. Nature traps millions of tonnes of carbon for millions of years - this carbon capture happens as a by-product of healthy biodiversity, including the people who are integral to the maintenance of healthy ecosystems..."call_made

Seismic Waves Reveal Surprising New Information About Mars

external page“This is the first-time seismic surface waves have been observed on a planet other than Earth. Not even the Apollo missions to the Moon managed it,” Doyeon Kim says.call_made

Also reported in...

FocusTechnica, 7 December 2022, external pageSeismic Waves Reveal Surprising New Information About Marscall_made

The Earth Has a Microbiome — And It Needs Help

external page“We need to conserve, we need to restore and we need to integrate microbes into managed landscapes,” says study co-author Tom Crowther, a professor of environmental systems science at ETH Zurich. “The below ground world is exactly as important as the aboveground world. It’s also exactly as diverse.” The first step to conservation is data collection, so we know what exists where and how it’s changing over time.call_made

Also reported in...

Sentient Media, 7 December 2022, external pageThe Earth Has a Microbiome — And It Needs Helpcall_made

Energy Efficiency – A Ten Point Action Plan

Industrial power trains are used in numerous applications to convert electrical energy into motion. The main elements of an industrial electric power train are the motor, variable speed drive and the application itself, such as a pump, fan or compressor. external pageThe potential for power train efficiency is vast, says Professor Johann Kolar, head of the Power Electronic Systems Laboratory team at ETH Zürich, the Swiss federal institute of technology, as over half of the energy input into industry is used by such devices.call_made

Underground Cables Are Taking the Planet’s Pulse

external pageAndreas Fichtner a geophysicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, is one of a cadre of researchers using fiber optics to take the pulse of our planet. Much of this work is being done in remote places, from the tops of volcanoes to the bottoms of seas, where traditional monitoring is too costly or difficult.call_made

Also reported in...

Knowable Magazine, 22 November 2022, external pageFiber optics take the pulse of the planetcall_made

The world’s first harvest in the Philippines

external pageIngo Potrykus, who was then working at ETH Zurich, launched the idea of ​​combating deficiency diseases with the help of rice enriched with vitamin A.call_made

An architecture that gives users full control of their smartphones

external pageResearchers at ETH Zurich have recently set out on a quest to give users full control of their smartphones through the development of a new smartphone architecture called TEEtime. This architecture, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, allows users to flexibly choose what resources on their smartphone they will dedicate to legacy operating systems, such as Android or iOS, and which they wish to keep for their own proprietary software and datacall_made.