In the Media - January 2024

Midday Sun at the Touch of a Button

external page At ETH Zurich, there is a room where the sun shines at the touch of a button; one hour it’s noon in the Sahara, the next it’s January in Berlin. Researchers in the Zero Carbon Building Systems Lab use it to test newly developed building systems, components and materials.

Scientists successfully simulate protein complex that initiates fertilization

external page With the help of simulations on “Piz Daint”, the supercomputer of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), a research team led by ETH Zurich Professor, Viola Vogel has now made the dynamics of these crucial processes in the fertilisation of a human egg cell visible for the first time.

These artificial muscles are light, safer, and now waterproof

external page A team of researchers at ETH Zurich has addressed this specific engineering limitation with their newest invention. The ETH Zurich team has developed “light, safer artificial muscles” that are waterproof and operate at significantly lower voltages.

Also reported in...

external page Robotics and Automation News

external page Interesting Engineering

New invention could get rid of millions of batteries, scientists say

external page Now researchers say they have built a mechanical sensor that requires no power at all, and could help prevent some of that battery waste...The sensor works purely by mechanics, its creators say. “It simply utilises the vibrational energy contained in sound waves,” said Johan Robertson, from ETH Zurich, one of the leaders of the new work.

Also reported in...

external page AZO Sensors

external page FUTURITY

Study shows why women are at greater risk of autoimmune disease

external page Somewhere between 24 and 50 million Americans have an autoimmune disease, a condition in which the immune system attacks our own tissues. As many as four out of five of those people are women...ETH Zurich researchers contributed to this study, led by Stanford Medicine.

Microfluidic chip reveals that bacteria swim toward large, complex polymers

external page Using a novel microfluidic chip, ETH Zurich researchers led by Professor Roman Stocker and Estelle Clerc have shown that bacteria not only recognize small food molecules, but also swim towards large, complex polymers.  

The Dyatlov Pass Incident: Why the Hiker Deaths Remain a Mystery

external page In February 1959, nine hikers were killed while trekking in the Ural Mountains. The Soviet government originally attributed a “compelling natural force” as the cause...“We do not claim that now we have a final explanation of what happened,” says Puzrin, who is a professor of geomechanics and geosystems engineering at ETH Zürich. “But we added plausibility to the avalanche theory.”

Boosting light emission from nanocrystals

external page It could well be that in your living room you have billions of semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots) without even knowing. A studied carried out by a group of researchers from ETH Zurich...(including IBM researchers in Zurich)...found that by enlarging the nanocrystals beyond the size required for their characteristic light frequency, which represents a lower frequency limit given by the material, they can be made to dissipate their energy much faster — or shine brighter.

Also reported in...

external page AZO NANO

external page Science Magazine

How ETH knowledge and local expertise are helping the reconstruction of Ukraine

external page Students, researchers and professors at ETH Zurich are using their expertise to help rebuild Ukraine. Many of them are involved in a Swiss Network with Ukraine, which was founded by the ETH Professor Emeritus of Architecture and urban planner Kees Christiaanse, among others. To showcase these ongoing projects, researchers from the ETH Departments of Architecture and of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, in collaboration with the network and with the Ukrainian Association of Students and Academics in Zurich.

Avocado robot swings its way to unexplored treetops

external page "The idea behind this area of research is to get robots out of the factories and use them outdoors for environmental research," explains Steffen Kirchgeorg, a doctoral student at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research in Birmensdorf...Especially in tropical rainforests—the world's most biodiverse habitats...Exploring these habitats is extremely difficult; climbing the trees only allows research teams to collect data selectively.

Also reported in...

external page Interesting Engineering

external page New Atlas

These are the top international universities: Why their cooperation has never mattered more

external page Times Higher Education’s “Most International Universities in the World” ranking('s)...European counterparts...with Switzerland represented by ETH Zurich and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in seventh and eighth.

Could a drug one day block harmful stress responses?

external page In collaboration with three other research groups,Katharina Gapp, head of the epigenetics and neuroendocrinology group at the Institute for Neuroscience at ETH Zurich, has now developed a promising new agent that pinpoints and eliminates the control center of the stress response—what’s called the glucocorticoid receptor—in cell cultures and animal models.

Scientists Just Discovered a New Type of Magnetism

external page In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align...The discovery, recently published in the journal Nature, marks the latest advance in the five-decade hunt for Nagaoka ferromagnetism, in which a material magnetizes as the electrons within it minimize their kinetic energy, in contrast to traditional magnets. “That’s why I’m doing this kind of research: I get to learn things that we didn’t know before, see things that we haven’t seen before,” said study coauthor Livio Ciorciaro, who completed the work while a doctoral candidate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich’s Institute for Quantum Electronics.

Green Light for LISA

external page The European Space Agency’s most expensive and complex mission, the LISA space antenna, has reached a major milestone: it has passed the stage of intensive testing by experts in the Mission Adoption Review process – a significant step for the LISA consortium. More than 120 research institutions across Europe and the United States are involved in the LISA mission, including the ETH Zurich and University of Zurich (UZH). Philippe Jetzer, professor of gravitation and astrophysics at the University of Zurich, and Domenico Giardini, professor of seismology and geodynamics at ETH Zurich, have been closely cooperating on the project for more than two decades. In this interview, the professors outline the expectations for the mission and explain the involvement of the two Swiss universities in Zurich.

Meet ANYmal, the four-legged robot that could substitute humans in dangerous environments

external page This robot (ANYmal), about the size of a dog, boasts impressive autonomy. Locomotion — the ability to move from one place to another — is one of the most challenging skills for machines to master. Typically, they learn to walk in controlled environments to avoid accidents, but researchers at ETH Zurich University in Switzerland have trained ANYmal to face real-world challenges.

Harnessing Sunlight To Combat Global Warming

external page In the new process, air is channeled through a liquid to capture CO2. If the liquid is irradiated with light, the greenhouse gas is released again and can be collected...Current carbon capture technologies, while effective, are energy-intensive and costly. That’s why researchers at ETH Zurich are developing a new method that uses light. With this process, in the future, the energy required for carbon capture will come from the sun.

Also reported in...

external page SciTechDaily

How to make the perfect cuppa: 5 leading scientists reveal their ultimate tea-making methods - so, whose technique do you agree with?

external page ...Caroline Giacomin, a PhD candidate at ETH Zurich, says there is another important reason to add a drop of lemon. If you live in a hard water area then you might have seen the shiny film that can form on the top of your tea. But that isn't just scum - Ms Giacomin told MailOnline that it is actually a very complex piece of biochemistry.

Groundwater levels are sinking ever faster around the world

external page ...The US isn’t an isolated case. “The rest of the world is also squandering groundwater like there’s no tomorrow,” says Hansjörg Seybold, Senior Scientist in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich. He is coauthor of a study that has just been published in the journal Nature.

Also reported in...

external page The New York Times (research reported)

external page Environmental News Network

external page Global Security Wire

Most international universities in the world 2024

external page ETH Zurich ranks 7th on the Times Higher Education World University Ranking among the most international universities in the world in 2024!

Hydrogen: Handle with care

external page Prof. Anthony Patt, ETH Zurich outlines the challenges associated with hydrogen fuel: storage, production, and leakage.

Ancient DNA reveals syphilis-like disease in pre-Columbian America

external page Researchers at the Universities of Basel and Zurich have discovered the genetic material of the pathogen Treponema pallidum in the bones of people who died in Brazil 2,000 years ago.This is the oldest verified discovery of this pathogen thus far, and it proves that humans were suffering from diseases akin to syphilis – known as treponematoses – long before Columbus's discovery of America.

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external page Tech and Science Post

external page ScienceDaily

external page Tech Times

external page The Microbiologist

external page Archaeology Magazine

AI Can Help Accelerate Commercialization Strategies

external page Artificial intelligence can help advanced therapy manufacturers bring their products to market by enabling them to cut costs and understand their processes better. That’s according to Michael Sokolov, PhD, the co-founder and COO of DataHow, a spinoff company from ETH Zurich specializing in bioprocess modeling and operations support.

Lasers make quantum materials reveal their hidden properties

external page UC San Diego researchers employed advance optical techniques to shed light on the mysterious qualities of a quantum material known Ta2NiSe5 (TNS). Their breakthrough is based upon a theory by Professor Eugene Demler of ETH Zurich, another author of the paper.

Also reported in...

external page AZO Quantum

external page Tech and Science Post

external page PHYS.org

external page Technology.org

Quantum physicist uses graphene ribbons to build nanoscale power plants

external page Assistant Professor of Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich and leading a research group at Empa, Mickael Perrin’s research is opening up another field of application: Electricity production using quantum effects with almost zero energy loss. To achieve this...(he) combines two usually separate disciplines of physics: thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

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external page PHYS.org

external page SciTechDaily

external page IEEE Spectrum

IPCC: Governments split on ‘accelerated’ climate reports for next UN global stocktake

external page Prof Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist from ETH Zurich who is a WG1 vice-chair for AR7, comments: “Delivery of the IPCC [assessment] report in 2028 would be critical for the IPCC to fulfil its mandate of being ‘policy relevant’. [Nonetheless,] the final decision keeps the door open for the three assessment reports to be released by 2028 – that is, in time for the global stocktake – provided that the schedule is carefully developed.” 

Scrona and Avantama Collaborate to Redefine Quantum Dot Processing with EHD High Patterning Resolution for Displays

external page (ETH Zurich spinoff) Scrona AG, the additive manufacturing startup and world record holder of the smallest ever printed color picture, and Avantama, a leader in high-tech materials for electronics, today announced that they have successfully processed high-performance quantum dot (QD) ink using Scrona's electrohydrodynamic (EHD) inkjet printing.

How Switzerland can take the lead in responsible AI development

external page ...At Davos 2024, an international network aimed at responsible AI deployment has just been revealed. The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, both Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology – ETH Zurich and EPFL – the Swiss Super Computer Center and members of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems network, Data Science Africa and the Finnish Supercomputing Center Lumi will work to make AI more inclusive and mitigate its adverse societal effects by creating an international computation and AI network of excellence. The network is designed to promote interdisciplinary research and expertise for AI models that serve society’s best interests.

New Virus Targets Dormant Bacteria, Boosting Antibiotic Power

external page Phages have been considered a potential alternative to antibiotics, especially when the latter become less effective due to drug resistance...Researchers at ETH Zurich pondered whether evolution might have given rise to bacteriophages specializing in dormant bacteria, presenting a potential avenue for targeted interventions.

Also reported in...

external page The Microbiologist

external page Interesting Engineering

external page Tech Trends Post

external page New Atlas

external page Futurity

external page Technology Networks

external page Technology.org

external page ScienceAlert

Scientists develop an agent capable of selectively inhibiting the body's stress response

external page The stress response is what enables us to quickly adapt to danger or a shift in conditions. But if this response—which is essential for survival—gets out of control. Researchers at ETH Zurich havenow developed a promising new agent that pinpoints and eliminates the control center of the stress response.  

Congo's blackwater Ruki River is a major transporter of forest carbon - new study

external page ETH Zurich researchers, Travis Drake, Johan Six, and Matti Barthel write about their year-long experience measuring the carbon in the Congo River. Their results show that the majority of carbon is sourced from leaching forest vegetation and soils. It also shows how rivers supply organic matter to downstream ecosystems and measures how much carbon rivers are moving in the carbon cycle.

Also reported in...

external page Foreign Affairs (New Zealand)

Clarifying the cause of Guillain-Barré syndrome

external page Although Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is considered an autoimmune disease, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown, making an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment a challenge. A study led by Daniela Latorre, an SNSF PRIMA group leader at the Institute of Microbiology at ETH Zurich, and published in Nature, now uncovers a pivotal aspect of GBS pathophysiology.

Also reported in...

external page LabRoots

Redefining Quantum Bits: The Graphene Valley Breakthrough

external page Researchers in the Laboratory for Solid State Physics at ETH Zurich found evidence that bilayer graphene quantum dots may host a promising new type of quantum bit based on so-​called valley states.

Also reported in...

external page Focus Technica

external page Science Magazine

external page SciTechDaily

external page Verve Times

external page PHYS.org

external page Bioengineer

‘Complement system’ is to blame for long COVID symptoms

external page A team of researchers led by Onur Boyman, professor of immunology at the University of Zurich (UZH) and director of the immunology department at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), has shown in the new study that the complement system plays an important role in long COVID. It is part of the innate immune system and normally helps to fight infections and eliminate damaged and infected body cells...The blood markers were discovered using bioinformatics methods in collaboration with Karsten Borgwardt during his time as a professor at ETH Zurich.

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external page Science Magazine

external page Bioengineer

external page Medical Xpress

external page TechExplorist

Researchers propose a navigation system to tackle medication supply bottlenecks

external page Supply bottlenecks for medications present major challenges to health care systems the world over...Currently...if it looks like supplies of a particular drug will run low, wholesalers try to procure alternative products via other manufacturers and supply chains in the market. But all too often, this proves difficult because the shortage of raw materials for medications means that there are no alternatives available. ETH researchers have now authored a study, published in the journal Science Advances, that points out a different path.

The Quest for Simple Rules to Build a Microbial Community

external page Microbiologists are searching for a universal theory of how bacteria form communities based not on their species but on the roles they play...Microbial ecologists went wild with it. “People were sequencing the hell out of everything,” said Glen D’Souza, a microbial ecologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. “The field was dominated by describing who was there — this bug was in this environment; this bug was in that environment.”

ANYmal: Robot tackles tricky terrains powered by ETH Zurich's new system

external page The system combines trajectory optimization and enhanced reinforcement learning to improve how ANYmal chooses its leg positions and footholds.

Bless This Mess: Qubits Can Last In Cluttered Environments

external page Surprising results from researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, ETH Zurich and EPFL show how qubits with long lifetimes can exist in a cluttered environment.

Also reported in...

external page Mining.com

external page Financial Press

external page Tech and Science Post

How universities can play a pivotal role in building economic resilience

external page ETH Zurich president, Joël Mesot writes on the vulnerabilities to the impact of climate change, supply chains, and cybersecurity challenges and how emerging technologies developed at universities can forge an economically-resilient future.

Intelligent Laser Wound Soldering Using Nanothermometers

external page Researchers from Empa and ETH Zurich have introduced a new technique for wound closure...Utilizing a novel laser soldering approach, the team has developed a method that uses metallic and ceramic nanoparticles for precise temperature control, offering a safer and more effective alternative to traditional suturing.

Also reported in...

external page Optics.org

external page News Medical Life Sciences

external page New Atlas

external page Institution of Mechanical Engineers

external page PHYS.org

external page Medical brief (South Africa)

Brumadinho dam collapse: The danger emerged after the decommissioning, study reveals

external page A study by Professor Alexander Puzrin, Head of the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering at ETH Zurich and an expert in landslide modeling, has now shed light on the Brumadinho disaster. The paper is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The scientists used numerical and analytical models to investigate the causes of the dam failure, and they have identified a physical mechanism that explains the mining accident.

Also reported in...

external page Republic of Mining

external page Technoblender

external page EurasiaReview

external page Tech and Science Post

AbbVie-backed Disco emerges from stealth with $21.8m

external page ETH Spinoff, Disco has built a protein mapping platform for cancer cell surfaces, to unlock targets for the antibody-based therapy market.

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external page BioSpace

As well as in numerous tech publications.

The ADN of Things: How to Store Information on Almost Any Object

external page ETH Zurich labs that, jointly with an Israeli scientist, have developed a new technology capable of storing information on almost any object...To achieve it, the Swiss research team has integrated several technologies around a single, and revolutionary, concept: the AND of things. The starting point was a nanoscale 3D-printing technique that can store information on tiny crystal beads to create microscopic barcodes printable on everyday surfaces.

World Economic Forum: UBS calls for standards for investments in biodiversity

external page "Biodiversity is important for both the climate and the economy, as around 60 percent of global economic output is moderately or strongly dependent on nature," according to a study presented at the World Economic Forum in collaboration with ETH Zurich. According to estimates, investments of around 2030 billion dollars per year will be necessary by 700 to combat species extinction.

Researchers use light-reactive molecules to capture carbon dioxide

external page The new method from ETH Zurich departs from traditional carbon capture, relying on temperature or pressure, minimizing energy consumption.

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external page Verve Times

external page Environmental News Network

external page Tech Explorist

external page Technology.org

external page AZO Cleantech

external page Earth.com

external page Futurity

2024, a crucial year for climate diplomacy

external page “The words of the COP are just words and they will have no consequences if the leaders of the most emitting countries do not modify their policy,” notes Sonia Seneviratne, climatologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Switzerland). In reality, they must go even further, because the Dubai text is very far from allowing the planet to remain below 1.5°C of warming when every tenth of a degree counts.

NASA Selects New Technology to Help Search for Life on Mars

external page A possible solution is to incorporate a system for large-scale water mining operations on Mars that could screen for lifeforms. The proposal, known as an Agnostic Life Finding (ALF) system, was one of thirteen concepts selected by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) program this year for Phase I development...The concept was proposed by Steven Benner and a team from the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (FfAME) in Alachua, Florida. Benner is a former professor of chemistry at Harvard University, ETH Zurich etc...

Peering Into the Atomic World: A Breakthrough in Perovskite Research

external page A team of researchers led by Nuri Yazdani and Vanessa Wood at ETH Zurich, and Aaron Lindenberg at Stanford, along with colleagues at Empa in Dübendorf, have now made significant progress towards our understanding of perovskites by studying the motion of atoms inside nanocrystals with a time resolution of a few billionths of a second. They recently published their findings in the scientific journal Nature Physics.

Also reported in...

external page Sky News

The Amyloid Hypothesis: Rewriting Life’s Origin Story

external page Roland Riek, Professor of Physical Chemistry and Associate Director of ETH Zurich’s new interdisciplinary Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life and his team have been pursuing the idea that protein-​like aggregates, known as amyloids, might have played an important role in the transition between chemistry and biology. Riek’s research group’s first step was to demonstrate that such amyloids can be formed relatively easily under the conditions that probably prevailed on the early Earth: in the laboratory, all it takes is a little volcanic gas (as well as experimental skill and a lot of patience) for simple amino acids to combine into short peptide chains, which then spontaneously assemble into fibers.

Also reported in...

external page SciTechDaily

G42 joins forces with global leaders in AI industry at AI House Davos

external page G42 joins forces with global leaders in AI industry at AI House Davos during the World Economic Forum, 15-19th January. AI House Davos will bring together leaders in industry, civil society, government, the investing community, and academics to drive the global conversation on artificial intelligence. AI House is a joint initiative led by Merantix, ETH AI Center, Swisscom, UTokyo Institute for AI and Beyond, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and G42.

Watt d'Or Awarded for Sustainable, Efficient Photovoltaic Power

external page ETH Zurich researchers from the Automatic Control Laboratory and the electricity supplier AEW Energie AG have won the 2024 Watt d'Or award in the Energy Technologies category. Their algorithm, which was implemented at AEW Energie, makes it possible to optimise electricity grid operations.

Also reported in...

external page Technology.org

AAS Names Recipients of 2024 Awards & Prizes  

external page The American Astronomical Society (AAS), a major international organization of professional astronomers, announced the recipients of some of its 2024 prizes for outstanding achievements in research and education...Third Prize was awarded to Davide Racco (ETH Zurich; University of Zurich) et al for their work entitled "Footprints of the QCD Crossover on Cosmological Gravitational Waves at Pulsar Timing Arrays."

Sevensense acquisition to add VSLAM smarts to mobile robots, says ABB

external page ABB today announced that it has acquired (ETH Zurich spinoff) Sevensense, which combines artificial intelligence and 3D vision to enable AMRs to differentiate between fixed and mobile objects in dynamic environments.

Also reported in...

external page Plant Automation Technology

external page Power Transmission Engineering

external page Silicon Angle

Researchers identify new regulators of cellular aging

external page Collaboration between the laboratory of professor of Mechano-Genomics at ETH Zurich and the Broad Institute of MIT have found key gene-expression regulators related to cellular aging that are tightly coupled to structural alterations of chromatin — the DNA-protein complex that forms chromosomes. The findings, published last month in Aging Cell, offer new insights into the biology of cellular aging. The research may also provide potential targets for aging reversal.

New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material

external page The discovery, recently published in the journal Nature, marks the latest advance in the five-decade hunt for Nagaoka ferromagnetism, in which a material magnetizes as the electrons within it minimize their kinetic energy, in contrast to traditional magnets.

Also reported in...

external page Physics World

The Frontiers of Knowledge Award goes to five European pioneers who discovered the link between greenhouse gases and rising global temperatures enclosed within the polar ice

external page Thomas Stocker (Zurich, Switzerland, 1959) graduated in physics from ETH Zurich, where he went on to receive a PhD in Natural Sciences in 1987...He maintained a decades long association with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change...It was during his tenure that the report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis was approved by governments, providing the scientific foundation for the Paris Agreement.

LatticeFlow and DEKRA Announce the First Commercial AI Assessment for Migros Bank, a Leading Swiss Bank

external page Following the announcement of a strategic partnership to help businesses ensure AI safety and trustworthiness, (ETH Spinoff) LatticeFlow and DEKRA proudly unveil the successful completion of the first commercial AI Assessment for one of Switzerland's well renowned financial institutions, Migros Bank.

Also reported in...

external page The AI Journal

Switzerland’s ‘Alps’ HPC Infrastructure Extended Across Multiple Locations

external page As part of the “Alps” research infrastructure, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano is currently deploying hardware and software at various locations within Switzerland. This distributed infrastructure is designed to increase the efficiency and resilience of CSCS services.

Phoenix Bridge / Zaha Hadid Architects

external page Constructed at Holcim’s Innovation Hub, in Lyon, (France) - Pheonix is a collaboration between Holcim, Block Research Group at ETH Zurich, Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHA CODE), and incremental3D. Demonstrating circular construction combined with 3D concrete printing offers significant carbon reductions, the Pheonix bridge is the latest milestone by Holcim and its partners in their work to develop low-carbon structural solutions at every scale.

Also reported in...

external page Construction Canada

Kurt Forster, scholar and former Getty Research Institute and CCA director, dies at 89

external page Swiss architecture professor Kurt Walter Forster died of cancer on January 6 at his home in New York, aged 89. He is remembered for...his tenure as a mentor to myriad renowned scholars at ETH Zurich. Forster was born in Zurich in 1935, and later studied architecture in Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Florence, and London...In 1992, Forster returned to his alma mater, ETH Zurich, to direct the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, until he retired in 1999.

Why we need to know more about individual carbon footprints

external page As part of the Swiss Environmental Panel, my (Thomas Bernauer, professor of political science at ETH Zurich's Center for Comparative and International Studies) research group estimated the individual climate footprint in a representative sample of about 7,500 people in Switzerland using a survey and a CO2 calculator. We then attempted to describe and explain differences in the areas of mobility, nutrition, housing and consumption.

Historic moon lander malfunctions after launch—but NASA isn’t panicked (yet)

external page “What I was hoping when we came up with the idea was to create and develop a series of companies that could be available for Artemis,” says Zurbuchen, now the head of ETH Zurich (Space), at a public research university in Switzerland. “Remember, when you land on the moon and you want to stay there for a long time, cargo delivery is just as important as it is in the space station.”

How Commercial Landers Are Changing Lunar Exploration

external page Thomas Zurbuchen, then-head of NASA’s science missions, recently left the space agency (now Director for ETH Zurich Space). Four years after starting CLPS, he acknowledged that the program’s future would depend, in part, on the tolerance for risk. “After how many CLPS failures do we say, ‘Hey, it’s not working?’ ” he said in an interview published last year in the New York Times. “It’s an experiment, right? There is no way to get to the moon otherwise for substantially less than a billion bucks. And that’s what we tried to break, that cost of entry.”

Soil fungi determine the gradient of forest diversity worldwide

external page "The scientific community is very much in the learning stage about appreciating the diversity of different types of soil microbes and their distribution over the planet,” said Baker, highlighting the burgeoning interest in understanding how microbes drive global biodiversity patterns. (ETH Zurich's Camille) Delavaux’s enthusiasm for future research reflects a growing recognition of the intricate connections between microbial life and global ecological processes.

Also reported in...

external page AZO Life Sciences

external page The Microbiologist

A new mathematical language for biological networks

external page Collaborating with biologists from ETH Zurich and Carnegie Science (USA), a research team from Max Planck presented a novel concept for the mathematical modeling of genetic interactions in biological systems that has successfully identified master regulators within the context of an entire genetic network. The research results provide a coherent theoretical framework for analyzing biological networks

3D Printing and Soft Robots: An Evolving Relationship

external page "Robots made of soft materials, such as the hand we developed, have advantages over conventional robots made of metal. Because they're soft, there is less risk of injury when they work with humans, and they are better suited to handling fragile goods." Katzschmann, Study First Author and Professor, ETH Zurich.

9 ingenious rescue robots set to become the lifesavers of tomorrow

external page Divers from the Swiss armed forces return to shore with their Proteus robot following a successful test. Developed for search, recovery, inspection and surveillance through a collaboration between Tethys Robotics and the Swiss Drone and Robotics Centre of armasuisse Science Technology. ANYmal is a four-legged robot devised to carry out autonomous inspections at industrial facilities. It’s the successor of several generations of legged robots from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and its spin-off company ANYbotics.

RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

external page Swiss computer scientist Professor Niklaus Wirth died on New Year's Day, roughly six weeks before what would have been his 90th birthday...Wirth is justly celebrated as the creator of the Pascal programming language, but that was only one step in a series of important languages and research projects. Both asteroid 21655 and a law of computer design are named after him. He won computer-science boffinry's highest possible gong, the Turing Award, in 1984...In 1959 he got his bachelor's degree from ETH Zürich, to which he returned later in life and from which much of his important research emerged.

Brainwave Riders: How Ultrasound Microbubbles Could Change Medicine

external page A groundbreaking study (atat ETH Zurich) has enabled the use of ultrasound-guided microbubbles to navigate through blood vessels in the brain. This method promises a more targeted and less invasive approach for treating brain-related conditions, including tumors and psychological disorders, with potential to reduce side effects of medications.

Here, There, Everywhere: Environmental DNA Clues to Biodiversity

external page Interview with Prof. Kristy Deiner on traces of life in the environment and how they reveal ecosystem health, and prompted a scientific hunt for them.

Also reported in...

external page PHYS.org

Hera Biotech to Make First Acquisition in the Endometriosis Diagnostic Market and Enter Into Strategic Partnership With Scailyte

external page Hera Biotech announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire the endometriosis diagnostic assets and associated IP of single-cell and AI-driven biomarker discovery company (ETH Zurich spinoff) Scailyte, creating an important consolidation of the only two tissue-based diagnostic programs for endometriosis.  

Google’s Breakthrough in Quantum-Resistant Cryptography

external page In a groundbreaking move, Google has announced the development of a new cryptographic method that aims to withstand the potential threats posed by quantum computers. This significant advancement comes at a time when quantum computing is rapidly advancing, causing a shift in the paradigm of security keys that are vulnerable to quantum attacks...Collaborating with ETH Zurich in Switzerland, Google has introduced the FIDO2 key, which incorporates the Dilithium cryptographic algorithm.

Scewo targets US market for its stairs-climbing wheelchair

external page As part of a financing round, (ETH Zurich Spinoff) Scewo AG has raised 9.2 million Swiss francs in Series A extension funding...Scewo has developed an electric wheelchair with the ability to climb stairs, among other functionalities...With this fresh capital, Scewo is seeking to prepare the ground for entry onto the US market. The first step in this context would be attaining FDA approval.

A Precision Arm for Mini Robots

external page Breakthrough - a team at ETH Zurich has developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.

How ransomware could cripple countries, not just companies

external page The paradox of ransomware, says Max Smeets of the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, a university, is that it works only if victims trust their attackers, a dynamic that distinguishes ransomware from cyber-espionage or even other sorts of cybercrime, like straight-up fraud. Victims must have confidence that their extortionists will decrypt data or refrain from publishing it if a ransom is paid. So attackers need a reputation for honesty and competence. They aim to build brands that embody those virtues. Although state hackers generally want to pass unnoticed, ransomware attackers want publicity. LockBit, for instance, has offered $1,000 to people who tattoo the group’s logo onto their body.

Video Friday: More Happy Holidays! Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

external page IEEE mentions the upcoming CYBATHLON Challenges (2 February 2024) and features the ETH Zurich Autonomous Systems Lab's Christmas video. Check out the robot backing cookies and the drone that decorates a Christmas tree.

9 ways to change or advance your career in 2024

external page The EMBA ETH HSG (emba X) is a joint Executive MBA programme offered by ETH Zurich and the University of St.Gallen, two of Switzerland’s leading educational institutions. The 18-month, part-time programme is for experienced leaders who care about their impact.

Happy Birthday, John von Neumann

external page At the age of 15, he began studying advanced calculus under renowned Hungarian-American mathematician Gábor Szegő. Just four years later, at the age of 19, he published two significant mathematical papers. Von Neumann went on to graduate from ETH Zürich as a chemical engineer while simultaneously completing his PhD in mathematics.

Autonomous excavator constructs 6-metre-high dry-stone wall

external page ETH Zurich researchers from Gramazio Kohler Research, the Robotics Systems Lab, Vision for Robotics Lab, and the Chair of Landscape Architecture deployed an autonomous excavator to build a 6-metre-high and 65-metre-long dry-stone wall.

Airlines bet on new fuel source that is literally pulled from thin air: ‘We have to start now’

external page Researchers have already developed the “power to liquid” process in which massive fans take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, extract carbon from CO2 molecules, and combine it with hydrogen to create hydrocarbons. A team of researchers at Switzerland’s ETH Zurich has even built a solar tower to create “solar kerosene” using merely the air, water, and solar power.

Goat 'Left for Dead' Now Spends Her Days Napping and Snacking at Sanctuary

external page "...Goats have the ability to learn how to solve complicated tasks quickly and can recall how to perform them for at least 10 months...," say researchers. "The speed at which the goats completed the task at 10 months compared to how long it took them to learn indicates excellent long-term memory," said co-author Dr Elodie Briefer, now based at ETH Zurich.

Meet The AI That Will Beat You At Physical Challenges As Well As Mind Games

external page Raffaello D’Andrea, a professor at the Swiss university ETH Zürich and the founder and CEO of drone-focused start-up Verity, claims to have changed that. Together with one of his ETH Zürich students, Thomas Bi, D’Andrea has built an AI system capable of learning how to play “the labyrinth”, a game in which players must steer a marble through a maze while avoiding traps, and then actually doing it.

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