In the Media - June 2024

Mars gets hit by hundreds of basketball-size space rocks every year

external page“This rate was about five times higher than the number estimated from orbital imagery alone,” said co-lead study author Dr. Géraldine Zenhäusern, staff of professorship for seismology and geodynamics at Switzerland’s ETH Zürich, in a statement. “Aligned with orbital imagery, our findings demonstrate that seismology is an excellent tool for measuring impact rates.”call_made

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external pageAol.call_made

external pageDown to Earthcall_made

external pageEurekAlert! (Brown University publication)call_made

external pageEurekAlert! (Imperial College London publication)call_made

external pageInternational Business Timescall_made

external pageInteresting Engineeringcall_made

external pageLe Pays de Francecall_made

external pagePHYS.orgcall_made

external pagePrinceton Daily Clarioncall_made

external pageRadio France Internationalcall_made

external pageScience Alertcall_made

external pageScience Blogcall_made

external pageScience Magazinecall_made

external pageScience Dailycall_made

external pageSciTech Dailycall_made

external pageSpace Weeklycall_made

external pageTech and Science Postcall_made

external pageThe Science Timescall_made

external pageThe San Francisco Examinercall_made

external pageYahoo! Newscall_made

As well as numerous regional publications and television broadcasts in the U.S.

Researchers develop the fastest possible flow algorithm

external pageIn a breakthrough...Rasmus Kyng, Maximilian Probst Gutenberg and team have developed a superfast algorithm that looks set to transform an entire field of research. The groundbreaking work by Kyng's team involves what is known as a network flow algorithm, which tackles the question of how to achieve the maximum flow in a network while simultaneously minimizing transport costs.call_made

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external pageScience Magazinecall_made

ETH Zurich: AI reality lags the hype in Swiss tech industries

external pageEveryone talks about Artificial Intelligence but its current adoption rates are low in the Swiss tech industry, especially in manufacturing-related applications. This is one conclusion of a survey conducted by ETH Zurich in collaboration with Swissmem and Next Industries. Professor Torbjørn Netland, responsible for the report, explains why Swiss tech companies are still faring well in an international comparison and how they can release the potential.call_made

Breakthrough in Understanding Connexin-Drug Interactions

external page...Researchers from PSI, ETH Zurich and the University of Geneva have deepened our understanding of connexin channels and how they bind to drug molecules...These molecules form channels that allow neighboring cells to send direct messages to one another. Dysfunctions of these channels are involved in neurological and cardiac diseases.call_made

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external pageBioengineercall_made

external pagePHYS.orgcall_made

Exclusive: UBS urges Swiss government to clarify capital demands, sources say

external page"There is clearly a need to clarify," said Hans Gersbach, macroeconomics professor at the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich. "Investors need to know if there are $25 billion more that UBS needs to find, and in which timeframe."call_made

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external pageThe Globe and Mailcall_made

external pageYahoo! Financecall_made

Sonia’s AI chatbot steps in for therapists

external pageCan chatbots replace human therapists? Some startups — and patients — claim that they can. But it’s not exactly settled science...Three entrepreneurs — Dustin Klebe, Lukas Wolf and Chris Aeberli — are in the pro-chatbot therapy camp. Their startup, Sonia, offers an “AI therapist” that users can talk to or text with via an iOS app about a range of topics...The three met in 2018 while studying computer science at ETH Zürich and moved to the U.S. together to pursue graduate studies at MIT. Shortly after graduating, they reunited to launch a startup that could encapsulate their shared passion for scalable tech.call_made

Scientists reveal why some people with the flu may be more contagious

external pageA new study by scientists at the Laboratory of Experimental Virology (LEV), along with colleagues at EPFL's School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), ETH Zurich, and the University of Zurich, looks at the behavior of the flu virus outside the human body, and specifically how this behavior is influenced by respiratory bacteria.call_made

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external pageHealth Medicine Networkcall_made

Swiss companies are pioneering revolutionary batteries that can charge in one minute: 'The only way of meeting the enormous rise in demand for high-performance batteries'

external pageETH Zurich is celebrating big news from two battery companies that are spin-offs of university research. They are leveraging Swiss industry expertise that involves novel layered production techniques...BTRY is the maker of an ultra-thin solid-state battery that "charges in minutes [and] stores for years," per the designers. 8inks offers a battery manufacturing process that experts claim allows power packs "to reach their full potential."call_made

Can AI Save Schrödinger’s Cat?

external pageOutcomes in quantum mechanics depend on observations. But must the observer be human?...Renato Renner, head of the research group for quantum information theory at ETH Zurich and someone who has also worked on the Wigner’s-friend paradox, is enthusiastic about this use of a quantum-mechanical AI. “Obviously, we cannot do a Wigner’s-friend experiment with real humans,” he says. “Whereas if you go to the other extreme and just do experiments with single [photons], that’s just not so convincing. [Wiseman and his team] tried to find this middle ground. And I think they did a very good job.”call_made  

This researcher reads rivers

external pageJessica Droujko is passionate about water – and rivers in particular. The Canadian scientist was born along the Niagara River, spent her summers on the Ottawa River and earned her Bachelor‘s degree in Montreal, where two rivers merge to create the great St. Lawrence River. She came to ETH Zurich for her Master’s studies and fell in love with Switzerland and its rivers, prompting her to do her doctorate at the Department Of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. During this time, she developed the foundation for her start-up Riverkin, which measures and analyses the quality of river water.call_made

Researchers use gold membrane to coax secrets out of surfaces

external pageUsing a special wafer-thin gold membrane, ETH researchers have made it significantly easier to study surfaces. The membrane makes it possible to measure properties of surfaces that are inaccessible to conventional methods.call_made

Also reported in...

external pageThe Science Timescall_made

Do other planets have plate tectonics?

external pageThere are two main types of convection regimes that have been observed in the solar system, according to Cédric Gillmann, a planetary scientist at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zürich. Whereas Earth has plate tectonics, some other bodies — such as Mars, Mercury and Earth's moon — have what is called a stagnant lid.call_made  

People of the ACM - Torsten Hoefler (interview)

external pageWhat is the specific focus of ETH Zurich’s Scalable Parallel Computing Laboratory and what makes this lab unique in the field?...Our lab has always been guided by the vision of “Performance as a Science,” which aims to improve our world through faster and more efficient computer systems. Our main research area is developing mathematical performance and requirements models to understand applications, systems, and the mapping between them. We focus specifically on large-scale AI and HPC workloads and systems that were used to train programs such as GPT-3 and 4...call_made

Panasonic and ETH Zurich to explore asteroids

external pagePanasonic is currently supporting a development programme by students at ETH Zurich to develop a robot that will be used to explore asteroids...The development team from ETH Zurich assumes that the most effective way of traveling in that low-gravity environment would be controlled leaps. Therefore it has chosen a three-legged design for its robot.call_made

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external pageEnvironmental Engineering Techcall_made

external pageAeronautics & Defence Technologiescall_made

external pageElectronic Engineeringcall_made

Innovative Swiss private sector-government collaborations protecting national sovereignty

external page...Switzerland's startup scene is a hotbed of innovation, talent, and opportunity, bolstered by seamless, strategic links between incubators, universities, and strongly supportive government authorities... This well-crafted foundation continues to pay serious dividends...2023 recognising Switzerland as the most innovative economy for the 13th consecutive year...Despite its small size, Switzerland commands significant investment capital, boasting one of Europe's highest VC funding per capita—in 2022 alone, DeepTech ventures attracted a remarkable €1.5 billion in investment. ETH Zurich, a global academic leader in computer science, has been instrumental in spawning numerous successful spinouts...call_made

9 European university spinouts to watch, according to VCs

external pageLook close enough and you’ll find that some of the startups that have raised big, big money in Europe have their roots in academia...Climeworks — one of the world’s best-funded carbon removal startups — spun out of ETH Zurich, a European spinout powerhouse.call_made

China Targets US With Hacking Contests

external pageCyber experts have called on the government and big business to do more in the wake of the report from ETH Zurich's Center for Security Studies, which revealed how China is weaponizing the brains of its young technophiles.call_made

What fuel made from the sun could do for the planet

external pageETH Zurich spinoff, Synhelion launches its DAWN Project - "first major step toward harnessing the power of the sun to create sustainable, carbon-neutral fuel to power long-haul flights and even some industrial processes that presently require fossil fuels."call_made

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external pageInteresting Engineeringcall_made

external pageThe Innovatorcall_made

external pageSolarPacescall_made

external pageSolar News Internationalcall_made

external pageRenewables Nowcall_made

external pageChemical Engineeringcall_made

Apple, Microsoft Shrink AI Models to Improve Them...“Small language models” emerge as an alternative to gargantuan AI options

external pageFor researchers like Alex Warstadt, a computer science researcher at ETH Zurich, SLMs could also offer new, fascinating insights into a longstanding scientific question: How children acquire their first language. Warstadt, alongside a group of researchers including Northeastern’s Mueller, organizes BabyLM, a challenge in which participants optimize language-model training on small data.call_made

An alternative way to manipulate quantum states

external pageResearchers at ETH Zurich have shown that quantum states of single electron spins can be controlled by currents of electrons whose spins are evenly aligned. In the future, this method could be used in electronic circuit elements.call_made

Also reported in...

external pagePHYS.orgcall_made

New model could shed light on brittle bone disease

external pageResearchers have developed a cell-based bone model to help investigate the cause of brittle bone disease...So far, scientists have had only a rudimentary understanding of how mutations in the collagen protein disrupt the formation of the bone matrix, as well as of how to go about treating these malformations. But now, a group of researchers at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Biomechanics has taken a major step towards answering these questions.call_made

The era of super-wild weather is already here

external pageErich Fischer, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, has helped demonstrate that temperature records around the world are falling by greater and greater margins, meaning there’s "increasing probability of record-shattering climate extremes”...A study Fischer led last year identified places that might have undetected potential for heat waves of that magnitude..."Now that we know that these events become more frequent, we should expect to see more of these jumps,” Fisher says. With the realization that impossible weather was now in many ways possible, he says he’s been investigating the next logical question: "What is really the biggest event that people need to prepare for?”call_made

LatticeFlow AI Announces Key Innovation to Accelerate Development of Deepfake Detection Software in Advance of U.S. Elections

external page(ETH Spinoff) LatticeFlow AI, the leading platform for building trustworthy AI applications, announces LatticeFlow AI Audio, the first product designed to find and identify model errors in audio AI applications...This release addresses the pressing demand for reliable voice deepfake detection solutions in advance of the 2024 U.S. elections. In this context, LatticeFlow AI Audio, combined with the company’s existing capabilities in computer vision, makes it the most advanced solution for deepfake detectors to combat deepfake threats combining audio and video.call_made

Also reported in numerous regional radio, digital, and television broadcasts in the USA

How trees 'talk' to each other

external pageTrees have been around for hundreds of millions of years and cover about 30% of the Earth’s surface. That level of ubiquity and proximity implies that trees can, to an extent, communicate with one another. To do this, trees have formed a symbiotic relationship with another group of organisms: the fungi. These vast and complex underground networks have remained unknown to us until relatively recently, but are the source of some remarkable interactions between trees. Here’s Tom Crowther at ETH Zurich...(in a podcast talking about) the funky fungi underfoot network...call_made

Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley collaborates with Nestlé and Tetra Pak to inspire collaborative innovation in sustainable packaging

external page...Experts in the field, including ETH Zurich, EPFL and Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and contributions took a closer look at alternatives to wood fibres and high-performing bio-based polymers as particularly promising solutions.call_made

Team uses radar to study glaciers

external pageETH Zurich researchers are using radar to scan the snow and ice on the Jungfraujoch. For several years, ETH researchers have made their way up to the High Altitude Research Station Jungfraujoch to study the upper part of the Aletsch Glacier...to determine the thickness of the Aletsch Glacier and calculate the shrinkage of the glacier over time.call_made

How SMEs benefit from ETH Zurich

external pageSmall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the Swiss economy: 99 percent of Swiss companies employ fewer than 250 people, and SMEs employ two-thirds of the Swiss workforce. Innovations are essential to the survival of many SMEs, especially those that compete on the international stage...SMEs often struggle to dedicate enough resources to innovation. “Running an innovation project requires a significant investment of time, money and people,” says Mirko Meboldt, Professor of Product Development and Engineering Design at ETH Zurich...call_made

AI could take medical imaging to the next level

external pageAI can also help scientists comb through even more complex visual data, like ultrasound videos of newborn babies’ hearts, says Julia Vogt, a computer scientist at ETH Zurich. Trained pediatricians can look at those videos and spot infants who might have heart problems, but it’s difficult and time consuming, she says. Doctors at a clinic in Germany asked her team if it could help...Vogt’s team created an AI model that analyzes babies’ ultrasounds along with other data. In a test using videos from 192 newborns who had previously been evaluated by pediatric cardiologists, the model could accurately point out which infants had a heart issue called pulmonary hypertension about 80 percent of the time...call_made

Supercharge Robotics Workflows with AI and Simulation Using NVIDIA Isaac Sim 4.0 and NVIDIA Isaac Lab

external pageIsaac Lab, built on Isaac Sim, is a unified, modular, and open-source framework for robot learning that aims to simplify common workflows such as reinforcement, imitation, and demonstration learning, as well as motion planning. It incorporates features from Orbit, an open-source framework developed through a joint initiative by NVIDIA, the AI Institute, ETH Zurich, and the University of Toronto.call_made

ETH AI professor: “Europe has fallen behind” – News

external pageWhen Apple announces news about artificial intelligence, it's a global topic. It is not known that the tech giant is also creating jobs in Zurich. This is thanks to the artificial intelligence expertise of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)...A few years ago, Apple acquired two startups with their origins in ETH, namely Luc van Gool's computer vision lab. In an interview with SRF, the head of the Computer Vision Laboratory spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of American dominance in the technology sector.call_made

European Deep Tech Companies Partner To Produce E-Fuel From Forest Waste

external pageETH Spinoff, Synhelion, a global pioneer in the field of sustainable solar fuels, has developed a technology to produce next-generation synthetic fuels. At the core of the solution is a proprietary process that converts solar heat into syngas. This syngas is then fed into Ineratec’s modular synthesis plant and converted into liquid fuels via the Fischer-Tropsch process. By combining these technologies, Synhelion and Ineratec says they can produce clean solar fuels that offer an economically viable, efficient, and scalable substitute for fossil fuels that is fully compatible with existing global fuel infrastructure.call_made 

ETH Zurich is working on a multi-material 3D printing system

external pageA group of students at ETH Zurich is working on a further development of the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process as part of the RAPTURE focus project. The aim is to develop the fastest and most efficient system of this type to date. In addition, the process should enable the integration of several materials in one component. This multi-material capability promises great advantages for the aerospace industry in particular.call_made

Crowdsourcing eDNA for biodiversity monitoring: Interview with Kristy Deiner

external pageWhat do lakes tell us about life on the land surrounding it? When environmental DNA scientist Kristy Deiner and her team started thinking about this question, the answer seemed evident: probably a lot. Rivers flow through landscapes and end up in lakes or the oceans. Along the way, they collect and carry with them traces of the DNA, or environmental DNA (eDNA), of the biodiversity that lives in the catchment...“It became clear that lakes are eDNA hotspots, and that we could go and get this large-scale information and understand more about biodiversity on Earth,” Deiner, assistant professor at the department of environmental systems science at ETH Zurich, told Mongabay in a video interview. The big question, she said, was, “Does the DNA that we expect on the landscape actually get into the lake?”call_made

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external pageEnviroLinkcall_made

external pageThe Source WUSTLcall_made

external pageSouth Africa Todaycall_made

external pageSmart Water Magazinecall_made

external pagePHYS.orgcall_made

external pageGreen Reportercall_made

Robot Talk Episode 89 – Simone Schuerle

external pageSimone Schuerle is Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, where she heads the Responsive Biomedical System Lab. With her team, she develops diagnostic and therapeutic systems at the nano- and microscale with the aim of tackling a range of challenging problems in medicine. One major focus of her current research is addressing limitations in drug delivery through scalable magnetically enhanced drug transport. In 2014, she co-founded the spin-off MagnebotiX that offers electromagnetic control systems for wireless micromanipulation.call_made

5 Highlights From Art Basel 2024

external page“Intoxicating Objects: Fetishism in Art” at the Graphische Sammlung inside ETH Zürich (through July 7) likewise addresses desire, specifically obsession with objects, as seen through its extensive collection of works on paper from the Middle Ages up to today.call_made

Engineering Excellence: PCIM 2024 Honors Top Research

external pageThe Young Researcher Award recognizes an author 30 years old or younger affiliated with a science and research institution. This year’s winner is: Andreas Horat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Highly-Compact Bearingless Axial-Flux Motor for a Pediatric Implantable Fontan Blood Pump...ETH Zurich, the University of Innsbruck, and the Medical University of Vienna are collaborating to develop a pediatric implantable rotary blood pump (RBP).call_made

Reinforcement Learning Enhances Urban Maneuverability for Wheeled Robots

external pageResearchers from ETH Zurich have unveiled an autonomous navigation system that significantly enhances the speed and maneuverability of wheeled robots in urban settings.The researchers developed a control system powered by reinforcement learning designed for wheeled-legged quadrupeds, enabling the robots to smoothly transition between walking and driving modes when navigating challenging terrain like stairs.call_made

Large birds can boost forest carbon storage — if deforestation doesn’t interfere

external pageLike toucans, other species of large frugivorous birds — dusky-legged guans, or jacus (Penelope obscura) and curl-crested jays (Cyanocorax cristatellus), among others — contribute to regenerating tropical forests by dispersing seeds on the ground. In doing so, they help increase a forest’s carbon storage by 38%...That’s the finding from a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers working with the Crowther Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, or ETH Zurich.call_made

Gaining a better understanding of brittle bone disease with 3D model featuring biodegradable hydrogel matrix

external pageSo far, scientists have had only a rudimentary understanding of how mutations in the collagen protein disrupt the formation of the bone matrix, as well as of how to go about treating these malformations. But now, a group of researchers at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Biomechanics has taken a major step towards answering these questions...they have developed a 3D in vitro model that allows them to investigate bone formation in greater detail—currently using healthy cells and in the future also using cells from people afflicted with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).call_made

How Verity’s Drones are Revolutionizing Inventory Management

external pageETH Spinoff, Verity has developed a unique solution for businesses to keep track of their inventory, components, and physical assets using autonomous drones. This technology eliminates the need for manual inventory checks, which are inefficient and prone to errors.call_made  

Thinning ice: Swiss Life Arena in Zürich, Switzerland by Caruso St John Architects

"The architects of the Swiss Life Arena agree that the building should mark the end of an era of concrete and steel megastructures – (Adam) Caruso says he hasn’t done a new building with his students at ETH Zurich for five years – but frustratingly, it won’t.

Geothermal model gives key insights into extracting renewable energy from superhot, super deep rock

external pageEarth scientists at ETH Zurich along with researchers in Iceland and Germany developed a computer model sheds light on the latter, describing for the first time what happens when rock at those depths and temperatures is exposed to fluids that can eventually transfer the rocks' heat to the surface.call_made

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external pageInteresting Engineeringcall_made

external pageAltenergymagcall_made

Interview – Myriam Dunn Cavelty

external page"We show that focusing too much on technology ignores three crucial aspects of cyberspace. First, like every technology, it is entirely built by humans. This means that people and their interests and ideas shape the development and design of technologies decisively. Technologies do not hold meaning on their own or act by themselves – they are part of an assemblage of people, discursive processes and other material or immaterial things."call_made

Alarming Global Warming Rate: 92% of 2023’s Record-Breaking Heat Levels Was Caused by Humans, Calculations Reveal

external pageSonia Seneviratne, a co-author of the study and head of ETH Zurich's land-climate dynamics, explained that the temperature rise for last year was not just a little jump. It was notably unusual during September.call_made

Synhelion partnering with Pilatus to scale its solar fuel

external pagePilatus and (ETH Spinoff) Synhelion are about to launch a strategic cooperation aimed at accelerating the scaling of solar fuels for the aviation industry. Pilatus intends to use Synhelion’s solar fuels for its own operations...(and is making a) commitment to proactive defossilization of air traffic.call_made

Swiss startup Microcaps secures €9.6M to advance its microencapsulation technology

external pageETH Spinoff, Microcaps AG, an innovator in advanced microencapsulation technology, announced on Wednesday that it has secured CHF 9.3M (approximately €9.6M) in a Series A round of funding.call_made

Redox reactions ‘mine’ old fluorescent light bulbs for europium

external pageA new redox method can extract and recycle europium from real-life waste such as compact fluorescent lamps. in just three simple steps this protocol yields the lanthanide in quantities at least 50 times higher than state-of-the-art solutions used by the chemical industry. Researchers have already patented the technology and created a start-up to commercialise it....Rare Earth elements are mostly mined outside of Europe and North America and are difficult to extract, refine and recycle. ‘The sourcing and purification of rare earth elements is expensive, labour-intensive and ecologically devastating,’ says first author Marie Perrin from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.call_made

Hybrid humanoid robot dog takes on steps, streets, sidewalks independently

external pageETH Zurich’s Robotic Systems Lab has recently taken its revolutionary legged-wheeled hybrid road out and about to test its mobility. Tested on the streets of Zurich and Seville, the robot could navigate a wide variety of terrains while also autonomously avoiding collisions with obstacles and pedestrians.call_made

In Highly Connected Networks, There’s Always a Loop

external pageMathematicians show that graphs of a certain common type must contain a route that visits each point exactly once...Now at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, conjectured that an important class of graphs called expander graphs all contain Hamiltonian cycles.call_made

Technical Marvels...

external pageHerbert Bruderer is a retired lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich and a historian of technology writes about some of the earliest mathematical instrument Lebombo and Ishango bones.call_made

Shape-Shifting T Cells Signal Activity State

external pageT cells are small spherical immune cells with a standard shape and function that typically roam the circulatory system… right? Maybe not. Berend Snijder, PhD, and his team at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology in Zurich, Switzerland, are working to answer this very question...Using machine learning models to analyze images of T cells, which change shape from spherical to polarized bottle-shaped when activated, the researchers were able to group the cells into different categories based on activation level.call_made

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external pageAZO Life Sciencescall_made

external pageMedical Xpresscall_made

external pageNews Medical Life Sciencescall_made

external pageThe Technology Networkscall_made

external pageLaboratory Equipmentcall_made

Study shows orexin neurons can track how fast blood glucose changes

external pageResearchers at ETH Zürich recently carried out a study investigating the potential role of a specific type of neuron, called orexin neurons, in tracking blood glucose levels. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that orexin neurons in the mouse brain are responsible for tracking how fast blood glucose levels are changing.call_made

New study finds Earth warming at record rate, but no evidence of climate change accelerating

external pageLast year’s temperature rise was more than just a little jump. It was especially unusual in September, said study co-author Sonia Seneviratne, head of land-climate dynamics at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university...The year was within the range of what was predicted, albeit it was at the upper edge of the range, Seneviratne said...“Acceleration if it were to happen would be even worse, like hitting a global tipping point, it would be probably the worst scenario,” Seneviratne said. “But what is happening is already extremely bad and it is having major impacts already now. We are in the middle of a crisis.”call_made

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external pageAol.call_made

external pageDaily Mail UKcall_made

external pageEco Watchcall_made

external pageEuroNews Greencall_made

external pageNBC Newscall_made

external pageU.S. News & World Reportcall_made

external pageVoice of Americacall_made

external pageThe Weather Channelcall_made

external pageYahoo! Newscall_made

external pageTech and Science Postcall_made

As well as numerous U.S. regional television and radio broadcasts.

‘Google for DNA’ indexes 10% of world’s known genetic sequences

external pageIn 2020, bioinformatician André Kahles, computer scientist Gunnar Rätsch, both at ETH Zürich, and their colleagues presented an early version of MetaGraph. The team used its tool, in which mathematical structures known as de Bruijn graphs represent overlaps between sequences, to index more than 1 million records from the SRA, totaling about 3 petabases. They have already employed MetaGraph in projects including identifying the microbial makeup of different cities.call_made

Switzerland takes a ‘tech neutral’ approach to AI regulations

external page"Switzerland’s AI research competence and ETH Zurich have been praised across the board by figures like Yann LeCun, the “godfather of AI” and head of AI at Meta," according to Alexander Brunner, an adviser to AI, blockchain and Web3 companies in Switzerlandcall_made.

Study resolves decades-long debate on cathodic corrosion protection

external pageCathodic corrosion protection is a widely used technique for protecting steel-based infrastructure from corrosion. ETH researchers have now clarified the detailed mechanisms involved, thereby resolving a controversial issue that had preoccupied the engineering community for decades.call_made

Synthara raises $11m to become the Arm of small chips in the age of AI

external pageThe company is developing chip designs to get portable devices up to speed with AI applications...Synthara, a small startup of 20 people spun out of ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich’s Institute of Neuroinformatics in 2019,call_made

Five years after Brumadinho: New research unveils hidden risks in tailings dams

external pageFive years after the catastrophic failure of the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil, a team of researchers from science and technology university ETH Zurich have uncovered the physical mechanism that may have triggered the incidentcall_made

Oceans face ‘triple threat’ of extreme heat, oxygen loss and acidification

external pageThe study’s lead author warned that the world’s oceans were already being pushed into an extreme new state because of the climate crisis. “The impacts of this have already been seen and felt,” said Joel Wong, a researcher at ETH Zurich, who cited the well-known example of the heat “blob” that has caused the die-off of marine life in the Pacific Ocean. “Intense extreme events like these are likely to happen again in the future and will disrupt marine ecosystems and fisheries around the world,” he added.call_made

Also reported in...

external pageEco Watchcall_made

external pageYahoo! Newscall_made

external pageOcean Acidificationcall_made

Solid State Quantum Magnetometers—Seeking out water worlds from the quantum world

external pageScientists have discovered indications that liquid water might exist on a number of moons orbiting our solar system’s gas and ice giants. The mantra of the astrobiology community is to “Follow the Water” to find life, so subsurface oceans on Jupiter’s Europa, Saturn’s Enceladus, and other moons are compelling targets for future missions...NASA has been funding solid state quantum magnetometer sensor research through its PICASSO (Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Observations) program since 2016. A variety of partners from industry and academia support this research, including ETH Zurich.call_made

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external pageAstrobiologycall_made

Data-driven model generates natural human motions for virtual avatars

external pageResearchers at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and ETH Zurich recently developed WANDR, a new model that can generate natural human motions for avatarscall_made

Researcher discusses predicting the landslide in Brienz

external pageThe landslide in Brienz (GR) in 2023 kept Switzerland on tenterhooks for weeks. Researchers from ETH Zurich, WSL and SLF used a model to provide a highly accurate blind prediction of where the sliding mass would come to rest.call_made