In the Media - October 2024

Spain's horrific flooding another nasty hit in a fall where climate extremes just keep coming

external page ETH Zurich climate scientist Erich Fischer isn't fully sold about the wavy jet stream theory, but then he ticks off the cut-off low storm systems that have doused and flooded Europe...He said the systems, especially in Spain, France and Austria, got stuck and “the rain did not move” from the same valleys for hours.

Also reported in...

external page ABC News (US national television)

external page Associated Press

And numerous regional television broadcasts in the US

It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All

external page “It’s something that can be reached in a few years of research,” said Matteo Fadel (opens a new tab), an experimentalist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) who was not involved in the proposal.

This Sponge Captures the Teeny Bits of Gold in Electronic Waste

external page A self-building sponge that efficiently collects gold could eliminate some harsh methods used to process e-waste...“To the best of my knowledge, this is a record high value,” says Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich physicist Raffaele Mezzenga, an author of the whey protein aerogel study, who wasn’t involved with the research on the graphene-chitosan combo. He notes that as efficient as the sponge is, the components needed to make it aren’t cheap, and he questions whether it would be a workable option “under real operating conditions.”

Swiss packaging startup Sentinus secures €160,000

external page ETH (start-up) Sentinus has received the final CHF150,000 from Venture Kick to enhance its deep learning-based camera systems to automate the quality control process for manufacturers...Sentinus use the funds to accelerate business and product development wand launch its first product. The Venture Kick philanthropic initiative provides up to CHF 150,000 in seed funding to Swiss startups and offers a well-structured entrepreneurial path toward building a winning business.  

New fall-risk screening process more easily accessible to seniors

external page Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School and Swiss public university ETH Zurich have developed a fall-risk screening process that is more accessible for older adults because they can be assessed by trained staff at active ageing centres (AACs) in the community, without having to step into a clinic...The research team has come up with a new algorithm which evaluates seniors’ risk of falling by analysing physical mobility data from wearable sensors and psychosocial factors.

Could this new tech stop your glasses from fogging up?

People who wear glasses, no matter where they're from, can often share the same problem - fogged up lenses. There have been many attempts to solve this issue, including sprays and lens cloths. But thanks to new tech (from ETH Zurich Pioneer Fellow, Iwan Hächler and team from Solabs), there may be a more permanent solution.

Are Trees Making Shanghai a Smarter City?

external page In Europe, research from Swiss university ETH Zurich shows that trees in cities reduce mercury levels by up to 53ºF. Plus, those rooted beauties work overtime to filter and add moisture to the air and provide much-needed shade and wildlife habitats.

Researcher grows biological tissue in the lab using lasers to produce microfilaments

external page Pioneer Fellow Hao Liu uses lasers to produce microfilament structures to grow biological tissue in the lab for research and medicine—from muscle tissue to cartilage. Now he's working to ready this technology for the market.

Also reported in...

external page Interesting Engineering

Revolutionary new wheelchair boasts hands-free backrest-based steering

external page ...The new wheelchair comes in. It's being developed by Reto Togni and Stefan Villiger, both of whom are research assistants at ETH Zurich’s Laboratory for Movement Biomechanics...The chair's user is able to tilt its backrest to the left or right simply by leaning their body accordingly.

Computer Scientists Establish the Best Way to Traverse a Graph

external page ...Bernhard Haeupler, a computer scientist affiliated with INSAIT and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich)...Haeupler became fascinated with the promise of universal optimality while writing a grant proposal in the mid-2010s...In early 2023, (Václav) Rozhoň was at the tail end of his graduate program at ETH Zurich...Rozhoň suggested they try to devise a universally optimal algorithm for the single-source shortest-paths problem...In the spring, the team grew to three with the addition of Richard Hladík, a graduate student at ETH Zurich whom Rozhoň and Tětek had met when all three were high schoolers in the Czech Republic.

Insects provide essential fatty acids to other animals

external page Cornelia Twining is the leader of the Food Web Ecophysiology group at the aquatic research institute Eawag and a professor at ETH Zurich...“Unfortunately, knowledge about how insect and arachnid biodiversity might influence the availability of fatty acids in a food web is rather scant,” said Twining. She, alongside her colleagues, is working hard to bridge this knowledge gap.

Google unveils invisible ‘watermark’ for AI-generated text

external page Governments are betting on watermarking as a solution to the proliferation of AI-generated text. Yet, problems abound, including getting developers to commit to using watermarks, and to coordinate their approaches. And earlier this year, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich showed that any watermark is vulnerable to being removed, called ‘scrubbing’, or to being ‘spoofed’, the process of applying watermarks to text to give the false impression that it is AI-generated.

Dr. Aldo Steinfeld and Dr. Manuel Romero win the 2024 SolarPACES Lifetime Achievement Award

Aexternal page ldo Steinfeld and Manuel Romero were jointly awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition of their over 20 years collaboration in pioneering and developing the use of concentrated solar thermal energy to produce solar fuels.

Bionic ‘Pilots’ Compete for the Gold at the Cybathlon

external page In the international competition, people with physical disabilities put state-of-the-art devices to the test as they race to complete the tasks of everyday life...The Cybathlon is unabashedly “technotopian,” says (Robert) Riener (founder of the Cybathlon). It is about the fullest possible collaboration of technology and human effort. For that reason, the competitors are not called athletes: They are “pilots.” The device they are piloting might be a prosthetic arm, for example, or an exoskeleton or a robot assistant...“I have worked with people with disabilities for more than 30 years and realize the deficits of assistive devices,” Riener says. “They are expensive, and their capabilities are nothing compared to our bodies.” The competition’s aim, he adds, “is to promote the development of better assistive technologies.”

Also reported in...

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Breaking One (video external page 1, external page 2, external page 3, external page 4)

external page Electronics Weekly

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external page Media Cafe

external page Report Wire

external page The Witness (South Africa)

external page THIIS UK

external page VoM News (India)

external page World News Today

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external page New Atlas

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Internet fiber optic cables successfully detect shock waves from a rockslide

external page A team from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL and ETH Zurich tracked (landslide) the event using an unusual method: they detected the shock waves on underground internet fiber optic cables.

Switzerland runner-up for academic patents per capita in Europe

external page Switzerland has the second highest number of academic patents per person in Europe. The federal technology institute ETH Zurich is the leader in the number of start-ups that register patents from research at universities.

Related stories...

external page European Patent Office

external page TechXplore

Researchers provide LLM benchmarking suite for the EU Artificial Intelligence Act

external page Researchers from ETH Zurich, the Bulgarian AI research institute INSAIT—created in partnership with ETH and EPFL—and the ETH spin-off LatticeFlow AI have provided the first comprehensive technical interpretation of the EU AI Act for General Purpose AI (GPAI) models. This makes them the first to translate the legal requirements that the EU places on future AI models into concrete, measurable and verifiable technical requirements.

Severe Flaws Discovered in Major E2EE Cloud Storage Services

external page Severe cryptographic vulnerabilities have been uncovered in several popular end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) cloud storage platforms used by millions of people...ETH Zurich researchers Jonas Hofmann and Kien Tuong Truong analyzed five major providers—Sync, pCloud, Icedrive, Seafile and Tresorit— and revealed significant flaws in four of them...The study, published earlier this month, raises serious concerns about the security claims of these services, particularly in scenarios where a malicious server could compromise user data.

Video Friday: Mobile Robot Upgrades - Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

external page Discover the future of aerial manipulation with our untethered soft robotic platform with onboard perception stack! Presented at the 2024 Conference on Robot Learning, in Munich, this platform introduces autonomous aerial manipulation that works in both indoor and outdoor environments—without relying on costly off-board tracking systems. (ETH Zurich / Soft Robotics Lab)

Israel's Sinwar video shows the chilling reach of battlefield drones  

external page The need for accurate surveillance stems from the development of long-range precision warfare over the past 50 to 70 years, said Mauro Gilli, a researcher in military technology and international security at the Swiss university ETH Zurich...It's now possible to strike targets "way beyond visual range," he said.

Filamentous Bacteria Use Grappling Hooks and Cannons to Hunt

external page In a new study, researchers at ETH Zurich led by Martin Pilhofer, Professor at the Department of Biology, along with his colleagues Yun-Wei Lien and Gregor Weiss, have now presented another of these rare bacterial predators: the filamentous marine bacterium Aureispira...Like a pirate ship in search of a potential victim, Aureispira swiftly glides over solid surfaces towards its prey...

Are diamonds Earth’s best friend? Gem dust could cool the planet

external page In a modeling study published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists report that shooting 5 million tons of diamond dust into the stratosphere each year could cool the planet by 1.6ºC—enough to stave off the worst consequences of global warming..Sandro Vattioni, a climate scientist and postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich, and his colleagues...built a 3D climate model that incorporates the chemistry of aerosols, how they are transported around the atmosphere, and how they absorb or reflect heat.

Also reported in...

external page AA - Andolou Agency

external page Science Alert

external page Aol.

external page Daily Mail

external page Earth.com

Biofabrication should be sustainable: Researcher calls for a rethink in current practices

external page Miriam Filippi, a researcher in the field of soft robotics (ETH Zurich) working on developing bioinspired artificial muscle tissues, believes we can make human activities more ecologically sound by harnessing the power of living cells for bio-hybrid materials.

Busted: five myths about eco-friendly eating

external page Singapore-ETH Centre researcher, Bianca Wassmann writes about choosing food that is both healthy and good for the planet can be confusing. Here are five myths to avoid to help you make better choices.

The Cybathlon: Bionic athletes compete for the gold — and push assistive technologies forward

external page This is the brain-computer interface race, one of several challenges in the upcoming 2024 Cybathlon taking place in Switzerland (and remotely) October 25 to 27. The competition, held every four years, pushes the limits of what human bodies and machines can do together, showcasing proficiency at the basic tasks of daily life...The Cybathlon is unabashedly “technotopian,” says (Robert) Riener. It is about the fullest possible collaboration of technology and human effort. For that reason, the competitors are not called athletes: They are “pilots.” The device they are piloting might be a prosthetic arm, for example, or an exoskeleton or a robot assistant.

Turning Lab-Grown Meat Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Market With Sallea

external page Not many markets go from being worth pretty much zero to more than $370 billion in the space of just 10 years. However, that’s the growth predicted for the cultured meat industry – prompting huge interest from global food companies. One business hoping to ride that wave is (ETH Spinoff) Sallea, a Swiss start-up, that is today announcing the completion of a $2.6 million funding round.

Also reported in...

external page TechFunding News

external page Yahoo! Finance

Protein interactions: Who is partying with whom and who is ruining the party?

external page Using a new method, researchers at ETH Zurich can measure alterations in the social network of proteins in cells. This work lays the foundation for the development of new drugs to treat diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.

Also reported in...

external page SciTech Daily

external page Sky News

ETH Zurich, INSAIT, and LatticeFlow AI Launch the First EU AI Act Compliance Evaluation Framework for Generative AI

external page ETH Zurich, INSAIT, and LatticeFlow AI announce the release of the first evaluation framework of the EU AI Act for Generative AI models. The release, includes the first technical interpretation of the EU AI Act, mapping regulatory requirements to technical ones, together with a free and open-source framework to evaluate Large Language Models (LLMs) under this mapping.

Also reported in...

external page AFP - Agence France-Presse

external page Yahoo Finance

external page US News & World Report

external page EuroNews

external page Reuters

external page Aol.

external page TechCrunch

...as well as in numerous other publications.

This New Robot Thrives In Slush And Comes With IP67 Water And Dust Protection

external page The ANYmal robot, developed by ETH Zurich spin-off ANYbotics, has recently validated its IP67 water and dust protection in a real-world incident. Designed for harsh industrial environments, the ANYmal robotic dog proved its resilience when a customer’s facility was hit by a severe flood, leaving the site submerged and the robot buried in mud. After the water receded, ANYmal was discovered covered in slush, having been submerged for over 24 hours. Despite the extreme conditions, the robot powered back on, with its cooling fan starting, legs moving, and eventually standing up fully functional.

Vendée Globe, UNESCO and the IMOCA Class: when sport and science join forces to protect the ocean

external page Twenty five sailors who will take part in the Vendée Globe 2024, the biggest ever solo round-the-world race, racing non-stop and without assistance, will take scientific equipment provided by UNESCO and its scientific partners (including ETH Zurichon board their IMOCA yachts to deploy during the race as they look to advance oceanographic research and weather forecasting models.  

Research team creates hybrid resonant metasurfaces with configurable structural colors

external page Researchers at ETH Zurich's Laboratory for Nanometallurgy have developed a new fabrication method for non-primitive metasurfaces, by which the colors of these metasurfaces represent and visualize light-matter interactions. The paper is published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials.

Also reported in...

external page Sky News

Cytosurge and Lexogen Partner to Advance Live-Cell Sequencing

external page (ETH Spinoff) Cytosurge AG, a leader in single-cell manipulation, and Lexogen, a pioneer in RNA sequencing solutions, have announced their partnership to advance live-cell sequencing (Live-seq)...Live-seq is a groundbreaking technology developed at ETH Zurich and EPFL, Switzerland, that allows the sequencing of a cell’s transcriptome while keeping the cell alive. This represents a paradigm shift from traditional methods that kill cells during sampling, providing new opportunities for dynamic, time-resolved transcriptomic studies.

The Hottest Startups in Zurich in 2024

external page "Zurich is a city of ideas, people, and capital," says Frank Floessel, head of entrepreneurship at ETH Zurich..." ETH Spinoffs: Nanoflex Robotics, BTRY, BreezeLabs, Univerbal, Oxyle, DeepJudge, LatticeFlow mentioned in the article.

Quantum Machine Learning Could Power Search For Physics Behind Dark Energy, Dark Matter And Other Standard Model Mysteries

external page The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a mind-bending device designed to probe the very essence of reality. The data it produces isn’t just mind-bending, it’s often so rich and so complex that it outstrips classical computational processes for analyzing and visualizing that information...A team of ETH Zurich and CERN-led scientists report the ongoing search for new phenomena at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) demands advanced computational methods to handle the enormous amounts of data generated from high-energy particle collisions. Traditional machine learning approaches have helped in analyzing this data, but new computational technologies, like quantum machine learning (QML), are showing potential to boost the process, making it more efficient and revealing previously unseen patterns.  

ETH Zurich explores novel fabrication method for light and reusable concrete staircase

external page Material-saving and reversible construction approaches are showcased in the spine-like Cadenza concrete spiral staircase, created by researchers at technology university ETH Zurich working with ROK Architects...The Cadenza staircase is the latest contribution to the NEST building, a laboratory for experimental fabrication techniques that ETH Zurich shares with other research institutes in the Swiss city of Dübendorf.

Gagosian Le Bourget presents largest exhibition by James Turrell in Europe in over 25 years

external page LE BOURGET.- Gagosian announces an exhibition of works by James Turrell, opening on October 14 at the Le Bourget gallery...ETH Zurich's Graphische Sammlung mentioned for its James Turrell prints.

Busted five myths about eco-friendly eating

external page Singapore-ETH Centre and ETH Zurich - "Organic beef", "GMO-free" and "100 per cent natural" are just some of the countless claims designed to attract the eyes of eco-conscious consumers in the supermarket. Yet while people are increasingly willing to spend more on these labels, there is often not enough consideration of how much these features actually contribute to a food's environmental sustainability...Here are five common food myths that need to be busted...

What We Are Made of: Blood, Guts — and Plastics

external page The packaging of the food that we consume is poisoning us with chemicals...Co-author, Professor Dr. Martin Scheringer, from ETH Zurich, the public university, said “There are surprisingly many hazardous chemicals used in food contact materials, and they do not just stay there, but quite some of them reach, to some extent, the human body.” Many chemicals’ potential hazards, the study concluded, have not been sufficiently investigated.

Record-shattering ultrashort laser pulses created, reach 100 MW peak power

external page Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a laser oscillator that produces the most powerful ultra-short laser pulses ever...The pulses from the laser last for less than 10−12 seconds. However, on average, they carry 550 watts of power, with peak power output reaching 100 megawatts — this is more than enough to power hundreds of thousands of vacuum cleaners together for a short duration.

Also reported in...

external page Tech and Science Post

external page Sky News

external page PHYS.org

external page Photonics

external page AZO Optics

external page EE News

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external page Sky News

external page Tech Explorist

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The space hopper robot that 'walks' like a cat

external page BBC Click - the BBC's flagship technology television show airs its segment on SpaceHopper and LunarLeaper again and globally.

Jumping into the future: Scientists develop robotic leg inspired by human muscles

external page The design works through electro-hydraulic actuators that are connected to the robotic skeleton by tendons.

ETH Zurich Uses a Swarm of Tiny Drones to Map Rooms

external page ETH Zurich researchers have figured out how to use a swarm of tiny drones to map rooms, or any other space for that matter. More specifically, drones based on the modular Crazyflie platform, which utilizes stackable printed circuit boards (PCBs) to expand their capabilities.

Physicists Generated Sound Waves That Travel in One Direction Only

external page Scientists have created a device that works like that, ensuring sound waves ripple in one direction only...The device, developed by scientists at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, is made up of a disk-shaped cavity with three equally-spaced ports that can each send or receive sound.

Also reported in...

external page IFL

external page BGR

external page InceptiveMind

external page TechExplorist

Exoplanet Discovered in a Binary System Could Explain Why Red Dwarfs Form Massive Planets

Iexternal page n a recent study, an international team of astronomers (including researchers from ETH Zurich) with the Searching for Giant Exoplanets around M-dwarf Stars (GEMS) survey detected a giant planet transiting in front of the primary star, designated TOI-6383Ab. This planet is similar in size and mass to the system’s companion star, which raises questions about the formation of giant planets in red dwarf star systems.  

Also reported in...

external page SpaceWeekly

New composite material uses ultra-thin rubber-like layers to combine stiffness with high damping capacity

external page ...High worldwide demand for materials that are rigid, load-bearing and have effective internal damping capabilities...ETH (Zurich) materials researchers have now developed a material that combines these supposedly incompatible properties. Ioanna Tsimouri achieved this feat in her doctoral thesis with the assistance of Andrei Gusev and Walter Caseri, both professors at the Department of Materials...Her work has given rise to the creation of materials that comprise layers of stiff materials connected by ultra-thin rubber-like layers formed by crosslinking a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mixture.

Also reported in...

external page New Atlas

external page RubberWorld

Tourism in Lisbon set to match Barcelona in growing housing crisis

external page According to researcher, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Lisbon is only “two or three years behind” Barcelona when it comes to mass tourism and its subsequent impact on housing in the city. The curator and co-founder of dpr-barcelona, ​​a publishing house-studio dedicated to architectural research and practice, and researcher at ETH Zürich University...“

The fastest-growing spinout teams in Europe

external page Europe has some of the best technical universities in the world — from ETH Zurich and UCL to Oxford and TUM — here are the companies they’ve spun out that are hiring the most...ANYbotics - headcount growth up to 200 employees in last 12 months. ANYbotics was spun out of Swiss public research university ETH Zurich in 2016. It’s building four-legged autonomous robots for industrial use, which can be used for inspection in sectors such as oil and gas, mining and chemicals, where employees often collect data manually in potentially hazardous environments.

Switzerland ‘losing attractiveness’ as government limits spending

external page In March, the Swiss federal council proposed an education and research budget for 2025 to 2028 of CHF29.2 billion (£26.2 billion). While this surpassed the 2021 to 2024 budget by CHF1.3 billion, Swiss Universities noted that “due to the expected inflation, there will be almost zero growth or even a real decrease in funding for universities during the funding period”...The ETH Domain – which comprises the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, as well as several research institutes – has already implemented cutbacks, said Christopher Leuenberger, deputy head of communications for the ETH board.

The high-speed clay technique shaking up home construction

external page ...Clay is making a grand re-entrance into the world of construction, and it's undergone a high-tech makeover. Thanks to a cutting-edge process called impact printing, clay might just be the building material of the future.

Also reported in...

external page Aol.

external page 3D Printing Industry

external page Techcratic

external page Ars Technica

EU Strengthens Sanctions Against Russian Hackers

external page The EU hopes that the promise of additional sanctions "will create preventative and deterrent effects," said Stefan Soesanto, senior cyber defense researcher at the ETH Zurich. "Depending on how broad the hybrid warfare definition will be applied, some big Russian tech companies could easily land on that list," he told Information Security Media Group.

Also reported in numerous cyber security publications

Revolutionizing Space Communication: 424Gbit/S Achieved With Cutting-Edge Plasmonic Tech

external page Researchers at ETH Zurich have achieved record-breaking data transmission speeds using plasmonic modulators, promising advancements in space communication and potential global high-speed internet access. With speeds potentially reaching 1.4 Tbit/s, this technology could change how the world connects.

The great pharmaceutical-academic merger

external page Drug companies are increasingly looking to academics in a bid to mitigate some of these financial burdens. This often involves university researchers doing early-stage drug discovery before pharmaceutical companies take over to push a novel compound through clinical trials and get it to market. “This trend is not entirely new,” says Karl-Heinz Altmann, a synthetic organic and medicinal chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich. “But it does have momentum now.”

Synhelion's solar fuel to power steamboats on Lake Lucerne

external page Swiss Sun-to-Liquid technology developer Synhelion (an ETH Spinoff) has reached a five-year deal to sell nearly 100 tonnes of solar fuel annually to local transportation firm Lake Lucerne Navigation Company AG (SGV)...SGV will use the fuel to power its fleet, decarbonising its steamboats that were originally running on coal and later on fossil heating oil...The fuel will be supplied from Synhelion’s first commercial plant in Spain, RISE, which is scheduled to start operations in 2027.

Europe’s urban dilemma: Saving the past from a warming future

external page "The proposal to green Michaelerplatz is completely misguided, because such a redesign would destroy the identity of one of Europe’s most memorable squares," wrote Ákos Moravánszky, Professor Emeritus of Architectural Theory at ETH Zurich. "I also doubt that it would contribute significantly to the climatic redevelopment of the city center."

For UN Agenda: Data gaps detected in 193 countries

external page To make informed decisions, governments and international organizations need data. The United Nations has been analyzing the global availability of such data together with ETH Zurich. This has brought to light some surprising insights...Christoph Gössmann is a doctoral student in the Law, Economics and Data Science Group under ETH Professor Elliott Ash. Together with staff from the Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), he has been investigating how the availability of data from all 193 Member States can best be evaluated and presented—data that can be used to measure how the UN's 2030 Agenda is progressing.

High Tech Specs

The Click team checks out some of latest consumer technology - from anti-fog glasses (with ETH Zurich Pioneer Fellow, Iwan Hächler). Replay available in Switzerland via BBC World News network (via Swisscom or UPC/Sunrise) or, external page if in the UK, via BBC iPlayer.

Construction robot shoots clay for cement-free building

external page A new way of building an entire house using cheap, abundant, sustainable materials, without cement, could help the whole industry reduce its carbon footprint, according to its developers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Video Friday: Quadruped Ladder Climbing - Your weekly selection of awesome robot video

external page Not even ladders can keep you safe from quadruped robots anymore. Both ETH Zurich's Robotic Systems Lab and ETH Spinoff ANYbotics feature in this week's IEEE "Video Friday" series.

Also reported in...

external page Interesting Engineering

external page New Atlas

external page Drone XL

Alps Scientific Symposium Highlights AI’s Role in Tackling Science’s Biggest Challenges

external page ETH Zürich recently celebrated the launch of the AI-optimized “Alps” supercomputer with a scientific symposium focused on the future possibilities of scientific AI thanks to increased compute power and a flexible architecture designed to tackle some of the largest scientific endeavors...housed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) and is based on a Cray Supercomputer EX from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. The system features 10,752 Nvidia Grace Hopper superchips and is expected to reach performance of half an exaflop when fully expanded.

‘This is high stakes’: students test high-tech rocket-recovery system

external page Students in Switzerland have developed a reusable rocket called NICOLLIER that uses a guided recovery system to steer back to Earth. (Watch video of television segment)

Is this how complex life evolved? Experiment that put bacteria inside fungi offers clues

external page Biologists created a symbiotic system that hints at how cell features such as mitochondria and chloroplasts might have emerged a billion years ago...a team led by microbiologist Julia Vorholt, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), has spent the past few years engineering endosymbioses in the laboratory. Their approach uses a 500-1000 nanometre wide needle to puncture host cells and then deliver bacterial cells one at a time.  

Also reported in...

external page AZO Life Sciences

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ETH Zurich spinoff Voliro’s flying robots save lives, but don’t tell its CEO

external page Swiss startup Voliro operates in this space, with flying robots that can inspect wind turbines, overwater structures, and other infrastructure that’s hazardous for humans to reach because of factors such as height and weather conditions.

The Rise of Quantum-Resistant Cryptography

external page Universities and Research Labs: Leading universities such as MIT, Stanford, and ETH Zurich, along with dedicated research labs like IBM Research and Google Quantum AI, are actively involved in advancing quantum-resistant cryptography. These institutions conduct foundational research, develop new algorithms, and test their efficacy against quantum threats.

Positrigo announces CE mark for NeuroLF PET system

external page Zurich-based nuclear medical imaging device firm (and an ETH Spinoff) Positrigo’s positron emission tomography (PET) system, NeuroLF, has acquired market authorisation from the European Union (EU)...The ultra-compact diagnostic device is designed to assist in diagnosing and monitoring brain-related disorders like Alzheimer's disease, brain tumours, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. The CE mark provides the company market access in its home continent, shortly after gaining clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July.

SpiroChem and Arctoris Announce Strategic Partnership and Launch Joint Offering to Accelerate Drug Discovery

external page (ETH Spinoff) SpiroChem AG and Arctoris Ltd. are pleased to announce a strategic partnership designed to provide integrated drug discovery solutions for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide...This collaboration combines SpiroChem’s medicinal chemistry and enabling technologies expertise with Arctoris' cutting-edge automated biology platform Ulysses®, creating a seamless path from hit identification to preclinical candidate selection.  

Meet SpaceHopper, a three-legged hopping asteroid explorer

external page SpaceHopper, a three-legged robot designed for exploring microgravity environments, like the surface of asteroids. Developed by university students at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, it bends its legs to propel itself off the ground. (Watch video)

Also reported in...

external page Aol.

AI model predicts which ductal carcinoma in situ may progress to deadly breast cancer

external page Researchers (at ETH Zurich) have developed an AI model capable of using an inexpensive, easy-to-obtain chromatin image to determine the stage of ductal carcinoma. The approach could help predict which DCIS cases will progress to invasive cancer, helping to avoid overtreatment.

NASA Needs a ‘Lunar Marathon’ to Match China on the Moon

external page Prof. Thomas Zurbuchen authored a piece on "...a new and different kind of moon race, one the U.S. is losing. To win, says a former NASA official, we need new strategies."

Italy and Switzerland have agreed to shift their shared border in the Alps. Here’s why

external page In Switzerland, they are melting at an alarming rate. The country’s glaciers lost 4% of their volume last year, second only to the record-setting 6% lost in 2022...This downward trend shows no sign of ending, said Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at the Swiss university ETH Zürich and director of GLAMOS, the Swiss glacier monitoring network...“In 2024, glaciers continued to lose ice at a high speed despite much snow in winter that was expected to bring some relief,” he told CNN. “Some glaciers are literally falling apart, small glaciers are disappearing.”

Also reported in...

external page ABC News Australia

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FDA-Approved Antidepressant Treats Incurable Brain Cancer in Preclinical Trial

external page Led by molecular biologist Sohyon Lee of ETH Zurich, a team of researchers used cultivated human tissue grown from samples donated by glioblastoma patients undergoing treatment surgery, to see if any existing drugs might be effective at suppressing the growth of cancer cells. They focused primarily on antidepressant drugs, antipsychotics, and drugs used to treat Parkinson's disease.

Small Molecule Microarrays: An established Hit-identification Technique with New Potential for Challenging Targets.

external page Milestones in the Evolution of SMM...As an early developer of arrays for drug screening, in 2004 Matt Disney, then a postdoc with Peter Seebergers (ETH Zurich) created aminoglycoside arrays to study antibiotic resistance. Three years later in 2007 the Disney lab (University at Buffalo) would go on to publish the first study using SMM to identify RNA binders.