March 2016

Climate change has been communicated as a global concern affecting all of mankind; but this message doesn’t seem to be getting through. If indeed the human brain responds better to experience than to analysis, then climate change must be told as a local and personal story – just as the Klimagarten 2085 exhibition is doing.

In future, it will be easier and cheaper for developers at universities and SMEs to build wearable microelectronic devices and chips for the Internet of Things, thanks to the PULPino open-source processor, which has been developed at ETH Zurich and the University of Bologna.

Proteins are an essential part of a healthy diet, but supplying sustainable and sufficient high-quality protein is increasingly challenging. This is due to population growth, changing dietary patterns in favour of meat on the demand side, and a problematic reliance on unsustainable production on the supply side.

A radiation-free and painless ultrasound method instead of a mammogram is how Orçun Göksel and Sergio Sanabria would like breast cancer screens to be carried out in the future. The technology developed by the two ETH researchers, which can also detect other diseases, was yesterday awarded the Spark Award 2016.

Proteins are important indicators in diagnosing diseases. A young ETH researcher has developed a method by which it is possible to test minute amounts of blood for different proteins in parallel. He has received an ETH Zurich Pioneer Fellowship for his work. Together with a fellow student, he wants to turn his test into a marketable product.

Micro and nanorobots that attack tumours with maximum precision using drugs: this is what the fight against cancer may look like in the future. A group of ETH researchers led by Salvador Pané are laying the foundations with magnetoelectric-controlled Janus machines.

Injuries to the spinal cord partially or completely disrupt the neural pathways between the brain and the limbs. The consequences for the representation of the affected limbs in the brain can be drastic. ETH researchers have now measured how severely this representation is affected.

Carbon credits have been the main currency in climate finance for a long time. Now this concept is being replaced by the “Green Climate Fund” – an institution that relies on proposals for assigning budgets to climate problems. Thus Climate Finance adopts the practice of “Proposalism” – where funding is allocated based on the writing and evaluation of proposals.

On 10 and 11 March, a delegation of board members and researchers from South Africa visited ETH Zurich. ETH News spoke to two researchers who have been working together for more than 10 years: Jens Kossmann, Director of the Institute for Plant Biotechnology at Stellenbosch University, and Samuel Zeeman, Head of the Group of Plant Biochemistry at ETH Zurich, explain what goes into making a collaboration across 10,000 km successful.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Johann Schneider-Ammann visited the ETH Zurich stand at this year’s CeBIT. ETH President Lino Guzzella personally introduced the political leaders of Germany and Switzerland two recent examples of ETH research.