November 2016

Switzerland’s economy is facing some tough challenges: technologies are developing rapidly, processes are being amalgamated both inside and outside production facilities, and business units are becoming increasingly interconnected. This means businesses need to constantly adapt. The issue has been taken up by researchers from the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation and from the KOF Swiss Economic Institute, both at ETH Zurich.

Bill Morandi of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research will be awarded the Ruzicka Prize 2016. The ETH Zurich alumnus has succeeded in developing new catalytic concepts that could lead to improved efficiency in medical chemistry and materials science, as well as improved safety in industrial processes.

Quantum mechanics can be entertaining: anyone with a few minutes to spare for a video game on 30 November can do their bit to help solve a fundamental question of physics that was once argued over by Albert Einstein and Nils Bohr. ETH Professor Andreas Wallraff explains what the Big Bell Test is all about.

A team that includes ETH Zurich scientists is the first to use materials with a network-like structure to create a full spectrum of intense colours. The principle has long existed in nature: for example, in the colourful plumage of a particular species of bird in South America.

ETH researchers have received this year’s Swiss Technology Award for their technology “Mesh Mould”, winning the most important Swiss prize for innovation and technology transfer in the “Inventors” category.

Conservationists must learn to design the ecological landscape of tomorrow instead of mourning lost nature. Landscape architecture can serve as a model for this.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have produced starch in yeast - the first time this has been achieved in a non-plant organism. The new model system now makes it easier for them to investigate how starch is formed and what role is played by the enzymes involved. In future, it may be possible to use yeast to trial specific modifications of starch.

What began as a student initiative has today become one of Switzerland's most distinguished archives. Time for a quick retrospective and a glimpse into the digital future.

At ETH Day, Rector Sarah Springman explained how it is more important than ever for the university’s educational goals to draw on the ideals of the Enlightenment, and laid out the new teaching concepts that she intends to use to achieve this. In his own address, Roche CEO Severin Schwan emphasised the significance of researchers’ autonomy in a country’s capacity to innovate. 

The research ship Akademik Treshnikov is due to set sail for Cape Town tomorrow, transporting researchers and equipment for a major Antarctic circumnavigation expedition. ETH Zurich is also on board.