August 2018

At the togETHer staff party, Professor Laura Nyström was presented with the ALEA Award as ETH Zurich’s most exemplary leader. The award, presented annually, aims to emphasise the huge importance of leadership skills for the success of ETH and to promote the desired leadership culture.

In order to reduce the risks of pesticide use, they must be measured – which is often done by quantity-based indicators. Yet these often fail to identify risks, writes Robert Finger.

Reto Knutti, a professor for climate physics at ETH Zurich, will be awarded the 2018 prize of Dr J.E. Brandenberger Foundation for his achievements in the field of climate change research and the communication of his results to the public.

ETH researchers have shown that during drier years the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises faster because stressed ecosystems absorb less carbon. This global effect is so strong that it must be integrated in the next generation of climate models.

ETH and Agroscope researchers are modelling where insect pests will strike next. This helps agriculture to stay ahead of potential invaders and plan protective measures.

Today, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations both announced new findings on the Higgs boson from experiments undertaken at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – shortly after the Swiss National Bank’s release of its new 200 franc note with particle physics in pride of place. ETH professor Günther Dissertori played an instrumental role in both projects.

Roger Wattenhofer thinks that programming interfaces are underestimated. They would offer enormous opportunities – if the authorities got involved.

Scientists can spend a long time in heated debates over tiny details – for example, how and whether atoms in a crystal move when heated, thereby altering the symmetry. Using computer simulations for the mineral lead telluride on the CSCS supercomputer “Piz Daint”, ETH researchers have resolved a long-standing controversy.

Cryo-electron microscopy is one of the pioneering examination methods in biomedical research. Thanks to generous donations from four partners, ETH is now able to develop further in this area. The donations enable the acquisition of another device and the development of a new professorship.

Perfectly inverting complex structures is of great technical importance. Researchers at ETH have now succeeded in turning the magnetic and electric structure of materials into their opposites using a single magnetic field pulse.