April 2020

In shaking our society to its core, says Jaboury Ghazoul, Covid-19 shows that we must adopt a far broader perspective to tackle the complex socio-ecological problems humanity faces.

Trading in digital currencies such as Bitcoin or Ether has become an established practice but using them as a payment means is still a slow process. ETH Professor Srdjan Capkun and his team have now developed a system that makes cryptocurrency payments secure, fast and practical.

As we age, our lung tissue becomes stiffer – and this is a phenomenon that SARS-CoV-2 may be exploiting. Caroline Uhler and G. V. Shivashankar outline their hypothesis.

The winners of the Alfred Escher Prize 2020 are Julia Gschwind and Sébastien Delsad. This year ETH Zurich awarded the Escher prize for its second time, as one of the special prizes in the 54th national competition “Swiss Youth in Science”.

The ETH Executive Board has passed a three-stage plan for resuming normal operations in the areas of research, teaching and administration by the end of 2020. It is important that every step of the process follows the government’s guidance, ETH President Joël Mesot emphasises. The health and well-being of staff and students continue to be the top priority.

In a material made of two thin crystal layers that are slightly twisted with respect to each other, researchers at ETH have studied the behaviour of strongly interacting electrons. Doing so, they found a number of surprising properties.

Markus Gross is convinced that there are better technologies available than today's video conference systems. The key technology is developing at a rapid pace – but not fast enough.

Various contact-tracing apps are currently being developed worldwide to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is much discussion about how to implement digital contact tracing in accordance with data protection.

As the world anxiously awaits a remedy for the novel coronavirus, ETH Zurich is also involved in the search for active substances and vaccines. This overview sets out the therapeutic approaches pursued by ETH researchers.

He can play a computer game using thought alone. Samuel Kunz, who has tetraplegia, is currently training with researchers from Zurich and Singapore for the next Cybathlon.