News

The mathematician Max Rössler endowed the most prestigious research prize awarded by ETH Zurich. The benefactor passed away at the age of 87.

The European Research Council (ERC) has agreed to fund two high-profile international projects with ETH’s backing: Torsten Hoefler is helping to accelerate supercomputing and Ruth Signorell is leading a project on the chemistry of very small droplets. 

Two new ETH professorships will focus on using artificial intelligence to identify security vulnerabilities while also protecting AI systems from attacks. The Canton of Zug is providing up to CHF 55 million over 25 years. It will also enter into a five-year partnership with the Zurich Information Security and Privacy Center (ZISC) at ETH Zurich.  

A blood clot can restrict the blood flow in a blood vessel to such an extent that the medications intended to dissolve it can barely reach their target. Microbots driven by magnetic fields could now provide an unusual solution to this problem.

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich is upcycling waste made from polyethylene and polypropylene – two of the world’s most used plastics – into an extremely strong adhesive – and much more besides.  

ETH Zurich researchers have developed FlexiQuad, a soft drone whose frame deforms in a controlled manner when it collides with obstacles. They have filed a patent application for the structural design. Despite its soft frame, the drone can fly fast and manoeuvre nimbly. 

Solar storms can knock satellites out of their orbits. A space mission led by ETH Zurich intends to better predict weather conditions in the solar system from 2030 onwards. 

AI is transforming the way we monitor and manage biodiversity. While these tools hold promise to level the playing field, they could also entrench existing inequities, says Melissa Chapman. At the UN biodiversity conference in Armenia, she aims to understand how the use of AI is shaping the negotiations. 

Did the Addams Family stop by ETH Zurich? A severed hand crawls over a piano, scurries along the corridors and gets up to mischief in a cupboard. But there’s nothing supernatural about it – it’s all robotics. The video shows what this unusual robotic hand can do, why researchers find it fascinating and what it’s doing at Halloween. 

With nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, materials can be analysed to an atomic degree of precision. ETH Zurich is home to one of the most powerful NMR spectrometers in the world – and many of its research groups have now embraced this technology. 

Many biological molecules are short-lived and ephemeral. Now, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an archive function that allows them to look into a cell’s past for the first time. This could allow scientists to get to the bottom of how cancer cells form.