Research

EPFL scientists have developed a sustainable method to make high-performance plastics from agricultural leftovers, turning them into valuable materials.

Can paralysed people walk again? Yes, sometimes science achieves something miraculous. But what does it take to put an obvious concept into medical practice so that patients can actually benefit from it?

Remote sensing specialist Petra D’Odorico likes to fly drones. Not as a hobby, but rather to record high-resolution multispectral and thermal images, which can be used to create an early warning system to detect drought stress in forests before it becomes apparent.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionise the way we make predictions. But how reliable are such predictions and modelling? What issues of trust arise? There are different approaches to analysing, translating and predicting the future with AI and the ETH Domain has recognised the potential.

The Swiss Light Source at the PSI is currently undergoing an upgrade to ensure that it remains a centre of excellent research in the future. The project manager gave us a tour of the construction site.

Wastewater-based epidemiology can provide valuable insights into a population’s overall health. By analysing samples gleaned from wastewater, Eawag is helping medical experts shed new light on the prevalence of coronavirus infections during the pandemic. But the possibilities don’t end there.

Ecological communities in rivers and lakes are responding to climate change in a similar way to communities on land. This is shown by the first comprehensive comparison of freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems around the globe, co-led by Eawag and WSL. When temperatures rise, warm-loving species are the main beneficiaries. One surprising exception may be the plankton.

EPFL researchers have shown that large language models primarily trained on English text seem to use English internally, even when they are prompted in another language. As AI increasingly runs our lives, this may have important consequences regarding linguistic and cultural bias.

EPFL researchers have developed a haptic device capable of reproducing the softness of various materials, from a marshmallow to a beating heart, overcoming a deceptively complex challenge that has previously eluded roboticists.

Researchers at ETH have managed to trap ions using static electric and magnetic fields and to perform quantum operations on them. In the future such traps could be used to realize quantum computers with far more quantum bits than have been possible up to now.

The quadrupedal robot ANYmal went back to school and has learned a lot. ETH Zurich researchers used machine learning to teach it new skills: the robot can now climb over obstacles and successfully negotiate pitfalls.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and KUNO Klinik St. Hedwig in Regensburg have developed an algorithm that provides an automatic and reliable method of detecting a certain heart defect in newborns.

EPFL neuroscientists have devised a way to alter our social perception and monitor specific types of hallucinations, both in healthy individuals and patients with Parkinson’s disease. The test, which is also available online, provides the medical community with a tool to monitor hallucination susceptibility.

Organoids grown from human stem cells can help provide answers to important medical questions. In a partnership that looks set to profit both sides, ETH professor Barbara Treutlein has teamed up with pharma giant Roche to advance research in this area.

Bioengineer Randall Platt engineers bacteria that can assess the state of our guts. It is hoped this non-invasive technique could eventually be used to develop more effective interventions against malnutrition among children in the Global South.