Research

Katharina Fellnhofer researches how intuitive decision-making influences personal success. She is convinced that people who follow their intuition tend to be more successful in their decision-making. 

Using anonymized policyholder data from Swiss insurance company La Mobilière, EPFL scientists were able to predict a number of socio-economic indicators in 170 Swiss towns. This innovative approach could help increase the granularity and applicability of official statistics.

In Lake Constance, sticklebacks are occupying increasingly varied habitat types – in recent years even including the open and deep waters of the lake. In an Eawag review undertaken as part of the “SeeWandel” project, these uniquely diverse ecological adaptations are explained in terms of renewed contact between three stickleback lineages – including one originating from the Baltic region, whose genetic material is as yet rarely observed in other Swiss lakes.

Hyaluronic acid, also known as hyaluronan, is a polysaccharide that helps establish the viscosity of bodily fluids. According to a new study by EPFL scientists, it also influences the behavior of far more water molecules than previously thought. Their findings – just published in Science Advances – open new avenues of research on the role water plays in the human body.

New pharmaceuticals are being launched on the market all the time. It is of course their effectiveness in people’s health that is of central importance here, but at some point, their active ingredients or traces of them wind up in the environment, where they can have negative consequences. A large-scale EU project in which Eawag is also participating is now trying to help ensure that possible environmental impacts of pharmaceuticals are recognised by the pharmaceutical industry and the relevant approval bodies in the early stages of a drug’s development.

To see, smell, taste, get excited, or mount a defence against an infection – in our bodies, G protein-coupled receptors mediate countless, often vital processes. This is why a better understanding of these proteins is relevant for the development of new drugs. An international team of researchers has now set up an online platform that makes simulations of these proteins usable for science. In an interview, PSI researcher Ramon Guixà-González, talks about how he brings proteins to life on the computer screen – and how this project should expedite drug development.

A team from EPFL and the Swiss Cancer Center Léman has discovered that CD4 T lymphocytes, which usually play a supporting role in fighting cancer cells, also have the power to destroy them. 

Using the extinct niobium-92 atom, ETH researchers have been able to date events in the early solar system with greater precision than before. The study concludes that supernova explosions must have taken place in the birth environment of our sun.

New EPFL research on whether handwriting skills transfer when a child writes in two different alphabetic scripts may pave the way for cross-lingual digital tools for the detection of handwriting difficulties.

Copepods (minute crustaceans with paddle-like feet) can differentiate between disturbances in water generated by nearby organisms and turbulence caused by wind or waves – an ability which helps them to find mates. It had previously been assumed that turbulent conditions would impede the quest for mates.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the partner institute Empa have started a joint initiative called SynFuels. The goal is to develop a process for producing kerosene from renewable resources. In this way liquid fuel mixtures of the highest quality, which would allow the most residue-free combustion possible and thus be suitable for aircraft propulsion, should be obtainable using carbon dioxide and hydrogen from renewable resources.

Scientists led by EPFL have developed a breakthrough in vivo model for invasive lobular carcinoma, a serious yet understudied type of breast cancer. The work will open up previously inaccessible study of the tumor’s biology and help discover new therapies.

Terrestrial ecosystems help mitigate climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. A new study now confirms that changing climate conditions could reduce this effect because in warmer and wetter areas, carbon stored in the soil is released back into the atmosphere more quickly.

A digital twin of our planet is to simulate the Earth system in future. It is intended to support policy-makers in taking appropriate measures to better prepare for extreme events. A new strategy paper by European scientists and ETH Zurich computer scientists shows how this can be achieved.

In the third part of the ETH-podcast series on the topic of uncertainty senior lecturer Myriam Dunn Cavelty and student Karin Holzhauser talk about cybersecurity and its role in computer science.