Research

While the economic impacts of climate policy are generally perceived as costs, Anthony Patt proposes the opposite perspective. For Switzerland, converting the energy system and reaching the net-zero target may net benefit the economy, he finds.

Researchers at ETH Zurich are planning to use magnetic bacteria to fight cancerous tumours. They have now found a way for these microorganisms to effectively cross blood vessel walls and subsequently colonise a tumour.

ETH Zurich researchers have developed a structure that can switch between stable shapes as needed while being remarkably simple to produce. The key lies in a clever combination of base materials.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Eawag have developed an approach to accurately record and fully track the biodegradation of plastics in soils.  

The creaking of the shimmering Morteratsch Glacier, the rumbling of ash-coloured dams and the steady sloshing of water in grey-blue Zurich reservoirs... In the “Serendipity” seminar series of Chair of Landscape Architecture Christophe Girot, researchers and students leave the seminar room to explore how places sound and how they can be explored by ear. They do this using no more than a microphone and an analogue camera.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees requires the energy system to be restructured as quickly as possible. But the speed of this transformation is physically limited. An Empa study now calculates the influence of energy storage systems on the maximum possible transition speed – and thus also on the probability of successfully mastering the climate crisis.

A team from the UNIGE, in collaboration with EPFL, reveals how motivation influences the neural circuits of perception and impacts decision-making.

Scientists led by groups at EPFL and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) explore the elaborate interplay between genes, sex, growth, and age and how they influence variation in longevity. Their results point at fundamental processes of aging that help in improving human healthspan.

ETH Zurich is ranked 11th in the recently published Times Higher Education university rankings – an improvement of four places.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an approach to accurately record and fully track the biodegradation of plastics in soils.  

The 2022 summer was a further illustration of how climate is becoming more extreme year after year. Sticking to business-as-usual and counting on adaptation alone will not work. Only a rapid phase out of fossil fuels will prevent the worst, says Sonia Seneviratne.  

In science, specialization pays off – at least when it comes to career impact. That’s the finding of a team of EPFL researchers who looked specifically at this subject.

Nature conservation pays off: amphibians benefit from new ponds - despite many causes of endangerment that still affect them. This is what researchers from WSL and Eawag found in a joint study using data from amphibian monitoring in the canton of Aargau. The study was published in the scientific journal PNAS.

It is not only classical genes that determine our predisposition to obesity. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now shown that microRNA molecules play a central role in the regulation of body weight.

One year after announcing an efficiency record, Empa scientists have achieved a new mark of 22.2% for flexible CIGS solar cell on polymer film. Solar cells of this type are especially suited for applications on buildings, vehicles, satellites, airships, and mobile devices.