Research

EPFL Summer Series: How science works. Science is based on coherent reasoning, while intuition follows a more disjointed path. But scientific research couldn’t succeed if scientists didn’t listen to their gut feelings every once in a while.

Toxic substances in the environment can harm the nervous system of fish embryos. Now, researchers at Eawag have developed a computer model that helps to better understand how the damage occurs.

Artificial intelligence can help predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Beat Christen describes how such algorithms should soon help to develop tailored artificial proteins.

A “paradox and setback” forced EPFL scientists to dig deeper when seeking a means to boost the power of immunotherapy in lung cancer. Understanding the problem – and finding the solution – has led to a promising potential therapy for some patients.

In central Europe, the frequency of droughts is increasing because of climate change, but some forests today are having trouble adjusting. Data from a 30-year experiment now reveal how susceptible managed Norway spruce and silver fir forests are to drought. However, silviculture can improve their resilience, i.e. how quickly and effectively they can recover from drought. That is the conclusion drawn by a research team led by WSL, as reported in the journal Global Change Biology.

ETH Fellow Nadia Shardt is researching how water droplets in clouds freeze to form ice, and the role played by particles in this process. She has developed an innovative apparatus specifically for this purpose. She hopes that her findings will enable climate models to produce more accurate forecasts.

Researchers at the PSI and ETH Zurich have investigated the extent to which direct capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the ambient air can help to effectively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The result: With careful planning, for example with regard to location and provision of the necessary energy, CO₂ can be removed in a climate-effective manner. The researchers have now published their analysis in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

NICEdrug.ch, a new database developed by a group of researchers from EPFL, may help scientists assess potential drugs more quickly, including how they are metabolized by the body and their potential side effects.

Thanks to their swimming robot modeled after a lamprey, EPFL scientists may have discovered why some vertebrates are able to retain their locomotor capabilities after a spinal cord lesion. The finding could also help improve the performance of swimming robots used for search and rescue missions and for environmental monitoring.

Taking a novel perspective, EPFL researchers have studied political polarization in online news consumption rather than content production, looking at whether the backlink structure of online news networks alone, or users’ explicit reading choices contribute to the partisan divide. 

Scientists at EPFL have developed two complementary bladder models to study urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by E. coli: bladder organoids and a bladder-on-a-chip. The two studies reveal how bacteria invade the bladder, and how they evade the immune system and resist antibiotics.

ETH Zurich Professor Katrien De Bock and her team have discovered a certain type of blood vessel cell in muscles that multiplies rapidly upon exercise, thereby forming new blood vessels. Researchers can use this to find novel therapies for vascular disorders of the muscle.

EPFL Summer Series: How science works. Looking to the past can help us better understand the workings of science today. Jérôme Baudry, Professor at the College of Humanities at EPFL, explains how the procedures for proving and communicating scientific results have changed over time.

We know that CO₂ is warming the planet. But if we want to understand its consequences and avert risks, more accurate weather and climate models are crucial, says Nicolas Gruber.

Torrential rain and flooding have dominated the weather over the past few weeks. To forecast these weather events with greater accuracy and gain a better understanding of them against the backdrop of global climate change, ETH Zurich and partners are developing a new generation of high-resolution weather and climate models.