news 2020

The world's smallest primate reveals the incredible preservation of our visual system through millions of years of evolution. Primates process visual information in front of their eyes, similar to pixels in a digital camera, using small computing units located in the visual cortex of their brains.

Engineers at EPFL and local startup Intuitive Therapeutics have developed software that can produce optimized surgical plans for Gamma Knife radiosurgery. Doctors at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) began using the software in July. Radiosurgery is a kind of radiotherapy where doctors administer a high dose of radiation to diseased tissue with extreme precision, and in one go rather than over several sessions.

Engineers at EPFL and local startup Intuitive Therapeutics have developed software that can produce optimized surgical plans for Gamma Knife radiosurgery. Doctors at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) began using the software in July. Radiosurgery is a kind of radiotherapy where doctors administer a high dose of radiation to diseased tissue with extreme precision, and in one go rather than over several sessions.

ETH researchers are using a new mathematical model to calculate a possible second wave of the pandemic in Switzerland. Even though such a wave would probably grow more slowly than the first without overloading hospitals, its death toll may turn out to be significantly higher. Should Switzerland see a second wave of the coro rus pandemic, it would proceed more slowly than the first.

An international research collaboration led by ETH Zurich and MIT has developed a mathematical method that can speed up search and rescue operations at sea. The new algorithm accurately predicts locations to which objects and people floating in water will drift. Hundreds of people die at sea every year due to vessel and airplane accidents.

Reconstructing structure and function of a neuronal circuit The function of neuronal circuits is thought to be determined largely by specific connections between neurons. But this assumption has been difficult to test because the reconstruction of the synaptic connectivity of a neuronal circuit - its "wiring diagram" - is a major challenge.

A physicist suggests that the mathematical language spoken by classical physics should be changed to make room for indeterminism and an open future. Classical physics is characterised by the precision of its equations describing the evolution of the world as determined by the initial conditions of the Big Bang - meaning there is no room for chance.