news 2024
Environment
Results 41 - 60 of 115.
Environment - Life Sciences - 08.08.2024
Scientists unlock the secrets to an Alpine flower’s survival
A team of scientists from EPFL and other research institutes have identified just how an Alpine flower is surviving by adapting its genes to local habitats. This discovery has important implications for the protection of ecosystems under threat. In the Alps, adventurous hikers aren't the only ones to regularly climb to new heights.
Environment - Innovation - 07.08.2024
How forest trees defy extreme heatwaves
Extreme heatwaves are on the rise. When do they become critical for forest trees? In the hot summer of 2023, a research team led by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) investigated this in Switzerland, southern France and Spain.
Environment - Innovation - 30.07.2024
Digitalisation: a blessing for the energy transformation
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have used one of the most advanced energy system models in Europe to calculate the impact of digitalisation on energy consumption. Many people now work partly or permanently from home. This saves petrol because they no longer have to drive to the office - which is good for the energy transition.
Environment - Computer Science - 18.07.2024
Predicting the toxicity of chemicals with AI
Researchers at Eawag and the Swiss Data Science Center have trained AI algorithms with a comprehensive ecotoxicological dataset. Now their machine learning models can predict how toxic chemicals are to fish. Chemicals play an important role in our everyday lives, for example in the production of food, medicines and various everyday goods.
Environment - Materials Science - 18.07.2024
Bridging the ’Valley of Death’ in carbon capture
Developed at EPFL, Heriot-Watt University, and ETH Zurich, PrISMa is a new platform that uses advanced simulations and machine learning to streamline carbon capture technologies, by taking into account the perspectives of diverse stakeholders early in the research process. Mitigating the effects of climate change has become a major focus worldwide, with countries and international organizations developing various strategies to address the problem.
Astronomy / Space - Environment - 15.07.2024
How climate change is altering the Earth’s rotation
When the Earth's ice masses melt, the way the planet rotates also changes. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now been able to show how climate change is altering the Earth's axis of rotation and the length of the day. The speed of rotation, which was hitherto mainly influenced by the moon, will now also depend much more on the climate.
Environment - 15.07.2024
The stirring of the deep waters of Lake Geneva revealed
Researchers discovered that deepwater renewal in Lake Geneva in wintertime is not only due to vertical mixing. Instead, strong currents coming from the lake's Petit Lac basin and nearshore zones of the Grand Lac play a vital role. In temperate lakes, deep vertical mixing, known as turnover, happens during winter.
Life Sciences - Environment - 11.07.2024
Even fish society shows social control and nepotism
Cichlids living in groups tend to turn a blind eye to their relatives shirking their duty to help as desired in various tasks in the group, such as caring for the brood. Animals that are not related to them don't seem to be offered the same lenient treatment. Researchers at the University of Bern have now been able to prove the existence of this form of "nepotism" in fish for the first time in experiments.
Earth Sciences - Environment - 10.07.2024
The formation of the Antarctic ice floes
An international research team led by Silvia Spezzaferri from the University of Freiburg has discovered why the Antarctic polar ice cap is melting faster on the western side of the continent than on the eastern side. New drillings and sophisticated modeling have shown that this phenomenon can be traced back to the original formation of the ice sheet 34 million years ago .
Chemistry - Environment - 09.07.2024
Mining rare earth metals from electronic waste
Researchers are developing a process inspired by nature that efficiently recovers europium from old fluorescent lamps. The approach could lead to the long-awaited recycling of rare earth metals. Rare earth metals are not as rare as their name suggests. However, they are indispensable for the modern economy.
Earth Sciences - Environment - 04.07.2024
Expedition to Greenland aboard a sailing ship transformed into a scientific platform
As part of the GreenFjord project, prof. Samuel Jaccard from the University of Lausanne and five other scientists board the sailing vessel Forel to carry out a sampling and analysis campaign in SW Greenland.
Environment - 02.07.2024
Light green hydrogen will do
Whether sustainably produced hydrogen needs to be 100 percent green is currently under debate. Using the production of ammonia and artificial fertiliser as examples, researchers have calculated that "nearly sustainable" hydrogen would be better in the end. There's a role for sustainably produced hydrogen in the energy transition, and not only as an energy storage medium or as fuel for lorries.
Environment - Earth Sciences - 25.06.2024
Geological archives predict our climate future
By analysing 56-million-year-old sediments, a team from the University of Geneva has measured the increase in soil erosion caused by global warming, synonymous with major flooding. 56 million years ago, the Earth experienced a major and rapid climate warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, probably due to volcanic eruptions.
Environment - Chemistry - 24.06.2024
Atom-thin graphene membranes make carbon capture more efficient
Scientists at EPFL have developed advanced atom-thin graphene membranes with pyridinic-nitrogen at pore edges, showing unprecedented performance in CO2 capture. It marks a significant stride toward more efficient carbon capture technologies. As the world battles climate change, the need for efficient and cost-effective carbon capture technologies is more urgent than ever.
Environment - 17.06.2024
Using radar to study glaciers
Researchers are using radar to scan the snow and ice on the Jungfraujoch. Sometimes, scaling an icy peak is the only way for scientists to fully understand satellite data. Glacier melt is just one of the topics the researchers are here to study. They are also developing new radar methods to directly measure the thickness of the snow cover.
Environment - Life Sciences - 13.06.2024
Impact of high-temperature heat storage on groundwater
In a recently launched project, the aquatic research institute Eawag is investigating how the use of borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) affects the surrounding soil, the groundwater and the microorganisms living in it. In collaboration with Empa and its Demonstrator Energy Hub (ehub), a project is being developed in a unique setting on the campus in Dübendorf.
Environment - Civil Engineering - 12.06.2024
Electrifying industry with flexible heat pumps
Researchers from ETH Zurich and the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences have developed a novel solution for heat pumps. Using this new approach, companies can generate carbon-free process heat at temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius while also drastically reducing the number of different heat pumps required.
Health - Environment - 06.06.2024
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in wastewater
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a threat to health worldwide. This makes it all the more important not only to track their spread, but also to recognise trends. Over the course of a year, researchers have analysed wastewater from six wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland for the spread of antibiotic-resistant coliform bacteria.
Life Sciences - Environment - 06.06.2024
First Week after Birth Is Critical for Development of Senses
Researchers at UZH have found that the maturation of the senses for smell and touch is closely linked in mice and that this strong interaction takes place within a narrow developmental time window. These findings not only underline the importance of environmental stimuli for brain assembly in early life, but also the interdependent development of the senses.
Life Sciences - Environment - 06.06.2024
Fish out of water: How killifish embryos adapted their development
The annual killifish lives in regions with extreme drought. A research group at the University of Basel now reports in "Science" that the early embryogenesis of killifish diverges from that of other species. Unlike other fish, their body structure is not predetermined from the outset. This could enable the species to survive dry periods unscathed.
Advert