wire - news in brief

The Council of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH board) announced today the appointment of Diego Ghezzi to direct the EPFL Medtronic Chair in Neuroengineering.

PayOneSnap is a young EPFL start-up that has developed a unique mobile payment solution for e-commerce websites.

The distance people travel for professional purposes is increasing. Scientists are taking a closer look at these 21st century nomads, uncovering the reasons behind the long kilometers and the consequences on commuters' lives.

A tracking system for athletes, currently used by the Montreux Volley Masters, provides real-time statistics during the game on players and the ball.

Cells have their own tiny skeletons that are responsible for many important cellular functions. EPFL scientists have developed novel fluorescent probes for imaging these important structures easily and with unprecedented resolution.

Transported by water or wind, sediments have a significant impact on the environment, and we cannot really quantify the magnitude of these events.

The Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology has announced the appointment of three professors at EPFL.

EPFL scientists are creating futuristic furniture that can move around and autonomously change its shape.

A protocol based on "discrete logarithms", deemed as one of the candidates for the Internet's future security systems, was decrypted by EPFL researchers. Allegedly tamper-proof, it could only stand up to the school machines' decryption attempts for two hours. Without cryptography, no one would dare to type their credit card number on the Internet.

EPFL scientists have come up with a "how-to manual" for making the most efficient optical graphene circuits possible. The procedure facilitates and accelerates technological development in this future field. The research has been published in the scientific journal "Nature Photonics." Thanks to its amazing properties, graphene hold great promise as the basis for new chips that are faster, better-performing and more compact.

Solar thermal panels developed at EPFL are are dressed up in unique and patented new materials. Researchers created a stronger black coating that retains its original color and thereby its absorption properties much longer than traditional panels. Like most elements of a building, the lifespan of a solar thermal panel is between 25 and 30 years.

Lemoptix is developing an ultra-compact projector. The EPFL spin-off has already successfully entered a very competitive market, and will target new markets in 2014.

At its meeting held in December, the Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology appointed seven professors at EPFL. Drazen Dujic as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the School of Engineering (STI) . Drazen Dujic is an experienced researcher with a focus on power electronics.

A natural antibiotic turns out to be a lethal weapon in the fight against tuberculosis. Scientists have discovered it has an unexpected dual action that dramatically reduces the probability that TB bacteria will become resistant. Technology has made it possible to synthesize increasingly targeted drugs.

Researchers at EPFL have managed to combine antennas and solar cells to work together with unprecedented efficiency in a near future. This is a first step towards more compact and more lightweight satellites. The technology could also be deployed in the autonomous antenna systems used in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Robotic cheetah cubs and salamanders have ventured from Lausanne into the depths of London's robot jungle, at the Science Museum, in a Robot Safari that just opened and runs until Sunday.

How cities will grow in the future depends on fundamental laws, which have been uncovered by EPFL researchers. Migration patterns into and out of cities are the result of millions of individual decisions, which in turn are affected by thousands of factors like economics, location, politics, security, aesthetics, sentiments and others.

New insights into the growth dynamics of minuscule marine organisms could help put the study of Earth's climate, both present and prehistoric, on a more solid footing. For hundreds of millions of years, the tiny shells of single-celled marine organisms called foraminifera have been accumulating on the ocean floor.

EPFL researchers have shown that copper is essential for the energy production of malignant cells, and that reducing its intake via food and water can slow down tumor growth. Copper imbalances have been associated with a number of pathological conditions, including cancer. Publishing in PNAS scientists at EPFL have found that copper in drinking water - given at the maximum levels permitted in public water supplies - accelerated the growth of tumors in mice.

The Forge, located in EPFL's Innovation Park, provides aspiring entrepreneurs an office to develop their startup as well as a location for networking and advice.

One of the methods used for examining the molecules in a liquid consists in passing the fluid through a nano-sized hole so as to detect their passage. EPFL researchers have found a way to improve this technique by using a material with unique properties: graphene. If we wanted to count the number of people in a crowd, we could make on the fly estimates, very likely to be imprecise, or we could ask each person to pass through a turnstile.

Scientists at EPFL have developed a quick and simple method for connecting and assembling new molecules together, paving a new road for synthetic chemistry, material science, chemical biology, and even drug discovery. Thiols are sulfur-containing molecules found in most proteins of the human body. Characterized by their 'garlicky' smell, they also give coffee, sweat and the spray of skunks their unique odor.

SUMMER SERIES (4) - For her semester project, an EPFL Master's student applied a different approach to tracking the flow of the crowds at the Paléo music festival - using cell phone data and statistics.

The European Commission has officially announced the selection of the Human Brain Project (HBP) as one of its two FET Flagship projects.

The "Frontiers in" journal series brings its peer review model to 13 new fields. The EPFL startup Frontiers announced today that it is launching 13 new open-access journals in fields including Physics, Bioengineering, and Public Health. These new titles will more than double Frontiers' current repertoire of twelve online journals whose peer-reviewed, scientific articles are immediately accessible, free of charge, to anyone.

Specializing in the diagnosis of glaucoma, a spin-off of EPFL has just completed a major round of financing which should enable it, among other things, to penetrate the American and Chinese markets.

A bridge with a balsa wood core was built in Bex, Switzerland. The prefabricated bridge deck was mounted in a single day.

Many types of cancer could originate from a mechanism that cells use to silence genes. This process, which is essential in embryonic development, might be accidentally reactivated in tumor cells, according to EPFL scientists. There are some genes that are only activated in the very first days of an embryo's existence.

Scientists at EPFL and the University of Geneva have developed a microfluidic device smaller than a domino that can simultaneously measure up to 768 biomolecular interactions. Inside our cells, molecules are constantly binding and separating from one another. It's this game of constant flux that drives gene expression asides essentially every other biological process.

Pedro Bados, co-founder of Nexthink, EPFL spin-off, dreams of making the region a breeding ground for start-ups.

Proof of concept: researchers identify principles to support brain simulation models One of the greatest challenges in neuroscience is to identify the map of synaptic connections between neurons. Called the "connectome," it is the holy grail that will explain how information flows in the brain. In a landmark paper, published the week of 17th of September in PNAS, the EPFL's Blue Brain Project (BBP) has identified key principles that determine synapse-scale connectivity by virtually reconstructing a cortical microcircuit and comparing it to a mammalian sample.

When glaciers melt, new lakes are formed. Can we take advantage of this? An EPFL student has studied the possibility of using these natural reservoirs to help boost hydroelectric power production in the canton Valais - and thus help Switzerland as it transitions into a future without nuclear power.

Technology developed at EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institute to transform microorganisms into methane gas will be presented at the Swiss Energy and Climate Summit taking place this week in Bern.

EPFL research in atomic scale magnetism could play a role in the development of new materials that could permit lossless electricity transmission. Might it one day be possible to transmit electricity from an offshore wind turbine to land-based users without any loss of current? Materials known as "high temperature" superconductors (even though they must be maintained at -140°C!), which can conduct electricity without any losses, were supposed to make this dream a reality.

Fukushima: EPFL hactivist empowers the public to participate in gathering radiation fallout data. While in Japan, Robin Scheilbler has been active in a Do-it-yourself computer engineering space called Hackerspace Tokyo.

Typesafe, a company created just a year ago at EPFL and headquartered in the Science Park, has raised $14 million to commercialize a new programming language called Scala.

A team of scientists has developed an algorithm that can identify the source of an epidemic or information circulating within a network, a method that could also be used to help with criminal investigations. Investigators are well aware of how difficult it is to trace an unlawful act to its source. The job was arguably easier with old, Mafia-style criminal organizations, as their hierarchical structures more or less resembled predictable family trees.

The French company Parrot, world leader in wireless peripherals for mobile phones and already in the market for consumer drones, acquired for 5 million Swiss Francs a majority share in senseFly, a start-up from the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL.

Nitto Denko Corporation, one of Japan's largest materials manufacturers, has announced today the establishment of a research and development unit in EPFL's Innovation Square in Lausanne, Switzerland.

By interacting with the radioactive waste and the materials used to contain it, underground microorganisms may affect the safety of nuclear waste repositories, for better or for worse. Underground, time appears to stand still. That is one of the reasons why deep geological formations are considered the safest place to dispose of nuclear waste.

The system developed by QGel allows for new tests of anti-cancer medication and novel experimentation in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Cancer cells and stem cells can now be cultivated in 3 dimensions to serve in various experiments to great advantage for researchers. This matrix, commercialized by the start-up QGel, which is based in the scientific park at Ecublens, offers the cells a similar environment to a living organism and is adaptable to the needs of the researcher.

The Montreux Jazz Festival and EPFL presented on June 19th the Montreux Jazz Heritage Lab, an interactive and inhabitable space that allows the user to plunge into 45 years of jazz, blues and rock concerts.

Torrential storms can wreak havoc on train tracks. An EPFL laboratory has been commissioned by the French national train network, SNCF, to reproduce the consequences of extreme weather events at a very small scale.

While it's exploring confined, dangerous or cluttered zones, the flying robot "Airburr" isn't fazed by crashes or falls.

Dye solar cells (DSSC) from EPFL enter the public market. Logitech chose this technology to power its new flagship product.

People incapable of reading and writing will have access to text messages from now on. A system using vocal synthesis, icons and management allows people to send and read text messages by those normally unable to read and write.

Christophe Ancey warns against relying blindly on the output of computational avalanche models to evaluate the safety of alpine areas. Recent events prove him right. Christophe Ancey, head of EPFL's Laboratory for Environmental Hydraulics, is an expert in modeling avalanches and other environmental flows.

Abionic, an EPFL spin-off, has just brought its first round of financing to a close and was selected yesterday by Red Herring as one of Europe's 100 most innovative companies.