Physics - Apr 19
Life Sciences - Apr 18
EPFL scientists have discovered how a family of proteins that regulates the activity of transposable elements in the genome allows them to make inheritable changes to the growing fetus.
Astronomy - Apr 17
A team of astronomers led by the UNIGE has discovered five new planets with periods of revolution between 15 and 40 years.
Life Sciences - Apr 17
Chromatin remodelers have the ability to move nucleosomes, which represent a physical barrier for access to DNA.
Environment - Apr 17
Switzerland's rivers harbour a unique biodiversity.
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Physicists at the University of Zurich have developed an amazingly simple device that allows heat to flow temporarily from a cold to a warm object without an external power supply. Intriguingly, the process initially appears to contradict the fundamental laws of physics. If you put a teapot of boiling water on the kitchen table, it will gradually cool down.
EPFL scientists have discovered how a family of proteins that regulates the activity of transposable elements in the genome allows them to make inheritable changes to the growing fetus. The human genome is fascinating. Once predicted to contain about a hundred thousand protein-coding genes, it now seems that the number is closer to twenty thousand, and maybe less.
Chromatin remodelers have the ability to move nucleosomes, which represent a physical barrier for access to DNA. Work by the group of Dirk Schübeler helps to better understand how remodelers orchestrate the global organization of nucleosomes in mammals. In a study published in Nature, the researchers uncovered how two classes of remodelers selectively mediate the binding of distinct transcription factors.
A team of astronomers led by the UNIGE has discovered five new planets with periods of revolution between 15 and 40 years. It took 20 years of regular observations to achieve this result. Over 4000 exoplanets have been discovered since the first one in 1995, but the vast majority of them orbit their stars with relatively short periods of revolution.
Switzerland's rivers harbour a unique biodiversity. From 2013 to 2018 - in order to assess this diversity in more detail for the first time - scientists from the Fish Ecology & Evolution department systematically collected fish samples (in September and October in each case) from hundreds of rivers and streams.
UNIGE researchers have found that we are more confident in our decisions - and execute our choices more quickly - if we're chasing a reward... but we're more flexible when trying to avoid being punished. Does the potential to win or lose money influence the confidence one has in one's own decisions' Does either of them help learn more quickly? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam and ENS Paris, investigated confidence bias in a learning context through a system of monetary punishment and reward.
Precise Decoding of Breast Cancer Cells Creates New Option for Treatment
Researchers at the University of Zurich and from IBM Research have investigated the varying composition of cancer and immune cells in over one hundred breast tumors. They've found that aggressive tumors are often dominated by a single type of tumor cell. If certain immune cells are present as well, an immune therapy could be successful for a specific group of breast cancer patients.
Researchers at the University of Zurich and from IBM Research have investigated the varying composition of cancer and immune cells in over one hundred breast tumors. They've found that aggressive tumors are often dominated by a single type of tumor cell. If certain immune cells are present as well, an immune therapy could be successful for a specific group of breast cancer patients.
The wood magician
The new head of Empa's Cellulose & Wood Materials lab, Gustav Nyström, has taken everyone by surprise by setting unconventional goals. However, paper batteries and nanocellulose sensors have one main objective: to help solve fundamental, socially relevant questions. When Gustav Nyström sees a tree, he sees more than just a biological marvel.
The new head of Empa's Cellulose & Wood Materials lab, Gustav Nyström, has taken everyone by surprise by setting unconventional goals. However, paper batteries and nanocellulose sensors have one main objective: to help solve fundamental, socially relevant questions. When Gustav Nyström sees a tree, he sees more than just a biological marvel.
UNIGE researchers have found that bacteria can survive in the sediments of the Dead Sea at a depth of over 400 metres in spite of extreme conditions. Studying organic matter in sediments helps shed light on the distant past. What was the climate like? What organisms populated the Earth? What conditions did they live in? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and the University of Lyon, France, have examined the sediments in the Dead Sea, where the salinity is without compare, making it one of the most hostile environments on the planet.
Algorithms to enhance forest inventories
An EPFL doctoral student has come up with methods to map out forests more effectively using aerial remote sensing, in support of on-the-ground forest inventories. Forests are an essential component of the world's ecosystems and a key indicator of our planet's health. They provide valuable resources - like wood for construction and heating - and they filter rainwater, protect against erosion and avalanches, and can be used for numerous leisure pursuits.
An EPFL doctoral student has come up with methods to map out forests more effectively using aerial remote sensing, in support of on-the-ground forest inventories. Forests are an essential component of the world's ecosystems and a key indicator of our planet's health. They provide valuable resources - like wood for construction and heating - and they filter rainwater, protect against erosion and avalanches, and can be used for numerous leisure pursuits.
Brassica rapa plants pollinated by bumblebees evolve more attractive flowers. But this evolution is compromised if caterpillars attack the plant at the same time. With the bees pollinating them less effectively, the plants increasingly self-pollinate. In a greenhouse evolution experiment, scientists at the University of Zurich have shown just how much the effects of pollinators and pests influence each other.
Gait characteristics are sometimes regarded as the sixth vital sign in humans. They serve as a valuable indicator of a person's health, particularly in older adults - so why not measure them? A team of EPFL researchers is taking part in a major European project to design a device that can assess a person's gait more accurately.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) - a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration - was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.
A European research consortium, in which the University of Bern is involved in, wants to drill a 1.5 million year old ice core in Antarctica. An analysis of the climate data stored in the ice should contribute to a better understanding of the alternation between warm and cold periods. As part of the EU project "Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice", experts from 14 institutions located in 10 European countries have spent three years combing the Antarctic ice sheet to find the ideal location to retrieve the oldest ice core on the Earth.
Melting ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic as well as ice melt from glaciers all over the world are causing sea levels to rise. Glaciers alone lost more than 9,000 billion tons of ice since 1961, raising water levels by 27 millimeters, an international research team under the lead of UZH have now found.
Chemical engineers at EPFL have synthesized a biologically-derived metal-organic framework on which the hydrogen bonding that forms the DNA double helix can be mimicked and studied like never before.
A new paper published suggests that recent advances in deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson disease could lead to treatments for conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Gilles de la Tourette syndrome and depression. The authors of the paper argue that bi-directional electrodes, which can both stimulate and record from deep brain structures - known as closed-loop DBS, could have applications beyond Parkinson disease.
Researchers at EPFL have developed a simple mid-infrared laser source that can be used to detect pollution in the air or molecules in someone's breath. Their system takes up considerably less space than the large ones typically used for such tasks. Researchers at EPFL have come up with a new middle infrared light source that can detect greenhouse and other gases, as well as molecules in a person's breath.
Researchers from EPFL and the University of Zurich have developed a model that uses data from sensors worn by meerkats to gain a more detailed picture of how animals behave in the wild. Advancement in sensor technologies has meant that field biologists are now collecting a growing mass of ever more precise data on animal behaviour.
Nestlé Health Science set to use anti-aging compound
Amazentis, an EPFL spin-off based in Innovation Park, announced today that it is entering into a strategic partnership with Nestlé Health Science. The startup plans to develop products based on urolithin A, a promising anti-aging compound. The Fountain of Youth is still the stuff of legend, but the anti-aging compound urolithin A is now one step closer to the market.
Amazentis, an EPFL spin-off based in Innovation Park, announced today that it is entering into a strategic partnership with Nestlé Health Science. The startup plans to develop products based on urolithin A, a promising anti-aging compound. The Fountain of Youth is still the stuff of legend, but the anti-aging compound urolithin A is now one step closer to the market.
News from the Lab is a selection of science news that are significant or interesting for a broad readership.
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