news from the lab 2017

What began in 2012 is now entering its final stages: Europe's largest study on aging. The international research network behind the DO-HEALTH study is led by Heike Bischoff-Ferrari, Professor of Geriatric Medicine and Aging Research at the University of Zurich, and Head of the Department of Geriatrics at the UniversityHospital Zurich and the Waid City Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland.

How do trees adjust to the effects of global warming? EPFL researchers have studied how beech and spruce trees - two of the most common plant species in Europe - react to changing temperatures. And they discovered that the amount of moisture in the air plays a decisive role. Rising temperatures, increasingly intense rainfall and extended periods of drought are some of the known effects of climate change.

Forests fulfil many important functions for humanity, and do so particularly well if they contain many different tree species. At the same time, European forests could potentially provide more services than they do at the moment. These are the results of two new studies in which researchers from the Institute of Plant Sciences of the University of Bern were involved.

EPFL researchers have come up with a fact-based system to measure urban cleanliness. Municipal authorities will now be able to draw on objective assessments when planning their street cleaning - a sector with multi-million-franc budgets. The concept is straightforward: on one hand, vehicles equipped with video cameras to record the city streets, and on the other, a computer able to spot waste, identify it and classify it - in the blink of an eye.

Red-sensitive, blue-sensitive and green-sensitive colour sensors stacked on top of each other instead of being lined up in a mosaic pattern - this principle could allow image sensors with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity to light to be created.

Measurements at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI further constrain theories about the nature of dark matter Experts are largely in agreement that a major portion of the mass in the universe consists of so-called dark matter. Its nature, however, remains completely obscure. One kind of hypothetical elementary particle that might make up the dark matter is the so-called axion.

The largest global study to date on the effects of climate change on temperature-related mortality shows that more deaths due to hot weather may not be balanced by fewer deaths in colder world regions should global temperatures continue to rise. Swiss TPH, working for improved health of the people around the globe, prepared the data set for Switzerland.

Researchers from Empa have developed a flexible material that generates electricity when stressed. In future, it might be used as a sensor, integrated into clothing or even implanted in the human body, for instance, to power a pacemaker.

Researchers at EPFL can now see what happens in our brains when we hear music in our heads. The researchers hope that in time their findings will be used to help people who have lost the ability to speak. When we listen to music, different parts of our brain process different information - such as high and low frequencies - so that our auditory perception of the sounds matches what we hear.

The malaria parasite employs an effective trick: it forces transmission from human to human as soon as the conditions in the host deteriorate. An international research team has discovered the molecule that plays a key role in this process. Malaria parasites are both dangerous and versatile. On entering the human bloodstream, they multiply exponentially.

With a new method for modifying antibodies, drugs are developped showing more stability and, thus, having fewer side-effects. At the time Spycher, a postdoctoral radiopharmaceutical researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, was concerned with the question of how active agents could be bound to antibodies more efficiently.

A new miniature robot developed by EPFL researchers can swim with fish, learn how they communicate with each other and make them change direction or come together. These capabilities have been proven on schools of zebrafish. Researchers at EPFL's Robotic Systems Laboratory (LSRO), which is headed by Professor Francesco Mondada, have developed a miniature robot that can integrate perfectly into schools of zebrafish.

Reading the news, posting holiday pictures, or watching cat videos on YouTube - the internet can be used for many things.

Researchers have determined how certain liquids stiffen in response to powerful impacts. At first glance, colloids resemble homogeneous liquids such as milk or blood plasma. But in fact they consist of particles in suspension. Some colloids have remarkable properties: they may stiffen following an impact and absorb surface shocks.

Technis, an EPFL spin-off, has developed a system that combines a connected floor surface with artificial intelligence to track people's trajectories as they walk through a shopping mall or convention center, for example.

Children and adolescents regularly confronted with violence in their community have a greater tendency to show antisocial behavior. This finding was reported by researchers from the University of Basel and the University Psychiatric Hospital Basel. Their new study examined the link between exposure to community violence and antisocial behavior in over 1000 children and adolescents from seven European countries.

Today, astronomers have a pretty accurate idea of how stars were formed in the recent cosmic past. But do these laws also apply to older galaxies' For around a decade, the Hubble telescope has been allowing astronomers to observe solar systems that are six or seven billion light years away. Hubble suggests that there are existing galaxies of nebulae and star clusters with a diameter of over 3000 light-years.

Scientists at EPFL have discovered that the mechanism that mitochondria use to defend mammalian cells against protein-damaging stress also exists in plants. The work is published in Molecular Cell. Image: Arabidopsis thaliana plants used in this study. On the left is a plant under normal growth conditions, while on the right is a plant treated with doxycycline, which has significantly stunted its growth but is protected against aging as evidenced by its fresher appearance (credit: J. Auwerx/EPFL).

Virtual reality reduces phantom body pain in paraplegics and creates the illusion that they can feel their paralyzed legs being touched again. The results could one day translate into therapies to reduce chronic pain in paraplegics. In breakthrough research led by neuroscientist Olaf Blanke and his team at EPFL, Switzerland, the scientists show that phantom body pain can be reduced in paraplegics by creating a bodily illusion with the help of virtual reality.

Babies who suffer from jaundice after birth are treated with shortwave light. Empa researchers have now developed illuminated pajamas that replace the treatment in an incubator.