news 2019

UNIGE researchers oversaw a new system of maths learning whose purpose is to promote the use of arithmetic formulas at an early age. After a year, they observed a leap in students' performance. How can mathematics learning in primary school be facilitated? A recent study conducted by the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, had shown that our everyday knowledge strongly influences our ability to solve problems, sometimes leading us into making errors.

Using the information theory, researchers at UNIGE aim to better understand the cancerous development of cells through a mathematical approach and propose innovative therapeutic strategies. The development and survival of living beings are linked to the ability of their cells to perceive and respond correctly to their environment.

The Giotto project, launched by EPFL startup Learn to Forecast, intends to revolutionize the way we use artificial intelligence. Drawing on the science of shapes, Giotto pushes AI forward by making it more reliable and intuitive in areas such as materials science, neuroscience and biology. Giotto is open-source and available free of charge on GitHub, and it's already being used by some EPFL scientists.

By combining epidemiology, mathematical modelling and historical investigation, researchers in Geneva, Switzerland and France confirm Jeanne Calment's exceptional longevity, invalidating the conspiracy theories surrounding her. Jeanne Calment, who passed away in 1997 at 122 years and 165 days, still is today the human being who had the longest life.

UNIGE researchers have shown that our general knowledge about the world interferes with our ability to solve basic mathematical problems, even among experts in the field. Mathematical thought is seen as the pinnacle of abstract thinking.

A new computational method, based on neural networks, can simulate open quantum systems with unprecedented versatility. The method was independently developed by physicists at EPFL, France, the UK, and the US, and is published in Physical Review Letters. Even on the scale of everyday life, nature is governed by the laws of quantum physics.

Researchers from EPFL have found the mechanism that lies behind a mysterious physics phenomenon in fluid mechanics: the fact that turbulence in fluids spontaneously self-organizes into parallel patterns of oblique turbulent bands - an example of order emerging spontaneously from chaos. In so doing, they solved a problem that had stumped generations of physicists.

Researchers from EPFL explain how the shapes of neurons can be classified using mathematical methods from the field of algebraic topology. Neuroscientists can now start building a formal catalogue for all the types of cells in the brain. Onto this catalogue of cells, they can systematically map the function and role in disease of each type of neuron in the brain.