news 2019

ETH Zurich researchers are reexamining the causes of soil erosion around the world - and have found that countries themselves have a surprisingly strong influence on their soil. This country effect was previously undetected. Soil erosion is a global problem that threatens food security and the functioning of ecosystems.

The political leeway for carbon taxes is greater than commonly assumed. Political scientists at ETH have shown how carbon taxes could find acceptance in Germany and the US. What matters most is the intended use of the tax revenues and that all industrialised nations implement the taxes. Useful to fight climate change, but politically risky: carbon taxes are widely regarded as a double-edged sword.

Is trade liberalisation shifting environmental burden from industrialised countries to poorer ones' This question was investigated by a research team at ETH Zurich led by Thomas Bernauer. In particular, they analysed whether, and if so how, commerce driven by free trade agreements is transferring environmental impacts from industrialised countries to poorer ones.

The number of immigrants the Swiss are willing to take in on an annual basis depends greatly on the quantified proposal (i.e. high or low) put forward to them - as recently revealed by a team of UNIGE researchers.

EPFL scientists have developed a new image-processing method that can capture extremely rapid phenomena using any type of camera. Their method, called Virtual Frame Technique, delivers better performance than any commercial high-speed camera and is affordable and accessible to anyone. Many phenomena occurring in nature and industry happen very quickly: a tear running through a piece of fabric, a rubber ball bouncing off a hard floor, a drop of water wetting a dry surface and a piece of scotch tape peeling off, for example.