news 2021

For the first time, a team from the University of Geneva has been able to follow precisely the path taken by a protein within the cell, paving the way for the study of the transport and distribution network of vital elements necessary for its survival. In order to stay alive, the cell must provide its various organelles with all the energy elements they need, which are formed in the Golgi apparatus, its centre of maturation and redistribution of lipids and proteins.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the partner institute Empa have started a joint initiative called SynFuels. The goal is to develop a process for producing kerosene from renewable resources. In this way liquid fuel mixtures of the highest quality, which would allow the most residue-free combustion possible and thus be suitable for aircraft propulsion, should be obtainable using carbon dioxide and hydrogen from renewable resources.

Terrestrial ecosystems help mitigate climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. A new study now confirms that changing climate conditions could reduce this effect because in warmer and wetter areas, carbon stored in the soil is released back into the atmosphere more quickly.

During development, scores of molecular signals prod cells to take on specialized identities and functions. In response to some of these signals, the cellular machinery awakens specific genes called 'immediate early genes' within minutes. The Rijli group has now identified a unique molecular signature that keeps immediate early genes quiet yet poised for rapid activation.

Researchers have drastically improved existing proteomics techniques so they can capture all functional alterations in proteins. Their work paves the way for using these signatures as diagnostic tools. In biological cells, proteins are everywhere: these building blocks of life perform countless important functions.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Mainz developed a new method to replace molecular chlorine and bromine in chemical synthesis with less toxic molecules. The technology helps to make chemical processes safer and more sustainable and to remediate contaminated soils. Chlorine and bromine in their molecular form (as Cl2 and Br2 molecules) are notoriously toxic and corrosive chemicals.

In experiments at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, an international research collaboration with ETH Zurich involvement has measured the radius of the atomic nucleus of helium five times more precisely than ever before. With the aid of the new value, fundamental physical theories can be tested. After hydrogen, helium is the second most abundant element in the universe.

An international team of researchers led by ETH Zurich has reconstructed solar activity back to the year 969 using measurements of radioactive carbon in tree rings. Those results help scientists to better understand the dynamics of the sun and allow more precise dating of organic materials using the C14 method.

ETH Zurich researchers conducted an experiment to investigate the initial steps in the formation of aerosols. Their findings are now aiding efforts to better understand and model that process - for example, the formation of clouds in the atmosphere. Aerosols are suspensions of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas.

They emit must be systematically stored underground. This is the most economical of various approaches that ETH researchers have compared in detail. It is politically agreed and necessary for climate protection reasons that our entire economy becomes climate-neutral in the coming decades - and that applies to air travel, too.

Researchers have demonstrated that every population can protect itself against a broad range of viruses thanks to the two most diverse HLA immune genes in humans. Do populations from different geographic regions have the same potential for defending themselves against pathogens and against viruses in particular? An analysis of human genomes, especially the HLA genes responsible for the so-called "adaptive" immune system, provide some possible answers to this question.