news 2024

As part of the GreenFjord project, prof. Samuel Jaccard from the University of Lausanne and five other scientists board the sailing vessel Forel to carry out a sampling and analysis campaign in SW Greenland.

Whether sustainably produced hydrogen needs to be 100 percent green is currently under debate. Using the production of ammonia and artificial fertiliser as examples, researchers have calculated that "nearly sustainable" hydrogen would be better in the end. There's a role for sustainably produced hydrogen in the energy transition, and not only as an energy storage medium or as fuel for lorries.

By analysing 56-million-year-old sediments, a team from the University of Geneva has measured the increase in soil erosion caused by global warming, synonymous with major flooding. 56 million years ago, the Earth experienced a major and rapid climate warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, probably due to volcanic eruptions.

Scientists at EPFL have developed advanced atom-thin graphene membranes with pyridinic-nitrogen at pore edges, showing unprecedented performance in CO2 capture. It marks a significant stride toward more efficient carbon capture technologies. As the world battles climate change, the need for efficient and cost-effective carbon capture technologies is more urgent than ever.

Researchers are using radar to scan the snow and ice on the Jungfraujoch. Sometimes, scaling an icy peak is the only way for scientists to fully understand satellite data. Glacier melt is just one of the topics the researchers are here to study. They are also developing new radar methods to directly measure the thickness of the snow cover.

In a recently launched project, the aquatic research institute Eawag is investigating how the use of borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) affects the surrounding soil, the groundwater and the microorganisms living in it. In collaboration with Empa and its Demonstrator Energy Hub (ehub), a project is being developed in a unique setting on the campus in Dübendorf.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences have developed a novel solution for heat pumps. Using this new approach, companies can generate carbon-free process heat at temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius while also drastically reducing the number of different heat pumps required.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a threat to health worldwide. This makes it all the more important not only to track their spread, but also to recognise trends. Over the course of a year, researchers have analysed wastewater from six wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland for the spread of antibiotic-resistant coliform bacteria.

Researchers at UZH have found that the maturation of the senses for smell and touch is closely linked in mice and that this strong interaction takes place within a narrow developmental time window. These findings not only underline the importance of environmental stimuli for brain assembly in early life, but also the interdependent development of the senses.

The annual killifish lives in regions with extreme drought. A research group at the University of Basel now reports in "Science" that the early embryogenesis of killifish diverges from that of other species. Unlike other fish, their body structure is not predetermined from the outset. This could enable the species to survive dry periods unscathed.

An estimated one-fifth of the world's population is affected by pollen allergies. Researchers at Swiss TPH and the University of Basel have now discovered that a high concentration of pollen can increase blood pressure in allergy sufferers. It is estimated that around 20% of adults globally are allergic to pollen.

An estimated one-fifth of the world's population is affected by pollen allergies. Researchers at Swiss TPH have now discovered that high pollen concentrations can increase blood pressure in allergy sufferers. Pollen allergies are thus becoming a growing public health problem, especially as the pollen season is becoming longer and more intense due to climate change.

A group of EPFL and scientists have mapped the biodiversity in forests worldwide. Their data, when combined with climate projections, reveal trends that could support ecosystem conservation and restoration efforts. According to the latest figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, forests cover just over 4 billion hectares of the Earth's surface, or one-third of its total land.

Every year, researchers upload vast amounts of genetic information to publicly accessible databases.

Instead of burning coal or oil to produce cement or steel, in the future solar energy could be used for this purpose. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a thermal trap that can absorb concentrated sunlight and deliver heat at over thousand degrees Celsius. The production of cement, metals and many chemical commodities requires extremely high temperatures of over a thousand degrees Celsius.

In EPFL's GenoRobotics project, a cross-disciplinary team of students is developing a novel method for identifying plant DNA - one that's faster, cheaper and less energy-intensive than the conventional one. The team hopes their new protocol, designed for use out in the field, will make it easier to categorize plants and ultimately help protect biodiversity.

Like forests, grassland provides numerous ecological, economic and social benefits. Researchers in the Swiss canton of Solothurn have investigated ways to maintain and improve these benefits. Grass, clover and herbs are the foundation of Swiss agriculture: two-thirds of Switzerland's agricultural land is grassland, much of which is barely suitable for arable farming.

At temperatures above 30°C, water loss through transpiration increases in trees, while CO2 uptake decreases - even when there is enough CO2 in the atmosphere. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL were able to show this in a study conducted using a new high-tech facility.

Freshwater bacteria with small genomes frequently undergo prolonged periods of adaptive stagnation. Based on genomic analyses of samples from Lake Zurich and other European lakes, researchers at the University of Zurich uncovered specific evolutionary strategies that shape these bacteria's lifestyles.

An EPFL scientist along with colleagues from universities across Europe have completed the first-ever quantitative study of the changes that soil organic matter from forests can cause in high-altitude and high-latitude lakes once it's dissolved in the water Treelines are rising around the world as a result of global warming.