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An unexpected discovery about temperature feedback has led to new bionic technology that allows amputees to sense the temperature of objects - both hot and cold - directly in the phantom hand. The technology opens up new avenues for non-invasive prosthetics. "When I touch the stump with my hand, I feel tingling in my missing hand, my phantom hand.

Wood is a trump card for the energy transition because it is very versatile and easy to store. Compared to today, up to a third more energy could be obtained from wood, not only in the form of heat, but also in the form of electricity and fuels. However, current use is not efficient enough, Swiss bioenergy researchers have shown in a new report.

With a constellation of five satellites, the international LIFE initiative led by ETH Zurich hopes to one day detect traces of life on exoplanets. A laboratory experiment in the Department of Physics is now set to demonstrate the planned measurement method. "It's an important step on a very long road," says Adrian Glauser, a senior scientist at the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics at ETH Zurich.

Twisted molecules play an important role in the development of organic light-emitting diodes. A team of chemists has managed to create these compounds with exactly the three-dimensional structure that they wanted. In so doing, they are smoothing the path for new and better light sources. They flash as a warning, glow red on standby mode, and light up your dinner table; light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have become indispensable in our daily lives.

Websites in German are a major obstacle for people on the run. To better support them with labor market abuses and housing issues, ZHAW has developed a multilingual website with a chatbot. Unlike many digital dialogue systems, it works according to the logic of the users. The war in Ukraine and the growing number of people seeking protection are challenging authorities to house and care for large numbers of refugees in a reasonable time frame.

Researchers have developed fiber-like pumps that allow high-pressure fluidic circuits to be woven into textiles without an external pump. Soft supportive exoskeletons, thermoregulatory clothing, and immersive haptics can therefore be powered from pumps sewn into the fabric of the devices themselves.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an electronic yarn capable of precisely measuring how a person's body moves. Integrated directly into sportswear or work clothing, the textile sensor predicts the wearer's exhaustion level during physical exertion. Exhaustion makes us more prone to injury when we're exercising or performing physical tasks.

One and a half million times a year, the instruments of eye surgery specialist Oertli Instrumente AG are used for cataract operations. In cooperation with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, the Rhine Valley company is working on instruments that will make the operation safer and even more efficient.

An international team led by UNIGE, HUG and NUS has developed an innovative method for evaluating AI interpretability methods, with the aim of deciphering the basis of AI reasoning and possible biases. Researchers from the University of Geneva , the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a novel method for evaluating the interpretability of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, opening the door to greater transparency and trust in AI-driven diagnostic and predictive tools.

Senbiosys, an EPFL spin-off, has unveiled a jewelry-like smart ring that incorporates all the health-monitoring features currently available in smart watches. The company's notable achievement in miniaturization - made possible thanks to the world's smallest sensor, developed at EPFL - appears to have major market potential, as its recent crowdfunding campaign raised five times more capital than expected.

Researchers have developed a new technique that uses a protein language model for generating protein sequences with comparable properties to natural sequences. The method outperforms traditional models and offers promising potential for protein design. Designing new proteins with specific structure and function is a highly important goal of bioengineering, but the vast size of protein sequence space makes the search for new proteins difficult.

After a decline in 2021, the Swiss FinTech sector grew again in 2022. Insights into the dynamic financial technology market are provided by the results of this year's FinTech study by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. After a decline of around five percent in 2021, the development of the Swiss FinTech sector returned to its usual direction.

The next unit at NEST, the research and innovation building of Empa and Eawag, goes by the name of STEP2. For about two years, partners from research and industry have been working on various innovations in the fields of circular economy, digital and industrial fabrication, building envelope and energy systems, turning them into products ready for market entry.

Researchers have published a method for 3D-printing an ink that contains calcium carbonate-producing bacteria. The 3D-printed mineralized bio-composite is unprecedently strong, light, and environmentally friendly, with a range of applications from art to biomedicine. Nature has an extraordinary knack for producing composite materials that are simultaneously light and strong, porous and rigid - like mollusk shells or bone.

The European Patent Office has granted Agroscope a patent for its new cheese maturing process. This patent was published - and thus became effective - on January 25, 2023 in the European Patent Bulletin. It will now be registered in some countries. In 2020, Agroscope applied for a patent for its new maturing process, which works as follows: after leaving the salt bath, the cheeses are wrapped in a biodegradable cloth.

Putting decentralised water treatment technologies into practice is not always easy. It often takes many small steps to motivate people to use these technologies. In a recent article, two environmental health psychologists from Eawag summarise in a "Theory of Change" what is known so far about the psychological factors influencing the use of decentralised water treatment technologies and the measures that could promote their adoption.

OpenAI and the recently viral chatbot ChatGPT - in the course of the digital transformation, algorithms, database systems and artificial intelligence are increasingly taking over tasks that were previously performed by humans. What do these changes mean for employees? Peter Kels and Kai Dröge put it in perspective.

Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to predict the efficacy of various genome editing repair options. Unintentional errors in the correction of DNA mutations of genetic diseases can thus be reduced. Genome editing technologies offer great opportunities for treating genetic diseases.

Blood platelets can be stored for only up to a week, and hospitals often run short of this life-saving resource.

The national jury of the fifth edition of the Boldbrain Startup Challenge awarded first prize to Aliper Therapeutics, a spin-off of the USI-affiliated Institute of Oncology Research (IOR) in Bellinzona. We talked about it with Nicolò Pernigoni, postdoc at the IOR. This is, together with BigOmics Analytics SA and MV BioTherapeutics, the third start-up from the IOR and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) to be awarded a prize by Boldbrain, demonstrating the quality and potential of the research conducted in the two affiliated institutes.