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Relaxing on the sofa or savoring a delicious meal: Enjoying short-term pleasurable activities that don't lead to long-term goals contributes at least as much to a happy life as self-control, according to new research from the University of Zurich and Radboud University in the Netherlands. The researchers therefore argue for a greater appreciation of hedonism in psychology.

Scientists have tracked the eye movements of children to show how they make the link - spontaneously and without instructions - between vocal emotion (happiness or anger) followed by a natural or virtual face. Do children have to wait until age 8 to recognise - spontaneously and without instructions - the same emotion of happiness or anger depending on whether it is expressed by a voice or on a face? A team of scientists from the University of Geneva and the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences (CISA) has provided an initial response to this question.

Dolphins learn new foraging techniques not just from their mothers, but also from their peers, a study by the University of Zurich has found. More than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia were observed over 10 years and found to have cultural behavior that is similar to great apes.

Living close to human settlements disturbs the social networks of giraffes. They have weaker bonds with other giraffes and fewer interactions with other members of the species, an international study led by the University of Zurich on the social structure of over 500 female giraffes in Tanzania has shown.

New research from ETH Zurich shows that holding events for new students before they enter university is an investment that pays off. Incoming students benefit from the chance to meet, mingle and form friendships at orientation events, which contributes to their long-term academic success. When students are able to form friendships and build strong networks during their time at university, they benefit in deep ways both during their studies and later in life.

An alternating cycle of suppression interventions and relaxation could offer a pragmatic strategy - particularly for developing countries - to prevent health systems from being overloaded while reducing the economical and societal burden. The coronavirus pandemic has imposed an unprecedented challenge to global healthcare systems, societies and governments.

Researchers supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation analysed how sadistic sexual murderers assaulting child victims commit their crimes and discovered a number of specific patterns. A better understanding of these crimes may help police in their investigations. Sexual homicides involving children are often highly publicised.

A new nationwide study being conducted jointly by EPFL, the Idiap Research Institute and the University of Lausanne (UNIL) aims to understand the emotional effects of the lockdown on Swiss residents and what steps they are taking to cope with it. The findings will be used to develop better support strategies for the future.

With the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, there is a race against the clock to implement science-based measures to protect society's most vulnerable populations. Public engagement with data has never been more urgent, and as EPFL professor Robert West explains, digital humanities research has a key role to play.

Humans began developing a complex culture as early as the Stone Age. This development was brought about by social interactions between various groups of hunters and gatherers, a UZH study has now confirmed. The researchers mapped the social networks of present-day hunter-gatherers in the Philippines and simulated the discovery of a medicinal plant product.

A researcher from the University of Geneva has synthesized two decades of scientific studies on climate change to identify the obstacles to behaviour change and find ways to overcome them. Why is it that more individual actions are not taken to combat climate change? What should be done to embolden individuals to act within their scope of action? To answer these questions, a researcher at the University of Geneva , Switzerland, integrated the results of the scientific literature on climate change in the framework of a Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI) policy brief.

Becoming a Swiss citizen promotes immigrants' integration into Swiss society. After naturalizing, new citizens' annual earnings increased by an average of CHF 5,000 compared to their unnaturalized peers. This boost benefits the new citizens, the state, and society as a whole. What is the best way to further immigrant integration? This has long been a topic of discussion among specialists.

If one turns a stone over in a river or stream, it swarms with tiny animals: caddisflies, water beetles, freshwater shrimp, and snails. The invertebrates living on the beds of water bodies that can be seen with the naked eye, called macroinvertebrates, are rather unimposing, but for science and the protection of surface waters they are of great importance.

The western corn rootworm, one of the world's most damaging maize pests, can use plant defense compounds to defend itself against its own natural enemies, so-called entomopathogenic nematodes. However, the nematodes can become immune against these compounds in turn, which enhances their ability to fight the western corn rootworm, as researchers at the University of Bern show.

UNIGE researchers have been analysing the rise in healthy life expectancy in Switzerland since 1990 and measuring the differences based on an individual's level of education. Life expectancy in Switzerland has been growing steadily for decades. But have these additional years been spent in good health or, on the contrary, do they only prolong the ills of an aging population?

Increased equality has a positive effect on mothers and fathers. Thanks to greater freedom to strike an individual balance between caring for children and working in paid employment, mothers and fathers today are happier with their lives than parents were 20 or 30 years ago, a study by sociologists at the University of Zurich has shown.

A world without poverty, in which everyone's well-being is ensured: achieving this goal by 2030 is still possible, but only if the relationship between people and nature is fundamentally changed and social inequalities are reduced. That is the conclusion of the 2019 UN Global Sustainable Development Report, drafted by an independent group of scientists co-chaired by Peter Messerli, University of Bern, and Endah Murniningtyas.

A group of geoscientists, among them Eawag PhD student Andrea Popp, collected data for a conference paper to be given at the annual meeting of the EGU (European Geosciences Union). The decision was made to use social media for the purposes of the research, the central question of which was what colleagues think about the unequal treatment of men and women in the geosciences.

EPFL researchers have studied the dynamics of network structures using one of the world's most-visited websites: Wikipedia. In addition to a better understanding of online networks, their work brings exciting insights into human social behavior and collective memory. Have you ever visited a Wikipedia page to answer a question, only to find yourself clicking from page to page, until you end up on a topic wildly different from the one you started with?

Currently, around 910,000 Rohingya refugees live in Cox's Bazar District in Bangladesh after having fled violence faced in Myanmar, resulting in one of the most rapid exoduses in modern history. In a project funded by UNICEF and coordinated by Swiss TPH, a study was conducted to identify and understand WASH practices of the populations living in the camp.