Excellent alternatives for animal trials
How do you measure whether a chemical substance is safe for the environment? By exposing live fish to increasing doses of this chemical until they finally die. And how do you measure whether the...
The wastewater goldmine
This story can be told in two ways. First, there’s the market story. What a waste! All the valuable stuff in human excrement just poured down the sewers. Out of sight, out of mind. Money just thrown...
Actuators instead of motors
Does something have to be set in motion? Nature relies on muscles, technology on motors; nature deforms, technology turns and screws. That could all be about to change, because researchers from Empa...
Genetics for conservation
Motorways dissect the habitats of wild animals. Green bridges are intended to ensure that the animals can move around widely along their traditional routes again. But do these expensive structures...
Designing the networked future
Crossing the street in Fehraltorf, you would never know that there is a constant stream of data being recorded and transmitted up underfoot. The water level in the drainage canals, which run under...
Innovative research, happy pilots and enthusiastic spectators
Cutting a slice of bread or screwing in a lightbulb - the sell-out crowd were spellbound in the seats of the Swiss Arena in Kloten as people with arm amputations mastered these everyday tasks with...
Better, safer and even more cost-efficient batteries
The battery market is dominated by lithium-ion batteries. They can be inserted into a smartphone or computer, and can be used in electric cars or for the storage of solar energy at the EPFL. "These...
Oak instead of spruce
The people leading the research programme briefed the media in November 2016 to report on the results. The people who were invited to attend met up on a forest path close to the Swiss Federal...
Wood for every occasion
Trees as high as 30 metres still stand up to the wind, even if their stems are relatively thin. Tanja Zimmermann has meticulously studied the structure of wood for years in order to understand this...